We’ve been asked to comment on an article that appeared in the Washington Times last week. I didn’t really know quite what to say, as every single paragraph in the article begs an entire article on its’ own. There’s a lot to be said about it, and it is a very manipulative article, leading you to believe certain things that the article says without giving the context for when quotes were said. People have a tendency to use quotes from authors and things how they want, and based on needs to prove things. I have a specific example regarding Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings, but we’ll get to that later.
We’ve just posted the tenth edition of the NarniaFans Mailbag. We’ve answered ten letters this week, covering casting, battles, plays, and Christian symbolism.
There are Narnia fans, on the explicitly Christian side of the house, who are just a little uneasy about elements in the recent movie which seemed, if only slightly, to diminish Aslan’s status as Deity. To them I would say, “Have confidence in Douglas Gresham’s hand at the helm.” I believe that Mr. Gresham, and those who pay heed to him, are trying to be diplomatic about Aslan’s identity as Christ. What I mean by that–what I believe they have in mind–is something with Scriptural precedent.
Some Christians have wondered why the Lord Jesus, in His earthly life, allowed thirty or more years to go by before He began His ministry and His miracles. I believe that it was because He did not intend, once beginning His public ministry, to use His power as a spiked club to frighten people into submission. Since God the Father (also known to some of us as the Emperor-Over-Sea) wanted to leave space for men’s free will, Jesus needed something besides force and fear to gain a hearing for Himself. What He needed was an earned REPUTATION for purity and goodness, which would make it hard for false accusations of immorality to stick. And in the environment of normal human life, it takes the passing of time to acquire a solid favorable reputation.
When, in my Navy career, I was stationed in Japan with my first wife Mary (who now dwells in Aslan’s country), we joined with many other Americans in aggressively cultivating friendships among the local Japanese. We attended events of theirs, and invited them to events of our own. This went on for the three years I was assigned there. Near the end of that tour, we heard news of a horrible rape committed in Okinawa by three American servicemen. As far as I could tell, none of the Japanese in our area changed their feelings toward us; they had cause to realize that we were NOT like those three traitors. (I say traitors, for their offense against the host country was also injurious to their own country, and they deserved to hang for it.) Our years of reaching out had paid off; but knowing that a small negative can sometimes cancel out many positives, I suspect that all the good we had done was only _just_ enough to prevent us from being hated along with the wrongdoers. Mere passive harmlessness on our part in the preceding years would not have protected us.
Thus with our Savior. He knew that He would be insituations where adversaries would be itching to contrive a plausible accusation against Him; so He prepared for this by piling up decades of indisputable, undeniable goodness in His conduct of life. He was going to have to rub men the wrong way eventually, but his earned reputation would help Him to choose His time to do it.
This brings us back to the strategy of the Narnia films. Mr. Gresham has said that Christians should not think thatthe stories belong only to them; but since he is a Christian himself, and since he knows that his stepfather DID intend Aslan to be recognized as Jesus, he certainly does not mean that we must acquiesce to some of the blatant (and silly) non-Christian interpretations that are being given to Narnia since the movie came out. Rather, Mr. Gresham wants to widen the circle to invite more seekers in. For this reason, he doesn’t want to grab secular moviegoers by the collar prematurely and say to them, “Aslan is Jesus, and you have to accept Him, so get down on your knees!” That would not enlarge the audience for “Prince Caspian.” If the film series can be kept going, there will in the end be no way for viewers NOT to realize Who Aslan is. But we have to get them to stick with us. As Jesus in our world built His reputation for virtue first, so His imagined alternate form of Aslan must first accumulate such a reputation.
Let me review now the points at which the L-W-W screenplay did seem to diminish Aslan’s divinity. Although I defend the moviemakers’ motives, this doesn’t mean that I would have made the same choices if I’d been in charge.
(1) Soon after Peter has been introduced to Aslan, Aslan reveals that He knows Peter’s name and hometown; but then, the remark about Mr. Beaver makes it seem as if Aslan might have merely picked up information from the Beavers, rather than knowing it by omniscience. This is left ambiguous.
(2) In the same dialogue, Aslan speaks of the Deep Magic as “greater than all of us.” This is a more serious point, since it makes Aslan sound like a mere created being. Now, we know that the Deep Magic is really the providential will of God the Father; we can reconcile the “greater than” by comparing it to Jesus in John’s Gospel saying “–the Father is greater than I.” Jesus is as truly God as are the Father and the Holy Spirit, but it is true that the Father holds leadership within the Trinity. The “damage” from this handling of the Deep Magic concept is also reduced by having Aslan say to the White Witch, “I was there when it was written.”
