Certainly we find Christian ideas in Lewis's stories. If we boil any story down to its bare minimum, all of them have to - to an extent- use truth as it's revealed in scripture. As author Peter Leithart has said, the Devil has no stories. The writer or playwright has to play by the rules his Creator has given him in order to tell any story, because the main STORY has already been written. The very presence of a protagonist and an antagonist with the internal desire of the reader (or viewer) for the defeat of the antagonist and the victory of the protagonist demonstrates this.
The Chronicles of Narnia contain many allusions to Christian ideas...Lewis also borrows characters from Greek and Roman mythology as well as traditional British and Irish fairy tales.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Narnia
Option A: It is a Strong Gospel presentationOption B,C,D,E: CS Lewis was dead wrong and everything about him and his movie is wrong.
Maybe it was a weak gospel presentation. Maybe it was just a fiction movie. Put some available answers that could lead to real dialogue.
I think I agree with the stance of the person posting the survey, but when a survey is posted you should not be able to tell the stance of the poster just by reading the question and available answers. This whole survey is dishonest.
The gospel is found in the Bible...and even films like this...cannot capture the majesty and glory of this message. It can only be preached...one on one...from door to door.
wwww.wayoflife.org/fbns/cslewisand.htm
Sarah, sounds like from these verses Paul had to make the same point aboutdifferences of opinion. But I think that this is a great way to grow and learn. If we all sang from the same hymn sheet, (or Psalm sheet? - sounds like another arguement coming) Then it would be a wee bit boring eh???
As long as everyone remembers that Calvinists are always right we should get along just fine.
Sarah -- I notice you are the one who dragged the thread out of the mothballs on women pastors.
Thanks a lot.
I thought perhaps it was Comedian the Misogynist or MSC trying to start a fight here, but no, it was YOU!!!
You picked the WRONG forum to drop into and try to talk people into accepting WOMEN PASTORS. You may as well come on here and try to talk people into accepting homosexual marriage or adoption of children by homos, or abortion.
Are you crazy or what?
We're lucky they even let women post on this forum at all, and you come on here trying to get people to accept the idea of WOMEN PASTORS!
As I say, thanks a lot.
What other groovy opinions do you have to share here that you think nobody should question you on?
Indeed, the plain and simple truth of Scripture, so simple we posters spend endless time arguing about what biblical truth is. (Sorry, discussing what biblical truth is)
And too, when posts purporting to enlighten the confused and hapless reader are read, we should remember we too, like C.S. Lewis, are fallible human beings. Thus, it is good counsel that our "writings must be subjected to testing by God's Word."
When viewing the movie again, I promise to not allow it to confuse me.
To some degree, we've all been infected by the world's philosophies. But those philosophies should be discarded as we come to a knowledge of truth. Yet, it's difficult to discard them when they are perceived as "Christian" allegory. While there may be insights into life that are profitable to be found in the works of C.S. Lewis, we think it not wise to encourage young or untaught Christians to feed on such a presentation of so-called Christian truth. Some may be readily attracted to Lewis's style and logic, but let us not be blinded and thus miss the plain and simple truth of Scripture." Pro. 13:18
Lewis's retelling of the Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche, written just a few years before his death. In this work, several ungodly concepts are espoused as valid truths. One such is a strong hint at universalist doctrine:
"We're all Timbs and parts of one Whole. Hence, of each other, Men, and gods, flow in and out and mingle" (Till We Have Faces, pp. 300-301).
When such ideas are presented by one of the chief protagonists, heralded as a purveyor of wisdom by the author, one cannot but think the author also believed that way. So, too, one might for this same reason think Lewis looked upon suicide as an acceptable act:
"Have I not told you often that to depart from life of a man's own will when there's good reason is one of the things that are according to nature?" (Till We Have Faces, p. 17).
Was Lewis necessarily aware of his error? He apparently saw no incompatibility between his professed faith and occult fantasy. His imagination, welded upon fantasy in preference to what he considered a faulty reality, set the theme for his writings and became the basis for confusion by readers who perceived them as "Christian" allegory.
While millions accept Lewis's apologetics as evidence of a genuine faith [mistakenly so, in our opinion], Cont
I couldn't write in that way at all. Everything began with images; a faun carrying an umbrella, a queen on a sledge, a magnificent lion. At first there wasn't even anything Christian about them; that element pushed itself in of its own accord" (Of Other Worlds, p. 36).
So we see that Narnia was not by design Christian allegory. Yet even if Christian allegory or analogy was Lewis's intention, the fact is that the truth of God, when couched in terms less than accurate, is open to question. Aside from the fact that when presented as myth the truth may be mistaken for myth, no clear understanding can be forthcoming without prior knowledge of the truth -- in which case the allegory or analogy is useless. In any case, it is dangerous to present evil as good, and magic as synonymous with the miracle-working power of the Holy Spirit (Isa. 5:20, Acts 8:9-23).
Many of Lewis's characters in his fantasies depicted as "good" are in reality associated with witchcraft, pagan mythology, and the Norse mysteries. They are, in fact, gods of nature. And magic in these stories is used for either "good" or "evil" purposes depending upon the source of that magic. One of the more pronounced confusions of good and evil is Till We Have Faces, cont
"Perhaps the best-known fantasy from Lewis's pen is the seven-volume The Chronicles of Narnia. In it some see a parallel to the warfare between God and Satan. Many of Lewis's fantasies see the great lion, Aslan, as Christ. This because Aslan lays down his life to free the children from the curse of the evil witch (believed to represent Satan). He possesses knowledge of a greater "magic" than that of the witch -- a magic that brings him back to life and destroys the witch's power.
It is argued that in presenting a blend of fantasy with analogy to Christian truth, Lewis hoped to encourage his readers to search out the truth further.* This, however, was not Lewis's intention in writing his fantasies. Rather, he was genuinely enamored of mythology and believed the "Story" to take precedence over any preconceived moral. In Lewis's own words:
"Some people seem to think that I began by asking myself how I could say something about Christianity to children; then fixed on the fairy tale as an instrument; then collected information about child-psychology and decided what age group I'd write for; then drew up a list of basic Christian truths and hammered out 'allegories' to embody them. This is all pure moonshine. Cont
