Narnia is Coming

The movie adaptation of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe is coming out soon and so there's been plenty of controversy over the "religious" content of the movie. I've read a number of articles about this and the one I read from BBC News this morning was spot on. Here's the quote that really stuck out in my mind:

Lewis's idea was not to write an allegory for clever readers to decode, where Aslan represents Christ. Rather, Aslan is Christ, coming to the world of talking animals as a lion, just as he came to earth as a human. Lewis found children better at understanding this than adults.

He was not concerned with teaching children the Christian story in disguise, as he expected them to know it already. Rather he wanted them to feel it. As a child himself, he knew the story of the cross and resurrection of Jesus, and knew it was meant to be important, but he had never felt its importance. If he could retell it in terms of a fairy story, it might make sense to children and they might grasp the nobility, tragedy and power of it.

Unfortunately my first reading of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe was just a few months ago. As simple as the story is compared to other fantasy works, Lewis' telling of the death of Aslan is incredibly moving. Is that because I know Aslan is meant to represent Christ? That's definitely part of it. I think it's so sad because if I were in Aslan's place, just like if I were in Christ's place, I don't think I would have done the same thing.

I think this just emphasizes to me that there are times when we need to translate the Gospel message into something some palpable for our audience to understand and relate to.

Matthew.