The Protestant Apocrypha (or what Narnia isn't)

[prixmium]

Edit: I originally put an Age Restriction notice on this post to provide a content warning, but it meant that it bugged out when users who weren't logged in tried to view it. Therefore, I am removing the content restriction as this is not actually NSFW and will put the warning in text here instead:

This post contains discussions of period-typical (1950s-ish) racism, Islamophobia, and xenophobia. It also contains discussion of my own religious beliefs and other such discourse-y topics.

So, I made two poster images for lands_of_magic. The challenge was to make a poster for basically any fannish thing, and one of the suggestions was to make posters for fic one had never gotten around to writing. That was the prompt I chose, and for whatever reason the two fics-in-my-brain that presented themselves both had to do with Narnia. Both are concepts that I put quite a lot of thought into in high school. The only-about-Narnia one, I started writing sometime between the ages of 17 and 19, because I know I started it in high school, and I know I was still working on it sometimes very early on in university. Then something drew me away from it, and I lost touch with the person who was my sounding board about it, and I never finished it. The second was a fic that I never got around to writing but which was a crossover Narnia/Whoniverse fic about Susan Pevensie meeting Jack Harkness after her whole family died in the railway accident.

The images below the cut.









Anyway, in thinking about whether I would like to have a go at writing either of these again, of course I am thinking about a lot of Narnia-related things.

I don't think hearing people talk about HDM got me thinking about this? It just seems like it arose from something else, but who knows.

A disclaimer: I never actually finished reading the Narnia books. I bought them in high school after becoming invested in the two movies that were out at the time. I read them, but I honestly found those that hadn't been adapted into films very boring, and I knew from the internet the general shape of The Last Battle and naturally dreaded it. I think I got into the first bit of PJO at that point and forgot all about reading the Narnia books, bit by bit.

The texts of the Narnia books aren't that good. And so I really don't get what all the fuss is about anytime someone brings them up.

I think that there are completely valid criticisms that the books are, at times, racist and misogynistic. But you don't get the same kind of bile being risen up by other books of the time period and even from among the same circle of writers. People still unironically like LOTR. Maybe LOTR does gender a bit better, but the same accusations of racism could be leveled against them to my knowledge. Tolkein and Lewis were both men of their time. I am not saying that excuses their ignorance, but I guess I am saying that I think that ignorance plays a greater role than informed hatred a lot of the time in older texts.

I think it was on here that one of you said something about the Narnian texts maybe giving a Muslims a fair shake? If that was one of you I would like to hear what you have to say about it.

I suppose the reason that so many people get upset about Narnia is that it is pretty straightforward in its allegorical elements, but I don't think that it makes any sense to read it as a purely-allegorical text, anymore than Lord of the Rings is purely allegory about World War I.

Tolkein famously wrote:

“I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history – true or feigned– with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.”

And I think that, in that respect, the fact that Narnia is so directly applicable to Christianity probably doesn't mean that it is intended as a sneaky tool-of-indoctrination. I would have to do a lot more research about Lewis than I have just absorbed through osmosis, but I guess my first intuitive counter to that criticism of the books is that I really don't think children of 1950s England needed any help being indoctrinated by cultural Christianity. And, in fact, the Narnian narrative - if taken as religiously instructive and purposeful - has a much more universalist flavor than most mainstream Christians are prepared to accept. The fact that I find it comforting doesn't really mean that it is rank-and-file. While the suggestion that Aslan is "Narnia's Jesus" and the Emperor-over-the-Sea is a spirit akin to the intangible aspect of the God of Christianity is nothing I think any reasonable person is going to argue on its face, the fact is that Aslan and the Emperor are distinct from Jesus and God the Father. A lot of people only read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," as it is the most famous and tbh Lewis's prose and especially his efforts at characterization leave much to be desired in mature readers. The pools in The Magician's Nephew were free portals between all these different universes, and each of them had their own creator and, in effect, god.

Furthermore, in Narnia itself you have the appearance of a lot of Greco-Roman deities and British mythological creatures who are not biblical by any means. You have Bacchus in a children's book at one point, and tbh I am never getting over that one.

