Even though I’m a critic of Narnia, I don’t want to slam my mind shut to it. In fact, ever since my blogging hiatus began, one question remains unanswered:
What has Narnia taught people about God?
How has it helped them grow spiritually?
Honestly, I have yet to get any good, concrete answers.
Earlier today, I left a comment on the blog of a fantasy novelist and a big Narnia fan. She said in one of her posts that Aslan has taught her a lot about God. But she didn’t get into specifics, so I wanted to know what Aslan taught her about God—and I said as much in my comment.
In essence, I said, “I’m curious to know what Aslan has taught you about God.”
And that right there got the ball rolling.
If you’re a Narnia fan, I’m interested to know what you think:
- What has Narnia taught you about Jesus?
- What attributes of God has Aslan made real to you?
- What makes Narnia a special book series to you?
- If there are three things about Narnia that you think could turn a former fan into a fan again, what would they be?
It could be a short comment, a long comment, a link to a blog post. Whatever it is, I look forward to learning more!
P.S.: I was recently hit by a wave of spam activity, so comments will be moderated just to keep the spammers away.
Ex-Narnian 
Greeting! I am the novelist whose blog you left a comment on earlier today. Just to set the record straight, I did NOT delete it. My blog is moderated (as you indicated yours is also). I must approve all comments before they will appear on my blog, in order to control unrelated spam posts. As soon as I saw your comment, I did in fact approve it, and left a reply.
LikeLike
I just saw that, and I amended my blog accordingly.
LikeLike
Thank you!
LikeLike
No problem. I apologize for my mistake. One minute I saw the comment awaiting approval, and the next minute it was gone. Not sure why.
LikeLike
Probably a quirk of WordPress. The comment came through on my phone/smart watch, so I “saw” it was there. But at the time I was driving and unable to do anything about it until I got home and back to my computer. If you’re open for an honest, open discussion on this topic, I am definitely interested and know a few others who might be as well. I’ve really not come across someone who has had such a negative reaction to Lewis’ work before, so I’m definitely curious.
LikeLike
I’m definitely open to it. Before today, I had several instances where I broached this with Narnia fans; either my comment was deleted, or my questions and concerns were ignored.
This surprises me, to be honest. I just think Christians ought to be at the front of the line to examine the literature of their authors. And when I see so many problems with Narnia and Aslan, I can’t help but wonder: Am I living on another planet, or am I just way off? A back-and-forth would be helpful, to make sure I’m not reinforcing insular and faulty views.
LikeLike
From what I saw in your first post, I think you’re misinterpreting what Lewis is saying, and in some ways what the Bible is saying as well. In truth, you’re struggling with the age-old questions all of us are, and have been through the centuries. How does a good God allow evil and suffering, how do I deal with my own sinful nature, and what is the purpose of prayer. These are NOT small questions, nor do they have easy answers. If they did, we wouldn’t still be asking them.
LikeLike
I have wondered if I’m missing something. In your view, what exactly am I misinterpreting, and what is the correct interpretation?
LikeLike
Ironically you chose another one of my favorite quotes from Mr. Beaver about Aslan not being safe for your first post. The idea of “fearing” God is not about being afraid of him like you’re a bug and He’s a mean kid with a magnifying glass. God doesn’t want that kind of fear or dread from us. “Fear of the Lord” means something quite different.
Ever had someone in your life who has really gone out of their way to help you, to love you when other’s haven’t–maybe even made huge sacrifices for you out of love? The last thing you want to do is disrespect, or even worse, disappoint that person. It’s KIND of like that. There must be a certain understanding that God is God. He’s powerful, yes, but he’s also holy in a way that we cannot comprehend, and that holiness should be taken seriously. Note that Mr. Beaver says that Aslan is not safe, but he’s GOOD. That part of the quote is just as critical as the first.
I apologize that I may disappear for a bit. My little one just came down with a fever so I need to take care of her. *crossing my fingers it’s not the flu!*
LikeLike
That’s one thing in particular I want to know: Why is it that so many Narnia fans love the quote that Aslan is not safe but good? I don’t understand that. Also, what does it mean for Aslan to be unsafe but also good?
Far as I can tell, the idea that Aslan is unsafe and fearsome is an idea C.S. Lewis expected us to take literally. For one thing, Chronicle after Chronicle affirms that Aslan is a literal terror and danger to his own people. (I expound upon those affirmations in “Top Ten Narnia Scenes for Understanding Aslan.”) For another thing, C.S. Lewis seemed to be advocating for a literal fear. In Mere Christianity, he called God the “supreme terror.” In A Grief Observed, he said, “What do people mean when they say, ‘I am not afraid of God because I know He is good’? Have they never even been to a dentist?”