(3) I don’t like it that the Emperor-Over-Sea is not mentioned at all. Acknowledging Him (God the Father) would have helped with item (2); but then, of course, they would have had to reveal that Aslan was the Emperor’s Son, which would be the same as shouting, “Yes, Aslan is Jesus!”
(4) When Aslan springs on Jadis before she can kill Peter, He doesn’t kill her instantly. The moviemakers, in comments on the DVD, said that they made this change from the book because killing the Witch instantly would seem like taking revenge in mere anger; they said that the moment’s pause before Aslan bites her head off gives it more dignity, a sense of destiny. I don’t agree at all. The
necessity of saving Peter would be enough justification for killing Jadis in one stroke, without seeming vindictive; to me, if anything, it makes Aslan look _more_ vindictive to stand over her as if gloating before He finishes her off.
(5) In the same scene, when Jadis finds herself pinned helplessly under Aslan’s claws, she doesn’t show resignation to her fate until she has first tried to retrieve her dropped sword and found it out of reach. This allows viewers who don’t know better to infer that it would have made some
difference if she _had_ been able to reach it. Of course, anyone who knows about her flinging of the iron bar at Aslan’s head in “The Magician’s Nephew” can dismiss that thought. Now, the writers didn’t want the scene to become something ugly, like scenes of unfortunate minor characters vainly struggling in the clutches of man-eating lions in the old Tarzan movies; but since it was unthinkable for Jadis to beg for mercy, they had to show some hint of the will
to resist, so a futile grab for her sword served. I still think Aslan should have just killed her instantly; but that would have deprived Tilda Swinton of her final close-up shot.
(6) When the four Pevensies are crowned, and Aslan says “May your wisdom grace US–” that sounds as if Aslan Himself, as much as any ordinary Talking Animal, somehow needs to be taught and led by the children. In case you missed your Sunday school lessons, the Almighty does _not_ need our advice or instruction.
If I’d been in charge, I would have altered all of these points in favor of magnifying Aslan’s attributes as Deity. But none of them prevents the writers from being able to let Aslan’s true nature “come gradually into focus,” as Mr.
Lewis would put it, in subsequent movies. We would be foolish to withdraw our support over these fairly trivial complaints. In a time when Calormenish forces in society are trying to censor and silence _every_ outlet for the gospel, we would be shooting ourselves in the foot if we didn’t give the benefit of the doubt to this vitally important cinema project.
Meanwhile, as individuals leading our daily lives in a less romantic world, we need to be doing the same thing our Savior did in His NON-fictional incarnate life prior to His public ministry. We need to be practicing righteous
conduct, so as to bring no dishonor to the name of God. Just imagine if, next year, some agnostic were to come out of the premiere of “Prince Caspian” feeling deeply moved, and ready to give a fair hearing to real-world Christian testimony–only to run into some professed Christian who affronts him with rude, selfish behavior. What a loss! What a failure to have to answer for!
You know what? If more Christians were making a serious effort to walk the walk, maybe Mr. Gresham would not have felt a need to chide us that Narnia does not only belong to us–because he would not be afraid of us casting discredit on the intent of his stepfather’s work.
Yours in the Grace of Jesus,
Joseph “Copperfox Amadeus” Ravitts
By Earl A. Clampett Jr.
I just saw the “Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.”
C.S. Lewis in allegorical fashion hits the cricket ball out of the ballpark in capturing the real essence of the Gospel story.
Christians who are exposed to these writings of Lewis are taught and understand the heavy use of symbolic references to the redemption account in the Bible. Jesus Christ is seen as the rescuing Messiah through the character of Aslan, the lion. The White Witch represents the illegitimate, rebellious ruler (Satan) of the fallen earth, Narnia, who stole the rightful rule of Narnia from mankind. Aspiring mankind is represented by the four children protagonists.
What is often missed by Christian critics of this work is that the interpretation of the Bible story by Lewis emphasizes not only the forgiveness dimension of the story, but also the redemption and restoration aspects as well.
In the beginning of the Bible account, man has it all. He has a relationship with God. He also has the role of ruler over the earth creation. He was designed for earth, having been given a body. However, man allowed a rebellion begun in the heavens to invade and contaminate the earth, causing man to lose his relationship with God and his position of rulership over the earth.