And then, I have read recently in my sort of lazy, self-assessing research that in The Last Battle, there is a Calormene soldier who is extremely devoted to Tash (a violent, negative deity whom the Calormenes worship) in a way that is, like, good-hearted and pious and pure even though Tash himself is a bad god who requires human sacrifice and is all sorts of devil-y archetypes folded into some rather orientalist imagery*. And in the end, Aslan tells the faithful Tash-follower that because of the nature of his service to this bad god that it is as service unto him instead. Basically any good-intentioned piety was service to Aslan and any badly-intentioned service to a god was to Tash, even if they claimed it was unto Aslan. And while I find some appeal in that too, I can promise you that most professing Christians are extremely one-way-the-only-way minded and aren't even sure that the people at the church down the street are doing it right.

*Re: Orientalism/racism/Islamophobia critique of Lewis's work, see what I said above about the product of their time remarks. But furthermore, the human populations of the Narnian world (of which the country Narnia is only a part, yay for Eurocentrism I guess?) are transplants from Earth. There are no native humans to that world as I understand it.

According to Wikipedia, the tensions between Calormen and Narnia are kind of based on historical fact???

Calormenes are described as dark-skinned, with the men mostly bearded. Flowing robes, turbans and wooden shoes with an upturned point at the toe are common items of clothing, and the preferred weapon is the scimitar. Lavish palaces are present in the Calormene capital Tashbaan. The overall leitmotif of Calormene culture is portrayed as ornate to the point of ostentation. The people of Calormen are concerned with maintaining honour and precedent, often speaking in maxims and quoting their ancient poets. Veneration of elders and absolute deference to power are marks of Calormene society. Power and wealth determine class and social standing, and slavery is commonplace. The unit of currency is the Crescent. Narnians hold Calormenes in disdain for their treatment of animals and slaves. Conversely, Calormenes refer to the human inhabitants of Narnia as "barbarians". All of this appears quite consistent with the Osmanli Turkish Ottoman Empire (1299-1923), its known and purported splendor, rigid class structure, and the always-volatile relationship with many of its European neighbors.

So, like, yeah, I'm not going to argue with anybody that it isn't racist/xenophobic. And yet I think that in the above-stated sense that Aslan was totally willing to accept the Tash-follower guy, and the fact that you have a sort of mutual-distrust and dislike and a sometimes-okay coexistence between the Calormenes and the Narnians that Lewis wasn't trying to suggest that there was nothing redeemable about them as one might in the modern day if one were going at a xenophobic rant, metaphorical or otherwise. Again, I am not really trying to act like I am particularly qualified to draw conclusions here, just talking about a thing. I guess inasmuch as one can look to their cultural programming before anything makes them question it, one could say that growing up in the British Empire that still sort of existed even formally up into the 20th Century that viewing someone as other and outside was pretty much par for the course. Europe has a long, long history of that, all the way back to Rome. The term "barbarian" comes from a mockery of what non-Latin languages sounded like to Latin speakers as I understand it (or was it Greek? - I'm too tired to look it up).

Incidentally, my Narnia google trawl of recent days led me to Skandar Keynes's twitter (the guy who played Edmund in the most recent Narnia adaptations). Turns out, as of 2016, he said he'd quit pursuing acting. He was, at the time, working as an advisor to a (blergh) Conservative MP in the UK, but a scroll through his twitter indicates that perhaps his primary interest is in Middle Eastern relations. (This being explained, partly, by the fact that he is half Lebanese.) Which led me to this thread which I, unfortunately, lack the sophistication to fully find the line between satire and seriousness, but it does have a bibliography that seems to indicate that there's some degree of seriousness involved.

https://twitter.com/KarlreMarks/status/1181897446001201152

I am educated enough to know that the origin of the Caesar salad bit is BS, though. Score 1, me.

But to draw this ramble to a close, I guess I would just like to express my frustration with the tendency to equate Narnia with, idk, a mainline protestant thinkpiece?

Perhaps it is because of my position where I feel embattled by both the mainstream/conservative practitioners of my faith and by non-religious/atheistic/practitioners-of-other-religions people within the leftist circles I tend to be in the periphery of. I recently had a falling out with someone (with whom, to be fair, I was never going to be eye-to-eye with but continued to try for the sake of a social group) who said that I was about two steps away from being a "white supremacist tradwife" on twitter. I can assure that this isn't the case, and that whole situation would merit another post, and I think I might be better off not making it for now. I bring it up now because, I suppose, I feel like a lot of present-day Christians are extremely unsophisticated in their philosophy, not least of all because their cultural institutions make them afraid to examine very much.