Maybe it’s just me, but if God is called a strong tower (Psalm 18:2; Proverbs 18:10) and He often says, “Don’t be afraid!” (Revelation 1:17, Luke 5:10, etc.), but if Aslan produces fear, terror and danger even in his allies and then some, in my view he is doing a very poor job conveying two big attributes of God.
One thing about your definition of the “fear of God” is that it’s almost the exact same definition I came up with in 2017, when I started to realize the Narnia theology was responsible for my crisis of faith. Unfortunately, I’m still finding myself hard-pressed to stand by that definition. Several questions remain unanswered:
• Why do the Hebrew words mean “fear”?
• How do commentators interpret it as reverence and respect?
• Of all the words that Bible writers could have chosen to describe our relationship with God, why are words for “fear” chosen?
And so on and so forth. It’s been a crazy back-and-forth the last two years.
No worries about disappearing. I need to disappear, since I’ve got work to do. The life of a Ph.D. student is always busy!
LikeLike
I don’t really see myself as a Narnia fan; but I do know it as it was the expected thing. Growing up when the churches regularly railed against Twilight and Harry Potter – it and LotR were the two acceptable series to read. So I have all the books. I understood some of the Christian themes – but I never really took it all that seriously. But having read it again when I was older, yeah – I saw some things and I was like “Wait, what? How did I not see that ages ago?” Of all the books, The Silver Chair remains something of my favorite. But I really don’t like how Narnia treats most of the human cultures in it’s world – particularly the Calormen and Telmarines; it’s as if humans are always the bad guys.
LikeLike
It’s funny, because I’ve even wondered if Aslan saw humans as lesser than other species in Narnia. There were little things—things that can be easily explained away—but they made me wonder.
For example, in Focus on the Family Radio Theatre’s audio dramatizations of Narnia, you can hear it in Aslan’s voice. When the Pevensies and Beavers meet him at the Stone Table, Aslan sounds subdued when he welcomes the Pevensies, but overjoyed when he welcomes the Beavers (24:50 in the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpd68spEQFw).
For another, it’s odd that in all the Chronicles, Aslan seems to be more severe toward the humans. That would make sense, since humans in the real world were created to be caretakers of creation. But little things like that made me think, “Wow, if I ever went to Narnia, I’d rather show up as an animal.”
LikeLike
Oh wow, here’s a mind-bender. This is the opening of Silver Chair:
“Will you promise not to — do anything to me, if I do come?” said Jill.
“I make no promise,” said the Lion.
Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer.
“Do you eat girls?” she said.
“I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms,” said the Lion. It didn’t say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.
If Jesus had said that, would you have said: “Sign me up for that!”?
LikeLike
I know, right? Aslan is supposed to be a role model of Jesus Christ, and yet the ways they tackle the issue of salvation are starkly different.
Jesus dies on the Cross to make salvation by faith possible. He even beckoned to people to come to Him so that He could personally give them rest (Matthew 11:28–30).
But Aslan, instead of making salvation easy for her, puts Jill through a whole array of fears—not the least of which is the fear that he will eat her. It’s as if Aslan is trying to make it even harder for her to follow him.
LikeLike
In connection to the scene from the Silver Chair (having just gone to reread it), I’m not sure it’s supposed to be read too literally. I think Lewis is going for a spiritual experience, especially given the symbolism of “drinking Aslan’s water,” or, in our world, drinking the living water of Jesus. He, in his Jesus-like role, is asking Jill to come unto him, to drink…if she is thirsty. And she has to decide just how thirsty she is, whether she wants to run the risk of trusting him and giving up everything on that altar of trust or not.
I think on a literal reading, Aslan comes across as very harsh, very harsh indeed, but if this is meant to be a symbolic metaphor of salvation, it’s very fitting. Jesus says himself that those who come unto Him must make Him Lord, must hate mother, father, and brother by comparison, must take up their cross (with all its death-sentence metaphorical trappings) to follow Him. Those who lose their life will find it, and I think that’s what that scene is about. Jill is laying down her life, as she’s known it, to accept the gift of salvation. She cannot get it while he is absent or away, and he cannot promise that she’ll like all the things he’ll “do”–all that he will ask of her once she’s accepted his gift. One cannot have salvation as they’d like it, but on His terms, because those are the only truly just terms available. It’s all or nothing, and I think (underscore think) that this is what Lewis is trying for.
