Narnia.
We all read
the books as kids. Now they're back! But before Evangelicals enlist
the Chronicles as weapons in their agenda, they should consider a few
things.
Christains
are already hyping these books and the new film as a kind of religious tract
they can use to lead people to Chist or as tools to teach children about
Christianity.
The Narnia
books are a big problem though. Because in reality they're not very
useful in leading people to Christ. And, in fact, they are more helpful
at leading Christain kids to question the Born-Again dogma.
Yes, stay tuned, Christian parents, the Narnia series is a Gateway Drug and
below I'll list several reasons why..
Gateway
Drug
is a term used to refer to the theoretical idea that softer or non-addictive
drugs can lead users to experiment and eventually become addicted to harder and
more addicitive drugs.
Born Again
Christains parents beware! Here are five reasons to consider before you
endorse the Narnia series to your child:
1. The Chronicles
of Narnia are, so to speak, like pot to Christian kids. Like pot in
the so-called gateway-drug sense that it can lead them on to bigger and more
powerful "drugs". After Narnia... Middle Earth. Ater that
who knows? They may start reading actual mythology and folk tales. Then
they may dabble in Joseph Campbell or even move on to Carl Jung. It's all
down hill from there.
They may end
up working at 7-11 with a degree in philosophy or comparitive religions, or
they could even become Wiccans. But mainly stop them from reading the Chronicles
before it's too late or they could suffer the worse fate of all... playing Dungeons
and Dragons while eating packs of Oreo cookies (with double stuff) and
drinking Coke right out of the two-liter in the kitchen of their friend's
trailer home until 4 AM. You'll pick them up for church the next morning
only to find their high-fructose hangover has left them unable to even remember
your names.
2. Narnia without the Jesus allegory component is not much
different from LOTR or Harry Potter or Dungeons & Dragons or even the
Smurfs for that matter (Christian parents know what dangers lurk in the Smurfs.
That show is well known as a Trojan horse for the occult!) That's right,
without the Aslan crucifixion, the series is basically a collection of pagan
and occult stories about Witches, magic, fauns, dragons, centaurs, spells,
Marshwiggles, Dufflepuds... must I go on?
3. It is the Christian "allegory" component itself in
Narnia that can weaken Christain belief. As a story of redemption,
sacrifice and forgiveness, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe stands
fine on is own. But when parents and Christian teachers point out to kids
that this story is actually a stand-in, an "allegory" refering back
to a similiar story in the Bible, that's when kids get confused.
Why not just
accept Aslan as your personal savior? Kids think this way. How many kids
out there even now sometimes pray to Aslan (How many already pray to santa
Claus?)? Of course Christain parents will say, it's just a made up story.
Aslan's not real. that's why we don't pray to Aslan. How much
of a jump is it then for kids to start questioning whether or not the Bible is
just a made up story? Both are books of fantasy and magic (characters
rising from the dead, etc.). Why is one true and another an "aggle-ory"?
Too late. The seeds of doubt have already been planted.
4. Beware, the cosmology of Narnia. The Magician's Nephew,
a prequel to the other books, outlines the metaphysical nuts and bolts of
Lewis' fantasy universe in which "Narnia" is just one of infinite
worlds. These worlds are all accessable through the "woods between
the worlds" in which one can jump into a pond wearing an appropriate magic
ring and emerge in a completely different "world".
In the story
the child characters jump into the "world pool" of Narnia and witness
it's creation. Aslan creates Narnia from a dark void in the space of a
few minutes through his magnificent singing. In any one of these separate
worlds, Aslan is the creator, yet he employs various creation methods and
manifests himself in different god-forms using different names.
This is
quite a varied and complex cosmologcal system. Christian children will be
both confused and fascinated by this concept which is far more complex than the
cosmology of Christianity. In fact, when discussing this book with
children there will be no way to refute the existance of Lewis' vision of
infinite worlds. Children will put two and two together. If the
writers of the Bible had a vision of the creation in Genesis (but were not
there to actually witness it), they why couldn't C.S. Lewis have a vision of
Narnia and the "woods between the worlds"?
These
alternative creation concepts and alternative manifestations of a creator god
can weaken and destroy any dogma of Christian absolutism in a child and give
rise to tolerance and curiosity for other religions and other world views.
Not good if you believe that Jesus is the only way to the Father.
5. Aslan as a "fictional" god concept invites probing
questions and criticism. Children will notice that Aslan, the
all-powerful, all knowing creator often fails to consult his omnicience or use
his omnipotence. In many instances, children readers may notice that
Aslan often blames others, usually the powerless child characters, for that
which he in his priveleged position should take responsibility.
The
Magician's Nephew offers a prime example. Aslan is angry with and blames
Digory and Poly for bringing the "Deplorable Word" into Narnia (the
Deplorable Word is a super-magic word, which, when uttered, can destroy an
entire world). Children readers may wonder who made up the
"Deplorable Word" in the forst place? OR who indeed created a
world in which there could be a "Deplorable Word" in the first place?
they may see the responsibility falling on Aslan.
The fantasy
setting of the fictional world of Narnia allows children to ask questions and
probe deeper than they may feel allowed to with thier Christian faith.
They may wonder, for instance, why Alsan allows these witches to exist at
all or at least why he didn't kill them when they started causing trouble.
Children will be locked in the metaphysical moral conundrum wondering why
Aslan, who is totally good, is at least complicit in all the evil and misery
caused by the witch because of his inaction. At worse he is just as
guilty or perhaps a kind of co-conspirator. Does Aslan have a hidden
agenda? Does he enjoy all of this? Aslan will end up being a
disturbing figure to many children. And this disturbance can easily carry
over into the Sunday school classroom.
Christian
parents beware the Chronicles of Narnia.