You lost track of what you were responding to, it didn't have anything to do with substitutionary atonement:
"The whole notion of holy wars goes so against what Jesus taught it is laughable. Not to mention the worship of royalty that I don't believe appears in his teachings."
Also, Christ was a hippie communist, I don't think that he would fit in at a current Baptist church for example.
Let's take a look at what preceeded that:
Quote:
They say this is a Christian tale, but I don't see much connection to the teachings of Jesus.
To miss the concept of substitutionary attonment in Christ's teachings, let alone in Lewis' work is something of a mystery. The mystery is compounded by a vauge assertion that 'holy war' is taught in 'the church' while substitutionary attonment is not.
There still seems to be a vague, at-large animus to attempting to carry off the connection between 'blatant Christian (??) propaganda' and a 'new holy war', this is baffling.
Thank you, well put. I simply believe that what is known today as a Christian church has very little do most of the time with the simplicity of Jesus' message. Churches are where human politics intersect faith, and this often results in behavior that contradicts what I know as Jesus' teachings. Jesus taught love and compassion for all, not war and worship of royalty.
If you missed the theme of substitutionary atonement in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe -- and are positing that Christian teaching promotes the worship of Royalty, are you sure you understand either Jesus' message or Christian teachings enough to comment? Perhaps a listing of the doctrinal positions of the various denominations would be helpful in showing this connection.
Well in the lazy, undeveloped world of Narnia it's a problem. When a writer includes different races simply for the sake of including them it is not the reader's duty to build a rationale for him.
Quote:
So Aslan is now Jesus, or is Aslan now a lion? Why not a lamb? Strange paradox. Either Aslan is a lion or Aslan is not a lion.
Aslan is a lion symbol for a man. I really don't know why you are making this seem complicated. It is not.
Aslan is the symbol of a man, Christ.
That symbol is the lion; violent king.
Christ = violent king?
Quote:
Oh boy. "Children are weak and selfish." And are adults not weak and selfish?
Did I say that adults are not weak and selfish?
Quote:
In essence, imputing characteristics of 'weakness and selfishness' in children as universal characteristics - traits which are also shared by adults non-universally is an invalid argument. The contempt in your tone for children makes me shiver by the way.
And the culture of child worship makes me shiver just as much. I have no contempt for children, I only lack the delusional belief that they are miniature adults.
Quote:
Joan of Arc was still a child at 14 years when she saved Domremy and her French Dauphin from defeat by the English, and later burnt alive for her love of her country. It may be suprising to learn that she really was feminine, and not masculine.
And god talked to her, as well. This is reliable and accurate history!
dmz:
Quote:
...is meant to be illuminating, but still, how does this tie into some sense of immediacy, or relevance, to Lewis' 'blatant Christian porpaganda'?
Lewis' goal was to influence the minds of children; to open the door for Christ. Why would a child's mind be closed to Christ in the first place? What otherwise-distasteful messages was he sugar-coating?
I never said there was any sort of immediacy at all. That is yet another straw-man from you, one of an infinite number.
How many drops of rain are in a rainstorm?
If I am but one actor in a crime involving thousands, is my part not worthy of discussion?
Lewis' goal was to influence the minds of children;
I think you meant ...souls of children
Quote:
Originally posted by groverat
Why would a child's mind be closed to Christ in the first place? What otherwise-distasteful messages was he sugar-coating?
I guess the 'otherwise-distastefull message' that Lewis 'sugar coated' must have been something other than substitutional atonement; I don't see much else in the book that would be recognized by a child --- unless you're serious about the holy warrior thing --- in which case, the Harry Potter series will turn my children into Wiccans, and Treasure Island turn them into pirates. (I'd let them read Tom Sawyer but I can't afford the Ritalin.)
If you missed the theme of substitutionary atonement in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe -- and are positing that Christian teaching promotes the worship of Royalty, are you sure you understand either Jesus' message or Christian teachings enough to comment? Perhaps a listing of the doctrinal positions of the various denominations would be helpful in showing this connection.
Just a thought.