Now, whether he did a good job executing his goal is another question entirely, and clearly, the harsh literal reading makes one wonder if he couldn’t have done a better job, but then, all Christianity has a harsh “literal reading” side of things. I think that’s why the Pharisees were so puzzled by Jesus saying that only those who eat his body and drink his blood would have eternal life. And I think it’s why so many have stumbled at the whole passage in Luke 14:26 about how those who do not hate father and mother, wife and children, and even their own life, cannot be his disciple. There are hard truths in Christianity, but only through the lens of grace and love can they really be understood. Otherwise, they are foolishness, or just plain harsh and unfeeling. I think Narnia might be the same way…but again, I haven’t read the stories enough to have memorized the whole thing, so there could be more specific passages that stand out as glaringly harsh, without a metaphorical or spiritual “lesson” at the back of them. (I’m going to go check that list of yours and see if it helps me find some). 🙂
LikeLike
I’m not too sure how literal it ought to be, either. In fact, I tried to be fair and find the spiritual parallels as I wrote one of my posts: https://exnarnian.wordpress.com/2017/12/27/top-ten-narnia-scenes-for-understanding-aslan-no-2/
But in my view, the spiritual lessons to be learned are drowned out by the severity and problems that I find in the scene. Aslan seems to be putting Jill in a catch-22: She’s afraid of getting eaten by him, whether she stays or runs—and he doesn’t refute the notion. What’s more, he makes it clear that she will die of thirst if she doesn’t drink, but he seems to be making it painfully hard for her to take him up on his offer.
Another concern I have is that Aslan’s behavior, when taken at face value, is a far cry from what we see in the Bible. Even “extreme” situations, such as God appearing to Israel at Sinai, seem to make sense to me: In that instance, for example, God’s giving the Law to a stubborn and disobedient people in a pre-Calvary time, a people who are having to build a religion from scratch after living centuries in an idol-worshipping land. But many of Aslan’s words and even some of his body language seem like non sequiturs—to me, anyway. https://exnarnian.wordpress.com/2017/12/15/top-ten-narnia-scenes-for-understanding-aslan-no-6/
LikeLike
Hi! I’m a friend of Allison’s, and she told me you were someone looking for a good discussion and growing understanding (versus just out-right criticism). I wonder if the other sites you posted on didn’t want the hassle of a discussion, but I’m personally delighted with your open attitude.
The first occasion of “fear of God” in scriptures is in Genesis, when Adam says he heard the voice of God and was afraid, and I wonder that there is a strain of fear in our dealings with God because “all have sinned.” Perhaps there is a fear there that is slowly overcome by encountering His love (as perfect love casts out fear), but that may be a level few, if any, reach before heaven because we have to drive out our “natural” response of fear to someone who is wholly Right, wholly Just, and wholly Good, and we are guilty, or should be, but for God’s grace.
LikeLike
Hi, Andrea,
Thanks for commenting!
The fear that you described—responding to a wholly right, just and good God—is something I’ve wrestled with time to time. I think I understand what you’re saying, and I’ve had those feelings, too. But the primary fear I’ve battled the last two years is stronger, messier and more visceral than that.
In essence, I became an ex-Narnian because Aslan’s portrayal of God threw my faith into crisis. I was a fan thanks to the movie adaptation of LWW (2005), but that changed in 2011, when I heard a passage out of the original book. Seeing the way Aslan treated many characters made me afraid God would treat me similarly. Hearing that Aslan terrifies his own subjects while being both dangerous and good to them—I just couldn’t wrap my brain around it. It sounded awful.
Worse, over the last two years, I’ve seen how Aslan treats a lot of characters in Narnia, and all too often I’ve said, “Is that how God’s going to treat me?” In my view, Aslan is often unduly rough with characters throughout the Chronicles: He roughs up a dwarf, attacks and tortures a Calormene teenager, verbally berates a scared girl in front of a crowd, enables and reinforces a girl’s fear of getting eaten, and terrifies his own allies and prolongs their terror. (I explain these scenes and more—and the problems therein—in “Top Ten Narnia Scenes for Understanding Aslan.”) Even though these scenes may have a theological lesson Lewis tried to convey, my brain hasn’t looked for that lesson, exactly—instead, it’s personalized those scenes. The simple fear that God may treat me like that has been enough to keep my faith in crisis.