The fragility of modern faith is something that is interesting to see. Again, I could make another whole post about the push of anti-intellectualism in conservative (Christian) religious communities, particularly that which exists in the American South as this is where I am from, but I feel like there is this sense that being a person of faith is like being a part of an endangered species. There are those in the sort of evangelistic atheist community who see religion as a cultural disease to be eradicated in the name of scientific or cultural progress. I am completely opposed to that line of thinking, and I try not to engage with it except when it is useful to do so for the sake of my blood pressure, but I guess I can simply say that I don't think that the eradication of faith/religion is ever going to happen. I believe it is a human impulse, for personally biased but also just historically observant reasons. And yet, on the one side, you have people who think that if people of faith would just listen to them list a handful of philosophical problems and takes on, like, the Problem of Suffering, Why Does God Let Bad Things Happen to Good People, Why does Evil EXIST, etc., that their silly, childish beliefs would melt like cotton candy in rain. And on the other hand, you have people of faith who... apparently... believe the exact same thing?

I've read a lot of compelling arguments that say that, in terms of cultural discourse and debate, progressive Christians really cannot say that the backward, queer-hating, anti-intellectual, angry, violent, stupid Christians who perpetuate fascism and genocide without a thought "aren't real Christians." For every sociological intent and purpose, they are, regardless of what one believes about the spiritual state of anyone in particular. On the other hand, though, I really wonder what personal business these terrified, cowering Christians have calling themselves Christians when they're scared to death that watching Good Omens is going to turn them into a secular Satanist a la Anton Levey.

But back to what that even has to do with Narnia:

When I was looking for Narnia pictures to make the above poster-things, I found several search results returned from the library of DVDs that some church somewhere has. (I can guarantee they are the religious homeschooling community type, which I have mixed feelings about from personal experience and what I [thankfully] didn't often experience when I was home-schooled.) Sorry but it's just so weird to me that some churches become so turned-inward that they have to become little communes. I don't think there's anything wrong with a church providing services to their members and communities, but when the first impression I get is their collection of Narnia DVDs, I am struck by certain presumptions which may or may not be true.

The first of these presumptions is that a lot of protestant Christians seem to think that, because C.S. Lewis wrote it and also wrote texts they like to read in Sunday School, The Chronicles of Narnia is the only Jesus-approved speculative fiction. (Idk they never talk about his Planets books. I knew one lady who did once, rest her soul.)

And, in turn, a lot of non-Christians look at any Christian who does like Narnia as if we are meant to turn in a term paper with a robust bibliography about how we justify such a terrible thing since it has such stark Christian imagery in something that... isn't the Bible? And that is where I got my title from. I feel like a lot of people, both Christian and non-Christian, treat The Chronicles of Narnia like it is the Christian Apocrypha or something and it is bananas to me.

I guess, to be fair, I understand where some of it comes from. I think that a lot of people, especially non-Christians, feel frustrated by the way in which present-day western mythology is so saturated with Christian lore in a way that everyone likes to ignore or is simply too immersed to see for what it is. I had a conversation with someone on twitter recently about how in the BBC series Merlin they talk about "the Old Religion" sometimes, but they seem to have no concept of religion in the present sense. They have one presumably, but they never allude to Christianity or a church or anything of that nature. It is almost funny, and yet the series itself sort of necessitates that one assume that the "New Religion" is Christianity if one knows enough about England or Arthuriana to fill a thimble.

I remarked to this person that it was frustrating even to me as a Christian that there is a thing in popular culture that we can use Christian concepts and themes all day long, and as long as we don't name them, we're being nicely neutral and inclusive. And no, it isn't. The person helpfully replied to me that an environment in which a person has to hide their religious beliefs or affiliations (not just fail to bash people over the head with it) isn't really a religiously tolerant environment at all.

This practice of pretending unmarked Christian mythological allusions and concepts are "neutral" is alienating both to people outside the Christian faith and to those within it. Treating it as background noise that everyone is just supposed to assume is "normal" is generally not good.

Christians are faced with it being cool to be what they are as long as they never say it out loud in mixed company, and everyone else is faced with these things being treated as default. And yeah, that sucks.