I know that my point is subtle and somewhat inflammatory, but I believe that most churches have hierarchical power structures, much like royalty. Certainly the pope is glorified much like a king. Also there are many references as God as a King in the bible, certainly equating royalty with the divine. This is not an accident. Nothing that I was taught in the teachings of Jesus specifically (and it has been a awhile) would seem to indicate that we should adhere to these kind of power structures. I am separating out the teachings of Jesus from the bible, since much of the bible has little to do with Jesus. Remember, the bible as we know it is simply a collection of stories about Jesus tacked onto the Hebrew texts, approved by the Roman emperor Constantine. I believe it was at that time that the true message and teachings of Jesus was lost.
Originally posted by dmz I think you meant ...souls of children
No, I meant the minds of children.
Quote:
I guess the 'otherwise-distastefull message' that Lewis 'sugar coated' must have been something other than substitutional atonement; I don't see much else in the book that would be recognized by a child --- unless you're serious about the holy warrior thing --- in which case, the Harry Potter series will turn my children into Wiccans, and Treasure Island turn them into pirates. (I'd let them read Tom Sawyer but I can't afford the Ritalin.)
Did I say that Narnia turns kids into holy warriors?
Are you making even the slightest effort to understand what I'm saying or is it just easier to pretend that the conversation is going along lines you find easier to deal with?
I dont think that Aslan is the equal of Jesus, it's a deity who created narmia. He is supposed to be related to the emperor of the universe : it's a polytheistic creation. The white witch is an equivalent of Satan, a fallen angel. In this way Aslan is more alike an warrior archangel.
BTW the author claimed that this book was supposed to prepare child for christianity, and this book was indeed very popular in the christians circles. But I doubt that this book have such a great influence on childs minds (even if the goal of this book was to influence them). I find the book intertaining but childish. I also read two book of Harry potter (5 and 6) and I find them much more mature, sophistacated (plots, study of characters) than Narmia, even if Harry potter fall in the caricature with the Dubleys (but that's humor here).
Many times, adults tend to influence their kids, in order to make them copycat. But most of the time it fail. If CS lewis thinked that his book will be a big contribution to christianism, I think he failed, and was quite arrogant to think so. Most childs will take this book at it is : a fairy tale, like Santa Klaus. Something that childs love to hear , but that they forgot quickly when they are becoming adults.
Not remembering much of the book when it was read to me in 4th grade, I thought the movie was pretty good. There are some things that I remembered for no particular reason or importance. Like I thought mothballs would fall out of the wardrobe when they opened it...and it did. I am pretty sure that happened in the book as well.
Either way, the movie was pretty boring, until at least when the wolves headed out towards the beavers dam.
groverat, I think your taking a cynical and odd viewpoint of the movies plot. Do you watch western movies as well and make comments like?"oh leave the women to clean and cook while you go out"?
<for everyone>
Learn to accept a movie for what it is, not what you want it to be.
By random chance processes, this month's issue of Christian History & Biography covers Lewis. Some interesting facts on his life, fighting (and wounded) in WWI, and taking in Children during the Battle of Britain are covered, some of them here.
Powerdoc:
I think that is would be very hard for an unbelieving child to effectively connect with the allegorical references in Lewis work. Lewis was very much the studied theologian -- he knew full well that 'getting saved' was not just a transfer of information:
from Lewis:
Quote:
"Let us suppose that there were a land like Narnia and that the Son of God, as He became a Man in our world, became a Lion there, and then imagine what would happen."
from Christian History & Biography:
Quote:
As Lewis explains in his essay "Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What's to Be Said," at first he had no intention of promoting Christian ideas. He began to write The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe because he had begun to see images: "a faun carrying an umbrella, a queen on a sledge, a magnificent lion." The fairy tale seemed the best literary form to handle the events that were growing from the images. Later on, he began to see how the stories could be used to get away from stained-glass boredom and cultivate Christian feelings, especially among children who were alienated from Sunday school. To teach the Chronicles as Christian doctrine is to defeat Lewis's purpose in writing. Similarly, to demand that the reader respond with the "delighted praise of beauty" is to foster the literary snobbery that Lewis hated.
another article covers this in a little more depth:
Quote:
One thing leads to another. In The Abolition of Man, Lewis argued, echoing Plato, that in educating children one must instill "emotions organized by trained habit into stable sentiments," otherwise they will grow into "men without chests," lacking strength of character to control their unruly passions. Basic virtue?dutifulness, justice, prudence, self-control, love, fidelity, and so on?will not then survive, and society will sink into pagan barbarism.