We learn in the movie that the arrival of the children in Narnia creates a furor of fear in the White Witch kingdom as she and her minions try to prevent the children from learning and attaining their destiny to reclaim their crowns and thrones of authority and power over Narnia.
The founder of an Internet-based ministry, which helps church leaders and spiritual educators use modern movies as teaching tools, says the recent release of the blockbuster movie The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe has a strong biblical message. Dr. Marc Newman, founder of MovieMinistry.com, believes that message is one that should be drawn out rather than downplayed.
Newman started the website as a way to provide pastors and lay leaders with tools and insights to help reach others with the gospel message, an often challenging objective in a media-saturated and entertainment-obsessed culture. He says Christians can use movies in the same way the New Testament parables were used, to present truth that engages people’s hearts with the illustrative power of stories.
The head of MovieMinistry.com says the new Chronicles of Narnia movie has powerful Christian elements. “Anybody who’s read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe knows that the death scene of Aslan on the great stone table and his resurrection the following morning is the gospel story,” he says. “To try to deny it is like trying to deny you’ve got an elephant in your living room; there’s just no getting around it.”
In fact, far from being a simple children’s story or allegorical fantasy, Newman says the movie based on C.S. Lewis’ book provides many parallels to the story of redemption through Christ in scripture. “Every single aspect of the gospel is present in this film,” he notes, “beginning with the way sin slowly encroaches on people’s lives all the way to our inability to deal with it outside of divine intervention to the need for blood sacrifice.”
Just as the Bible teaches that “the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ,” the ministry founder continues, “so, in this world [of Narnia], Jesus is embodied in the character of Aslan, who much sacrifice himself in order to free the traitor, Edmund, from the clutches of the White Witch, who demands his blood.”
Families have taken to the Disney film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but not at the urging of religious leaders.
Disney has targeted Christian groups with promotional material, but Australian churches have taken no particular line on the film.
By comparison, evangelical churches in the US have gone over the top with their admiration for the movie. “In America, some very significant Christian millionaires got behind it and there was considerable promotion,” said Anglican Bishop of South Sydney Robert Forsyth.
High-profile US supporters of the film included Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who has called for every child in his state to read the Narnia book.
Bishop Forsyth said: “We are not millionaires and Australians have a slightly more relaxed style. We are a little less in-your-face.
“If Christians go around ranting and raving we basically scare people off.
“I think the answer is we should keep quiet and let the film do its work in its own way.”
Archbishop of Sydney Peter Jensen cited The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in his Christmas speech but said it was up to individual churches whether they would make use of the Narnia story.
The film opened in Australia on Boxing Day and has earned more than $6.5 million at the box office. In the US, it has taken $US165 million ($227 million) in 17 days.
It is hard to find a group today more puritanical than the anti-Christian, anti-Narnia brigade. They have unleashed an entirely disproportionate assault on the film The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which opened in Melbourne at the weekend.
Britain’s Observer newspaper called it “holy war”, while Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee wrote that “adults who wince at the worst elements of Christian belief may need a sickbag handy”. Of the idea of Christ dying to save sinners, she sneers like a petulant adolescent, “did we ask him to?”
Such critics are appalled that the film may smuggle in some form of subliminal Christian proselytising of unwary children.
First, that’s very unlikely. Second, even if it were true, so what? It’s a practice hallowed throughout the history of film that moral messages seethe below the surface. And third, some of the fuss rests on a long-standing secular prejudice that religion presents a coloured (and egregious) worldview, whereas their own is neutral, value-free and corresponds to reality.
It is not surprising that Andrew Adamson’s long and lovely adaption of C. S. Lewis’ children’s tale has evoked such wrath. In fidelity to the book, he does not shy away from the allegorical aspects (though he doesn’t highlight them either). More offensive to the cultural guardians, though, is that the film was backed by a fundamentalist Christian (Philip Anschutz of Walden Media) and that it was heavily promoted, following Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, to organized Christianity in the United States.
And the film certainly has specific Christian allusions, not least the way the “passion” of Aslan on the stone table mirrors that of Christ, with brutality, humiliation and death. Afterwards Aslan quotes Christ on the cross: “It is finished.”
However, you have to understand something of Christianity already to get the allusions. Otherwise these are buried among a plethora of influences, which Age reviewer Philippa Hawker yesterday identified as E. E. Nesbit, Enid Blyton, The Wind in the Willows, Greek and Norse mythology, Hans Christian Andersen and schoolboy chivalry.