And so I think that frustration often just suddenly reaches a boiling point when anyone talks about Narnia. I feel like people expect me to explain C.S. Lewis and all his flaws to them every time I bring up Narnia. And, yeah, I am a little hypersensitive and tired and hate confrontation about fandom stuff that doesn't feel friendly or fun, so maybe I am overstating things, but this is my blog. But, like, I feel like this frustration is kind of weirdly placed, because regardless of what one argues about allegory versus applicability, the Christian mythological influence is overt and discussed in theological terms, even if Aslan is the actually-separate-from-Jesus god of another universe. There is nothing stealthy about it. There is nothing mysterious or vague about it, as in the above-mentioned case of Merlin or every time substitutionary atonement is used as the natural conclusion to any conflict between good versus evil but is treated as neutral and as existing in a vacuum.

So I guess I would just like to say that Narnia isn't a modern-revelation religious text to any Christian in their right mind. One could say that it is religious literature, I guess, but it isn't scripture, so please (strawman I'm frustrated with but whose features I have seen in many anecdotes in my life) stop laying it at my feet as if it is.

One last side-note: I found this video series of some theologian-type Oxfordian talking about how each of the Narnia books represents the spirit of one of the seven heavens of medieval cosmology and it is super interesting. He is like a professor of Christian apologetics, so his biases of it being sort of religiously affirmative literature are heavy, but it also made me feel kind of happy about being able to see a broader meaning and openness to, I guess, magical concepts than any average Christians are ever comfortable with (as most Christians would tell you magic itself is forbidden). Here's one video from it:

"Extras VII. The Order of the Medieval Heavens" (Watch on YouTube)

Comments

[angelofthenorth]

The guy in the video is someone we knew at uni as Spud - he was the chaplain at Peterhouse (Cambridge) for a time. Nice to see his work still catches the eye :)

[prixmium]

H-How did you find this post this quickly? It speaks of some kind of unnatural power.

Anyway, that is really cool!

I have been thinking about going back to school again, recently, and while I half-think I'll never do it, if I ever do I would really like to visit the UK. Or just visit the UK in general, but unless my career path changes I doubt I'll ever get to go just on vacation. Besides, I'm terrible at going on vacation.

I found this pretty much by accident, but it's pretty neat.

It's also sweet just to see how in-earnest they're talking about it.

[angelofthenorth]

Network page. I was bored and browsing. Spud was Very Earnest but utterly lovely.

The UK is not a great place to be, and it doesn't look like it's going to get better any time soon. I'm hoping the Union (UK) will dissolve and Scotland and Wales will be able to rejoin the EU, but that's a faint hope.

I don't write about Narnia any more, though I love the books for what they are, but I did start writing a Harry Potter/Narnia crossover some 16 years ago https://fictionalley.ikeran.org/authors/angel_of_the_north/ has the link

[prixmium]

I am aware that this whole Brexit business is pretty terrible. I want to visit because I like a lot of things that have come from there, and Trump America doesn't really seem like it could be a lot better.

(I want to see Doctor Who related stuff, though yeah, I have been kind of hoping that some things in both our places of residence will change for the better, somehow.)

I've been trying to get back into writing more. I haven't stopped exactly, but I miss my productivity from ten years ago.

[angelofthenorth]

We used to have the Doctor Who experience in Cardiff Bay, but I think that's been repurposed. I've visited torchwood tower and the rest :) Quite a lot was filmed near where I used to live in Cardiff (I'm now further west by about 60 miles) including the church from Father's Day.

I miss writing. I'm finding that trying to do 365 posts in Welsh has really helped me with the language, and being able to think a bit more. I do post in English about once a week.

[mindstalk]

Have you read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_The_Chronicles_of_Narnia ?

Lewis apparently denied deliberately setting out to make a Christian allegory or lure. OTOH "Since Narnia is a world of Talking Beasts, I thought He [Christ] would become a Talking Beast there, as He became a man here."

At the end of Dawn Treader:

“It isn’t Narnia, you know,” sobbed Lucy. “It’s you. We shan’t meet you there. And how can we live, never meeting you?”
“But you shall meet me, dear one,” said Aslan.
“Are—are you there too, Sir?” said Edmund.
“I am,” said Aslan. “But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”

Aslan is Jesus, and Lewis is almost saying outright that Narnia is a lure to Christianity.