I started this blog to answer Narnian theology publicly, to answer other tough ideas, and to encourage people to think more critically about what they believe. But in the middle of all my fears and my analyses of Narnia, I’m starting to wonder if I’ve lost the ability to be objective. (I write about this in my recent post “How Did I Get Here?”)
Right now, I still stand by my analysis of Narnia (and Aslan, in particular), since I analyze Narnia through the lens of Scripture as well as I can. But I realize that I’m just one man. I’m not a C.S. Lewis scholar. My Ph.D. studies aren’t even in literature or Christianity! I truly want to know what others think of Narnia and how it’s impacted them spiritually.
Hence the questions I’ve asked at the end of this post. (Feel free to answer them! I’d like to know what you think.)
LikeLike
I’m probably less of a Narnian than most Inklings, as I tend to read all the other writings of Lewis more than The Chronicles themselves, so I’m not sure I can answer the questions you’ve asked. I think they are good questions, and I wonder if part of the answer comes from Lewis’ view of God.
I’ve found, from reading “A Grief Observed,” especially, that Lewis sees God as Sovereign in a somewhat “scary” way…that He may plan things like the death of one’s spouse and that somehow, one must trust that this is “good” despite how one feels. You get a similar sense at times from “The Screwtape Letters,” and I think you’re right, it does come out in Aslan, as his idea of being “not tame” involves this kind of sovereignty. God is Almighty, all-powerful, and all-wise, but some of what He asks of us is painful, as it involves letting go of what is near and dear and trusting that pain, sickness, and even grief is good…to Lewis, at least.
Personally, I think the answer is more complicated. I think God is Almighty, all-powerful, and all-wise, but also all-loving in a way that is incompatible with “planning” on sickness, disease, and pain as a good. I think it can be used for good, as one does “what one can” with the hand one is dealt, but I don’t think God “wants” people ill anymore than He wants them condemned or lost. I would disagree with Lewis when He writes that God took Joy from him and that such a taking was, perhaps, to teach him how little he truly loved and trusted God, because I firmly believe that people’s actions have consequences and that God, when He set things up, made it that way so that we would have freedom, so that our surrender would have value and significance. It is the only thing that is truly “ours,” as everything else we claim–our time, our genes, our personality–came from God, our parents, our circumstances and can either be used for God or for ourselves…which, as Screwtape points out, is really to use it for “our Father below,” as he puts it.
Personally, I like how Dorothy Sayers depicts free choice in “The Mind of the Maker,” using the illustration of a writer at work with a story to show how “tied” God’s hands can be. He, like an author, can do whatever he wants with his creation (or characters), but if they are to have free choice and a personality, a life of their own, they must be free to choose things that He would not have picked, knowing what will come as a result. In my own writings, I’ve had characters chose things that led to their sorrow, their pain, their death, even, and I could’ve stepped in and prevented it…but such a prevention would’ve involved taking them over and squashing their freedom.
But, while I don’t agree with Lewis’ understanding of God, I still get great edification from his writings when he’s not dealing with the sovereignty aspect, and similarly, I enjoy Aslan’s story, his sacrifice and nobility and grace, while looking past the portions that are at theological variance with my own beliefs. I don’t think Lewis captured God perfectly, but I think he did capture glimpses of His nature, here and there, and those glimpses are, for me, worth the read.
I know this is running a little long…does it make any sense? 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
It makes sense. Plus, I think you and I are on the same page when you say that the answer is more complicated than what Lewis is saying. It’s hard to imagine what goes through God’s mind, because we see only a snapshot of life—and we don’t always see it very well, to boot! To take into account the life of every single person who has ever lived, while factoring in the curse over creation, the free will of humanity, the battles between Himself and Satan—even those words can make a man’s head spin!
I’ve learned that it’s arrogant and unwise for me to think I can deduce God’s intentions, motivations and desires for allowing things to happen. The Bible gives us a complicated picture, and God doesn’t answer all our questions nor tell us the whole story (Ecclesiastes 3:11). If my life is such a small piece of the puzzle, and if I don’t see things correctly (and I don’t always see things correctly when I’m angry or hurting), then I need to be careful not to pass judgment on Him or say that I really know what He’s up to. It’s beyond me.
“In my own writings, I’ve had characters chose things that led to their sorrow, their pain, their death, even, and I could’ve stepped in and prevented it…but such a prevention would’ve involved taking them over and squashing their freedom.”
I love this. I’ve had to face similar things when writing my own stories. I’m planning out a novel that’s going to have a lot of hard stuff happen, and I know that when I write those chapters, I won’t be able to back out of that hard stuff.