Lewis therefore began writing fantasy tales for children that would teach these virtues by example. These are the Narnia stories (1950-56), seven tales built round the almost allegorical figure of Aslan, the lion Savior-Lord. In these and his other works of fiction, Lewis used the mythical manner to focus with imaginative and searching force realities that would get inside us to haunt us better than mere formal definitions could ever do.
it seems that Lewis was 'preaching to the choir" more than anything else.
groverat:
Quote:
Originally posted by groverat
Did I say that Narnia turns kids into holy warriors?
I really think you are 99% the way there.
Quote:
Originally posted by groverat
Am I being a sour-puss about it? Sure. I don't think it's cute. Every day we lose people to a new holy war fueled by the religious on both sides.
I think, to your credit, that you're being consistent here. The materialistic mindset is vehemently antithetical to what Lewis stood for and the values he represented. If we don't have souls, and are what B.F. Skinner said we are, then I suppose Lewis' work really is silly and dangerous. Conflict based on imaginary morals (since all morals are social constructs), and credence placed in imaginary revelation (since it is impossible for God to exist), should logically be avoided at all costs.
I'll be burning my copies of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, Plato's Republic, Luther's Bondage of the Will, and Augustine's City of God later. There's no telling the trouble my kids could get into being exposed to the same ideas that drove some of the most divisive/violent people in history, (And I'll be using Lex Rex and An Essay Concerning Human Understanding as bathroom tissue, since they motivated revolutionaries like Franklin and Jefferson.)
laugh, dammit -- I have to sharpen my daughters' broadswords and take them to Sunday School.
In the books did Aslan know that he would come back from the dead because he was unjustly sacrificed on that particular stone table?
The movie sure as hell gave me that impression. My daughter got that impression and came to the conclusion that Aslan wasn't that big of a hero because he knew he would come back. I turned that into a teaching moment and asked her if that would be the case for Jesus as well and she decided it would be (if jesus really was a demigod, but she didn't buy that either).
I think a movie about Lewis and Empson would likely be better. They could do a split screen?two men at their typewriters, calling one another names in scholarly journals!
Gorgeous. You should store this idea, elaborate it a bit
and pitch it to a movie company. It is pretty sound.
It's typically a movie for kids. My kids said that it was a better movie for them than the lord of the rings (less scary). But it's not a movie for adults. The special effects where amazing except for Aslan and the castors.
My kids and my wife (who is catholic) did not discovered any connection between Jesus and Aslan. If you don't search connections you will not find them. Even if the goal of CS Lewis was to convert kids to christianity I doubt that this book can have a great influence.
BTW it was the first time I saw, a digital projection. BTW you can still see some pixels in the letters of the movies, but the lack of dust and scratch, and the stability of the images are truely amazing
It's typically a movie for kids. My kids said that it was a better movie for them than the lord of the rings (less scary). But it's not a movie for adults. The special effects where amazing except for Aslan and the castors.
My kids and my wife (who is catholic) did not discovered any connection between Jesus and Aslan. If you don't search connections you will not find them. Even if the goal of CS Lewis was to convert kids to christianity I doubt that this book can have a great influence.
BTW it was the first time I saw, a digital projection. BTW you can still see some pixels in the letters of the movies, but the lack of dust and scratch, and the stability of the images are truely amazing
Edit : some connection between Aslan are more evident in the fifth book, with the Aurore boat at the end of this book, when Aslan explain to Lucy and Edmund, that he will never go back to Narnia, but that he will meet them in the future but not in the form of a lion.
It also appears in the other book that Aslan is a metamorph, able to take any form he want.