I agree that the religious stance of Narnia is kind of unorthodox! I think some Christians object for just that reason: too pagan, too universalist. OTOH the parallels between Aslan and Jesus are pretty striking, and in Wardrobe go deeper than just the sacrifice. The Witch claims Edmunder under the Deep Magic/Old Law, which is written on the Stone Table, and Aslan agrees. He sacrifices himself, but that breaks the Stone Table, and brings a Deeper Magic... it's very supercessionist: Jesus replacing the Law of Moses's stone tablets. And then of course we get a form of Revelation/Apocalypse in The Last Battle, complete with Antichrist (anti-Aslan), though again unorthodox in ways.

'barbarian' is from the Greeks.

[prixmium]

I haven't yet! Thanks for the link. I am going to end up writing BS fanfic aren't I.

I remember liking some of the stuff from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader text about that.

I guess that it comes down to a discussion of "is positive portrayal propaganda" or a "lure" and I kind of think that it isn't in all cases?

Certainly these are recycled concepts from scripture, but one could make the argument that simply suggesting that the Narnian world needed a similar kind of redemption doesn't mean that it was intended to "trick" kids into finding Jesus more interesting. And the notion that all rightful divine power comes from a central font isn't a unique or particularly Christian-specific take (in fact most would say it was false).

[prixmium]

An addendum: I read the page and then clicked on a few of the footnotes. I already knew that I was fairly unimpressed with Pullman's take on the whole matter, but I found this article actually rather stomach-churning: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/dec/05/cslewis.booksforchildrenandteenagers

Of course The Guardian is pretty well-known to be controversy-stirring pulp as far as I know, but it really bothers me that we are often sort of seesawing between the notion of religious tolerance and this abolitionist stuff where people can say cruel, sweeping things about Christianity in particular because they believe that it is itself a bully. This is the kind of rhetoric that makes me feel embattled, even if it doesn't directly threaten my life.

[mindstalk]

On Lewis: Article: 'Lewis said he hoped the book would soften-up religious reflexes and "make it easier for children to accept Christianity when they met it later in life".'

Separately:

You: "because they believe that it is itself a bully"

To be fair, there is a *lot* of history and even current practice behind that. For most of its history Christianity has been the quintessential "we are the one true way" religion. Judaism is monotheist but a tribal non-missionary religion, while Islam usually at least tolerated other monotheists as second-class citizens, better than Jews were in Christian Europe. I've read that part of what sped the initial Arab conquests was that Christians found it easier to live under the Muslims than under different kinds of Christians!

[prixmium]

I mean for sure. I am not really denying the latter part of the reply. However, I would say that while I can't really cite a lot of good research for you right now, not least of all because of my own emotional fatigue at the subject, I would posit that part of this has to do with the history of the practice of Christianity and how it has been adopted into the mainstream. In very early church history, Christians were persecuted and killed and oppressed, then some of their oppressors converted. And while that wasn't bad news for the Christians of the time, it has sociologically linked Christianity and mainstream secular power for centuries. Christianity is used as a bludgeon just as Islam is used in parts of the Arab world today.

Things like this even exist in India among some territorial Hindu people, but I don't know enough about it to say more. My point isn't that Christianity isn't "guilty" of this or that it is "okay" because other religions are used for it but that in all cases the faith of most religious people and the way in which their religion is being co-opted as a weapon is bad for them, too.

The thing that made me kind of angry about the article, though, more than anything, was the notion that Christianity is just one big guilt-trip and that it is "disgusting." Even when I vehemently disagree with a philosophical or religious stance, I try not to spit on it, and her whole "who asked him to?" rhetoric struck me as exceedingly disrespectful.

And just a note that at this point this particular vein of conversation is making me feel a bit like I am poking an exposed nerve over and over. It isn't that it isn't a conversation worth having or that looking at things critically is itself a problem. I just feel kind of emotionally exhausted from not fitting in anywhere.

[wheatear]

I love the Narnia books. I got a beautiful box set of them when I was a kid and I read them all multiple times. (The Horse and His Boy is boring, but the rest are great.)

Aslan and the Emperor are distinct from Jesus and God the Father.

I definitely interpreted them as being the same. In The Last Battle there's a line where the children are in heaven and they meet Aslan and it says something like "He no longer looked to them like a lion", with a capital He in the middle of the sentence. It's been hinted at before but at that point it stops being metaphorical and makes the explicit link that yes, Aslan is God.