“I enjoy Aslan’s story, his sacrifice and nobility and grace, while looking past the portions that are at theological variance with my own beliefs.”
That’s probably what a lot of Narnia fans do, too. I even wonder if some go further than that and interpret Lewis’s words differently, because Lewis’s messages may be at odds with their own beliefs.
I’m also curious to know what portions of Aslan’s story differ from your beliefs. Christians almost never say things like that!
“I don’t think Lewis captured God perfectly, but I think he did capture glimpses of His nature, here and there, and those glimpses are, for me, worth the read.”
I think the first part of that statement is spot-on. He did see glimpses of God, and Narnia is sprinkled with them. And I think the second part of that statement helps explain why Narnia has a huge fan base: People see glimpses of God in fresh and engaging ways, and those—combined with masterful storytelling—make Narnia worth the read.
I personally think that Lewis’s “scary” view of God came long before Narnia was published. In Mere Christianity, he called God the “supreme terror.” He also esteemed Rudolf Otto’s Idea of the Holy, in which Otto described the experiences people might feel when encountering something divine or overpowering. Encountering the “numinous,” as Otto described it, is to encounter something that is terrifying (i.e., overwhelming power, which frightens and triggers a sense of smallness) and beautiful (attractive despite the intense fear). And Aslan channels those ideas. Despite the fact that Jesus repeatedly tells people to not be afraid, Aslan prolongs the terror of his own allies.
I’m so glad you commented on my blog. It helps to hear from someone who knows a lot about Lewis’s other works.
LikeLike
I have enjoyed the Narnia series ever since I was about ten, and what I get out of it is that it gives you a picture of the real struggles children go through – for example, Lucy, with whom I identify so much, the one who first discovers Narnia, can see Aslan better than any of her older siblings can. In Prince Caspian, for example, Aslan tells Lucy she could have been following him even when the others were not. That part of the story has been inspirational to me, because I have seen firsthand the wonderful things God will do if we simply take Him at His word. But sometimes people are so intent on trying to figure God out, they throw so much doubt on the Bible it’s irksome – to put it mildly.
Not that there’s anything wrong with doing research and trying to pin down whatever facts you can to support your faith. In fact, that sort of thing has really helped me overcome doubt – just knowing that archeological finds and historical records have proved the Bible’s accuracy time and again.
However, knowing God involves more than the intellect. It involves the heart. This is where things like music and imagination come into play. Fantasy is a language of the heart. It helps people to grab hold of difficult concepts. For example, in the Bible God is referred to as the “Lion of Judah.” Well, what does that mean? In the Narnia series we get some idea of what it means. Aslan is not a tame lion, but he is a good lion, for example. A long, drawn-out theological treatise is not needed to explain in what ways God is like a lion. In The Horse and His Boy, the lion is a comforting presence to Shasta when he is feeling sorry for himself, which to me is very positive. Sometimes the lion acts in ways that I would not expect, in which case I remind myself that these books are not the Bible – the Bible simply serves as the source of inspiration.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi, C R,
Thank you for your comment! Much appreciated.
I think you’re absolutely right. Knowing God involves the heart, as well. That’s one thing I love about being a creative guy: Music, writing and imagination have been such wondrous expressions of my faith, and I hope I can spend the rest of my life expressing my faith through them. (It’d be a lot easier if my crisis of faith would end, but that’s another story.)
I would say, though, that even if a long treatise is not needed to explain the similarities between God and lions, a side-by-side comparison of God, Aslan and lions is helpful. I certainly wouldn’t want God to act like a real-world lion, and I’m glad God and Aslan aren’t one and the same!
Cheers,
John
LikeLike
Thank you for this. And I too am glad God and Aslan aren’t one and the same. I see your point about the way he treats his subjects. The idea of instant retribution or near-instant retribution – such as Aslan clawing Aravis for what she did to the slave girl – is more of an old Testament concept than New Testament. Under law that’s what you get: an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But “grace and truth came by Jesus Christ”. I must admit that as a child I was more into justice than forgiveness. I wondered why bullies never seemed to get punished, so the concept of Aslan pouncing on villains and shaking dwarves that don’t believe in him was appealing. Maybe not so much anymore, however, because as I have learned to forgive my enemies, I have truly come to believe that mercy triumphs over judgment. So, in retrospect I think it would be nice to see more of that in the Narnia books (though, if you ask me, Uncle Andrew gets off rather easily).
LikeLiked by 1 person