Comments
Originally posted by e1618978
You lost track of what you were responding to, it didn't have anything to do with substitutionary atonement:
"The whole notion of holy wars goes so against what Jesus taught it is laughable. Not to mention the worship of royalty that I don't believe appears in his teachings."
Also, Christ was a hippie communist, I don't think that he would fit in at a current Baptist church for example.
Let's take a look at what preceeded that:
They say this is a Christian tale, but I don't see much connection to the teachings of Jesus.
To miss the concept of substitutionary attonment in Christ's teachings, let alone in Lewis' work is something of a mystery. The mystery is compounded by a vauge assertion that 'holy war' is taught in 'the church' while substitutionary attonment is not.
There still seems to be a vague, at-large animus to attempting to carry off the connection between 'blatant Christian (??) propaganda' and a 'new holy war', this is baffling.
Originally posted by blue2kdave
Thank you, well put. I simply believe that what is known today as a Christian church has very little do most of the time with the simplicity of Jesus' message. Churches are where human politics intersect faith, and this often results in behavior that contradicts what I know as Jesus' teachings. Jesus taught love and compassion for all, not war and worship of royalty.
If you missed the theme of substitutionary atonement in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe -- and are positing that Christian teaching promotes the worship of Royalty, are you sure you understand either Jesus' message or Christian teachings enough to comment? Perhaps a listing of the doctrinal positions of the various denominations would be helpful in showing this connection.
Just a thought.
Originally posted by Justin
This is most peculiar.
Well in the lazy, undeveloped world of Narnia it's a problem. When a writer includes different races simply for the sake of including them it is not the reader's duty to build a rationale for him.
So Aslan is now Jesus, or is Aslan now a lion? Why not a lamb? Strange paradox. Either Aslan is a lion or Aslan is not a lion.
Aslan is a lion symbol for a man. I really don't know why you are making this seem complicated. It is not.
Aslan is the symbol of a man, Christ.
That symbol is the lion; violent king.
Christ = violent king?
Oh boy. "Children are weak and selfish." And are adults not weak and selfish?
Did I say that adults are not weak and selfish?
In essence, imputing characteristics of 'weakness and selfishness' in children as universal characteristics - traits which are also shared by adults non-universally is an invalid argument. The contempt in your tone for children makes me shiver by the way.
And the culture of child worship makes me shiver just as much. I have no contempt for children, I only lack the delusional belief that they are miniature adults.
Joan of Arc was still a child at 14 years when she saved Domremy and her French Dauphin from defeat by the English, and later burnt alive for her love of her country. It may be suprising to learn that she really was feminine, and not masculine.
And god talked to her, as well. This is reliable and accurate history!
dmz:
...is meant to be illuminating, but still, how does this tie into some sense of immediacy, or relevance, to Lewis' 'blatant Christian porpaganda'?
Lewis' goal was to influence the minds of children; to open the door for Christ. Why would a child's mind be closed to Christ in the first place? What otherwise-distasteful messages was he sugar-coating?
I never said there was any sort of immediacy at all. That is yet another straw-man from you, one of an infinite number.
How many drops of rain are in a rainstorm?
If I am but one actor in a crime involving thousands, is my part not worthy of discussion?
Originally posted by groverat
Lewis' goal was to influence the minds of children;
I think you meant ...souls of children
Originally posted by groverat
Why would a child's mind be closed to Christ in the first place? What otherwise-distasteful messages was he sugar-coating?
I guess the 'otherwise-distastefull message' that Lewis 'sugar coated' must have been something other than substitutional atonement; I don't see much else in the book that would be recognized by a child --- unless you're serious about the holy warrior thing --- in which case, the Harry Potter series will turn my children into Wiccans, and Treasure Island turn them into pirates. (I'd let them read Tom Sawyer but I can't afford the Ritalin.)
Originally posted by dmz
If you missed the theme of substitutionary atonement in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe -- and are positing that Christian teaching promotes the worship of Royalty, are you sure you understand either Jesus' message or Christian teachings enough to comment? Perhaps a listing of the doctrinal positions of the various denominations would be helpful in showing this connection.
