Quote (dafrca @ Oct. 06 2005,12:11) |
I have always found the need to link the Chronicles of Narnia to the Bible just because they knew the author was religious to be sad.
Read them once in 9th grade, again a couple of times in high school, and once as a 20 something. Did not see the link, did not remind me of the Bible, and can not see how it could be hurt from a LotRs treatment in the movie. It is an Epic Story and should be filmed as such.
But that is just my .02
dafrca |
Hi Dafrca and Gang,
I'm with Dafrca on this one.
I read all of the Narnia books (And most of CS Lewis's other works for children...) as a child and loved them...
And coincidentally never noticed the Christ/Aslan similarities...
It just didn't dawn on me and I grew up all around Christians and am very familiar with Christian beleif...
In fact, I used to tease some of the Catholics because they couldn't remember their "Hail Mary's" or "Our Fathers" (Prayers)...
And I think I can still rattle of those prayers by heart!
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I am a big CS Lewis fan and have read his biography, children's books and most of the rest of what he has written. I prefer his children's works because his literature can drone ON and ON....
I highly recommend hos "Terrible Sapce" trilogy!
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Unfortunately, Dafrca, C.S. Lewis discusses Narnia in several of his prvate writings and the religious aspect of Narnia was intentional. He felt that his writing was a good way to communicate Christian ideals to the world and particularly to children.
Almost all of his books have Christian themes or similarities to Christian stories.
As a teenager I found out about the Christian themes in Narnia and it almost ruined the books for me to think that I was being indoctrinated in "Christian thought." I didn't want to be "brainwashed." It bothered me for some time... many years, in fact.
Sometime in my 20s, I figured out that I reallly liked the books and I've separated the "Christianity" from the plain good fun in Narnia. They're good stories and that's what ought to come first.
Orson Scott Card, for intance, is a Mormon, but most of his books don't reflect markedly Mormon themes (Although more than a few do!). In fact, Card often uses themes that are rather universal to most human beings.
I feel that good sci-fi and fantasy most often reflect moral or ethical questions and how we can deal with the hypothetical problems of the future/past/fantasy. Good fiction doesn't always have those themes, but many of the best specimens of those genres often do.
Another factor in my "coming to terms" with the overtly Christian themes in the Narnia books is that I came to peace with Christianity as a generalized group. I used to have a big chip on my shoulder about Christians because of the trmendous amount of bad things they historically did to Jews throughout history. I separate that now. I still don't like it, but I deal with that issue separately from people I know and am friends with. It wouldn't be fair to them otherwise.
I eventually had to deal with the same issue with Muslims... and I did.
Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.