The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe , C.S. Lewis's classic novel, is the first of seven installments of his The Chronicles of Narnia 
The secularist harpies who hated Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ 
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post against writer Philip Pullman's attack on Lewis. And my post attracted a couple of spirited atheist/agnostics to comment. A brief but invigorating discussion ensued. Go here to check that out.
But I would also like to draw your attention to some of the blurbs Dr. Gene Veith has been posting over on the Cranach blog about the criticism of Lewis.
See here, and here, and here.
He has also written a newly published book on Lewis and Narnia, The Soul of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
If you are at all interested in the present culture wars between the secularists and those with a Christian worldview, you need to look into this.
Monday, November 14, 2005
C.S. Lewis vs. Philip Pullman
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5 comments:
It is sad how you can have any belief in art that you want, except Christian faith based art. Even when it isn't overtly aparent and written as allegory. I remember when LOTR came out and the whole question of whether Tolkienns faith was felt in the movie and everyone denied it! It is sad. We want freedom of speech only as long as it agrees with their own agenda. As a poet I find that rather disturbing. I can't tell you all the journals I send work to that don't allow "religious" poetry. Does that mean I shouldn't even try even though a lot of my poems aren't overtly Christian? Funny thing is even secularists I know who've read my work appreciated how I represented and portrayed my faith in my work.
FYI, Douglas Gresham, C. S. Lewis' grandson, will be on The Bible Answer Man radio show December 5th and 6th.
Correction, his step-son.
Burr's wife says...
I will be at the National Council Teachers of English (NCTE) conference this Saturday. It will be interesting to see what publishers will be doing to promote the Narnia books.
Hi.
I'm a Pagan (Wiccan) and count both CS Lewis and Tolkien as influences in the process of my becoming a Pagan, because of their positive attitude to the natural world and the old gods. I was a Christian when I read the books, but later realised I am a Pagan, partly because of the wonderful magical worlds of Narnia and Middle Earth, partly because of reading Puck of Pook's Hill and Wizard of Earthsea and of course other factors in my life and spiritual development that had nothing to do with books.
So these secularists that are denigrating Lewis and Tolkien have entirely missed the point that the books may express a Christian worldview to a certain extent, but they are also about the mythopoeic worldview and spirituality in general, and children are not so gullible that they will uncritically soak up everything from a writer, but are capable of reading critically (I know, because I remember disagreeing with some of Lewis's comments about women as a child).
Also, I recommend reading Stratford Caldecott's excellent book Secret Fire: the spiritual vision of JRR Tolkien (he's a Catholic in case you were wondering).
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