Just a thought.
I know that my point is subtle and somewhat inflammatory, but I believe that most churches have hierarchical power structures, much like royalty. Certainly the pope is glorified much like a king. Also there are many references as God as a King in the bible, certainly equating royalty with the divine. This is not an accident. Nothing that I was taught in the teachings of Jesus specifically (and it has been a awhile) would seem to indicate that we should adhere to these kind of power structures. I am separating out the teachings of Jesus from the bible, since much of the bible has little to do with Jesus. Remember, the bible as we know it is simply a collection of stories about Jesus tacked onto the Hebrew texts, approved by the Roman emperor Constantine. I believe it was at that time that the true message and teachings of Jesus was lost.
Originally posted by dmz I think you meant ...souls of children
No, I meant the minds of children.
I guess the 'otherwise-distastefull message' that Lewis 'sugar coated' must have been something other than substitutional atonement; I don't see much else in the book that would be recognized by a child --- unless you're serious about the holy warrior thing --- in which case, the Harry Potter series will turn my children into Wiccans, and Treasure Island turn them into pirates. (I'd let them read Tom Sawyer but I can't afford the Ritalin.)
Did I say that Narnia turns kids into holy warriors?
Are you making even the slightest effort to understand what I'm saying or is it just easier to pretend that the conversation is going along lines you find easier to deal with?
BTW the author claimed that this book was supposed to prepare child for christianity, and this book was indeed very popular in the christians circles. But I doubt that this book have such a great influence on childs minds (even if the goal of this book was to influence them). I find the book intertaining but childish. I also read two book of Harry potter (5 and 6) and I find them much more mature, sophistacated (plots, study of characters) than Narmia, even if Harry potter fall in the caricature with the Dubleys (but that's humor here).
Many times, adults tend to influence their kids, in order to make them copycat. But most of the time it fail. If CS lewis thinked that his book will be a big contribution to christianism, I think he failed, and was quite arrogant to think so. Most childs will take this book at it is : a fairy tale, like Santa Klaus. Something that childs love to hear , but that they forgot quickly when they are becoming adults.
Either way, the movie was pretty boring, until at least when the wolves headed out towards the beavers dam.
groverat, I think your taking a cynical and odd viewpoint of the movies plot. Do you watch western movies as well and make comments like?"oh leave the women to clean and cook while you go out"?
<for everyone>
Learn to accept a movie for what it is, not what you want it to be.
Powerdoc:
I think that is would be very hard for an unbelieving child to effectively connect with the allegorical references in Lewis work. Lewis was very much the studied theologian -- he knew full well that 'getting saved' was not just a transfer of information:
from Lewis:
"Let us suppose that there were a land like Narnia and that the Son of God, as He became a Man in our world, became a Lion there, and then imagine what would happen."
from Christian History & Biography:
As Lewis explains in his essay "Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What's to Be Said," at first he had no intention of promoting Christian ideas. He began to write The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe because he had begun to see images: "a faun carrying an umbrella, a queen on a sledge, a magnificent lion." The fairy tale seemed the best literary form to handle the events that were growing from the images. Later on, he began to see how the stories could be used to get away from stained-glass boredom and cultivate Christian feelings, especially among children who were alienated from Sunday school. To teach the Chronicles as Christian doctrine is to defeat Lewis's purpose in writing. Similarly, to demand that the reader respond with the "delighted praise of beauty" is to foster the literary snobbery that Lewis hated.
another article covers this in a little more depth:
One thing leads to another. In The Abolition of Man, Lewis argued, echoing Plato, that in educating children one must instill "emotions organized by trained habit into stable sentiments," otherwise they will grow into "men without chests," lacking strength of character to control their unruly passions. Basic virtue?dutifulness, justice, prudence, self-control, love, fidelity, and so on?will not then survive, and society will sink into pagan barbarism.