The Dec. 9 release of “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” the potential Christmas blockbuster based on a novel by Christian writer C.S. Lewis, may signal Hollywood is focusing more on audiences for whom religion is important.
David DiCerto, a movie reviewer for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said he has noticed a greater number of movies being targeted toward Christian audiences.
This can be seen as “an economic byproduct of the success of ‘The Passion of the Christ,’” he said.
With Mel Gibson’s film grossing more than $400 million in worldwide box office proceeds, according to an Associated Press report, Christian audiences are establishing themselves as a lucrative market for Hollywood producers. Grass-roots evangelical campaigns are starting to grow around religious-themed movies being released.
In October, Stonebriar Community Church in Plano hosted about 300 moviegoers excited to get a sneak peek of “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” Attendees were selected as local faith leaders. The event was one of 140 held across the United States by Motive Entertainment, which also conducted similar events for the “The Passion.”
The event at Stonebriar was billed as an “exclusive experience for leaders of faith in the community.” It was attended by Michael Flaherty, president of Walden Media, the Narnia film production company, and Doug Gresham, co-producer of the film and stepson of Lewis.
For Flaherty and Walden Media, attending the outreach-oriented sneak peek was just one part of promoting the movie.
“We’re willing to talk to almost all audiences that want to hear about the movies we make,” he told the Texas Catholic, newspaper of the Diocese of Dallas. “People seem to be interested that we’re going to churches to promote this movie, but we’re also going to schools, libraries, Boy Scout and Girl Scout groups. We’re going everywhere.”
Disney wants its CS Lewis movie to be the next ‘Lord of the Rings’ – which is why it is eagerly courting the Christian lobby. John Hiscock reports.
It is not something that will cause any tremors outside Hollywood, but in the world of film marketing it is a turnaround of epic proportions.
After carefully avoiding religion for most of its history, the Walt Disney Co, in a sharp deviation from corporate policy, has reached out to Christian evangelical groups to help shape a marketing campaign for its big Christmas film, The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
The entertainment giant has hired several Christian marketing groups to handle the film, including Motive Marketing, which ran the campaign for Mel Gibson’s wildly successful The Passion of the Christ.
The move is particularly remarkable because for the past decade Disney has been the subject of a religious boycott imposed by Christian organisations, who accused the company of betraying its family-values legacy by providing employee health benefits to same-sex partners, allowing gay days at its theme parks and producing what they considered to be controversial films, books and television programmes through Disney subsidiaries.
Now the wooing of evangelicals, combined with the departure of Disney chief executive Michael Eisner – described by some religious leaders as “anti-Christian” – signals the implicit end of the boycott and the beginning of a possible money-spinning franchise for the studio, which is desperately seeking a blockbuster hit that can deliver sequels, along the lines of the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings films.
In a recent interview on Faith Radio, Bob Crittenden asked me what has come to be the defining question on the upcoming film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: Can Christians trust Disney to faithfully deliver Lewis’ book to the silver screen?
It is not hard to understand the persistence of that question. On the one hand, Christians are intensely protective of The Chronicle of Narnia — a beloved series shared by generations of readers. On the other, Disney has a habit of taking famous fairy tales and twisting them into crowd-pleasing films — often by eviscerating them of their original intent or infusing them with modern sensibilities foreign to their creators. One need only read The Little Mermaid, by Hans Christian Andersen, or look at the tales of Hercules or Tarzan and compare them with the films to recognize the difference. Few would deny that the Disney brand has a long history of making family-friendly blockbusters, but strict faithfulness to the text has not always been high on their priority list.
Still, I have great hope that the version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe will ring true to the novel because of the production company behind it, the promises being made, and the sheer folly of getting it wrong.
The Walden Connection
Much is made of the Disney label attached to Narnia. Fortunately, the answer to the “trust” question does not have to rely on Disney, but on the production company, Walden Media. With the exception of Around the World in Eighty Days (a fun, but unfaithful romp), Walden Media enjoys, and deserves, its outstanding reputation for its adaptations of children’s books.
It is nearly impossible to reproduce a novel on the screen. Some things cannot be imaged — a character’s thought processes, for example, are notoriously difficult — and often the complexity of the text overwhelms the 90-120 minute time constraints of the cinema. Nevertheless, if you saw Because of Winn-Dixie earlier this year, you witnessed how fully Walden Media can put a book on the screen. Walden wants to make films that cause children to read books — it is their stated aim. If they could not get the story right, their credibility with the target audience of their mission statement — educators — would be at risk. They will do their best to deliver.
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