Lewis therefore began writing fantasy tales for children that would teach these virtues by example. These are the Narnia stories (1950-56), seven tales built round the almost allegorical figure of Aslan, the lion Savior-Lord. In these and his other works of fiction, Lewis used the mythical manner to focus with imaginative and searching force realities that would get inside us to haunt us better than mere formal definitions could ever do.
it seems that Lewis was 'preaching to the choir" more than anything else.
groverat:
Originally posted by groverat
Did I say that Narnia turns kids into holy warriors?
I really think you are 99% the way there.
Originally posted by groverat
Am I being a sour-puss about it? Sure. I don't think it's cute. Every day we lose people to a new holy war fueled by the religious on both sides.
I think, to your credit, that you're being consistent here. The materialistic mindset is vehemently antithetical to what Lewis stood for and the values he represented. If we don't have souls, and are what B.F. Skinner said we are, then I suppose Lewis' work really is silly and dangerous. Conflict based on imaginary morals (since all morals are social constructs), and credence placed in imaginary revelation (since it is impossible for God to exist), should logically be avoided at all costs.
I'll be burning my copies of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations,
laugh, dammit -- I have to sharpen my daughters' broadswords and take them to Sunday School.
I'm not qualified to comment on the Christian allegory but I will say this:
The Ice Queen? I would hit it. Thrice. And I don't care if she turned me to stone afterwards.
Question-
In the books did Aslan know that he would come back from the dead because he was unjustly sacrificed on that particular stone table?
The movie sure as hell gave me that impression. My daughter got that impression and came to the conclusion that Aslan wasn't that big of a hero because he knew he would come back. I turned that into a teaching moment and asked her if that would be the case for Jesus as well and she decided it would be (if jesus really was a demigod, but she didn't buy that either).
Originally posted by midwinter
I think a movie about Lewis and Empson would likely be better. They could do a split screen?two men at their typewriters, calling one another names in scholarly journals!
Gorgeous. You should store this idea, elaborate it a bit
and pitch it to a movie company. It is pretty sound.
It's typically a movie for kids. My kids said that it was a better movie for them than the lord of the rings (less scary). But it's not a movie for adults. The special effects where amazing except for Aslan and the castors.
My kids and my wife (who is catholic) did not discovered any connection between Jesus and Aslan. If you don't search connections you will not find them. Even if the goal of CS Lewis was to convert kids to christianity I doubt that this book can have a great influence.
BTW it was the first time I saw, a digital projection. BTW you can still see some pixels in the letters of the movies, but the lack of dust and scratch, and the stability of the images are truely amazing
Originally posted by Vox Barbara
Gorgeous. You should store this idea, elaborate it a bit
and pitch it to a movie company. It is pretty sound.
I think it'll go. Maybe a third splitscreen of the writing of Empson Agonistes?
Apologies for going off topic, but this thread has made my day at work bearable by being both amusing and filled with intelligent debate.
Gracias!
Originally posted by Powerdoc
I watched the movie with my kids.
It's typically a movie for kids. My kids said that it was a better movie for them than the lord of the rings (less scary). But it's not a movie for adults. The special effects where amazing except for Aslan and the castors.
My kids and my wife (who is catholic) did not discovered any connection between Jesus and Aslan. If you don't search connections you will not find them. Even if the goal of CS Lewis was to convert kids to christianity I doubt that this book can have a great influence.
BTW it was the first time I saw, a digital projection. BTW you can still see some pixels in the letters of the movies, but the lack of dust and scratch, and the stability of the images are truely amazing
Edit : some connection between Aslan are more evident in the fifth book, with the Aurore boat at the end of this book, when Aslan explain to Lucy and Edmund, that he will never go back to Narnia, but that he will meet them in the future but not in the form of a lion.
It also appears in the other book that Aslan is a metamorph, able to take any form he want.
this movie was bad.
i dont know about the source material so whatever.
honestly, i dont know how its doing so well, actually , yes i do
its a christain themed film. ahhh good ole' america
this movie was terrible, absolutely terrible.
acting sucked, cg sucked, action sucked,story was lame
sorry for ranting,
i want my money back .
EDIT: even for kids i thought this was bad. maybe if you were 8 years or younger it couldve been good, ONLY 8 years old or younger.