Basically any good-intentioned piety was service to Aslan and any badly-intentioned service to a god was to Tash, even if they claimed it was unto Aslan. And while I find some appeal in that too, I can promise you that most professing Christians are extremely one-way-the-only-way minded and aren't even sure that the people at the church down the street are doing it right.

I guess that's reflective of your experience of Christianity. I don't know enough about 1950s Britain to be able to say whether Lewis' view would have been shared by the majority of his peers. There's a certain type of Christianity that is very literal and Biblical, but I don't think that's how Lewis saw things, at least judging by his books. I think the ascribing good faith acts to Aslan even if that person worshipped Tash was Lewis' way of reconciling the fact that good people might follow a different religion and so giving them a way to get into heaven despite worshipping the "wrong" god. Which is unconventional, but I liked it, it's a much kinder idea than the notion that all unbelievers go to hell regardless of their personal virtue.

I guess I would just like to express my frustration with the tendency to equate Narnia with, idk, a mainline protestant thinkpiece?

Yeah, that's understandable. I'm not sure if you're arguing that because it isn't mainstream, that makes it less of an allegory though? These are still Lewis' religious beliefs being conveyed in a form of a fantastical story, and it's not surprising that they don't fit with, say, a conservative American-style Christianity.

I believe it is a human impulse, for personally biased but also just historically observant reasons.

There's scientific evidence for this too. And, well, the entire history of humanity. To my eternal chagrin, rational arguments just don't work (this applies to politics as well, but it's not even about the argument really, whatever it might be, it's about approaching the subject from a completely different set of base principles). One of the problems with conservative-style evangelical Christianity imo is that it has bought into this idea that religious belief must be fact-based and therefore the Bible is to be taken literally and therefore there must be evidence of its historical validity, and frankly this is just not a good way to do religion and leads to the kind of anti-intellectualism you've described while also butting heads with atheistic/scientific circles in a really unfortunate and unproductive way.

This practice of pretending unmarked Christian mythological allusions and concepts are "neutral" is alienating both to people outside the Christian faith and to those within it.

This is interesting. I think you're right that it certainly isn't neutral. Isn't this basically what a Western-centric perspective boils down to though? If I think about the set of cultural concepts/stories etc that I or anyone else born in my particular culture have access to, then this is it. It's December now, there are Christmas decorations all over the place. I celebrate Christmas completely unironically without any religious belief. It's the same with Christian themes, motifs etc, in literature and so on. I don't feel alienated by it. But obviously that isn't the case for everyone.

[prixmium]

What I meant by distinct is the different personage. There is definitely the sense that there is a universal monotheism and that Aslan and his father are aspects of the same essence, mcuh in the same way as the Christian belief in the Trinity posits different persons within the same God. But that there is some greater sense of removal, too, because these persons of God(ness) are those which have purview over a different reality which is, except for in some specific places and times, separate from our own. Those walls are usually closed, etc. I am not trying to make the argument that Aslan isn't the manifestation of a singular divine force that is supposed to exist across the Narnian multiverse but that it isn't exactly the same. But I don't know about that bit of The Last Battle, but I find it kind of... weird... if Aslan suddenly is Jesus, as it would seem to me that the notion in The Last Battle is that, in a way, all those who died in it on Earth were more-suited to the Narnian... slice of afterlife anyway. They kind of effectively die twice as I understand it?

But to be honest, you know better than I do. I was primarily interested in the movies, and I only started to read the books in high school and never got all the way through the series because I got distracted. Funnily enough, The Horse and His Boy was the one that was most engaging to me, and as I recall I have never read The Last Battle or The Silver Chair.

There's a certain type of Christianity that is very literal and Biblical, but I don't think that's how Lewis saw things, at least judging by his books.

According to the "Religion in Narnia" Wikipedia page, Lewis was aware that he was weaving in religious concepts but that they weren't built as direct allegories, which he viewed something more along the lines of The Pilgrim's Progress where the characters are much more literal personifications of Despair or the like. He saw the characters as more articulated than that, I guess, though I would maybe poke at that given that I think his characterization is weak.

I will address your other two points later if you like as I must run along to teach now!

[wheatear]

But I don't know about that bit of The Last Battle, but I find it kind of... weird... if Aslan suddenly is Jesus, as it would seem to me that the notion in The Last Battle is that, in a way, all those who died in it on Earth were more-suited to the Narnian... slice of afterlife anyway. They kind of effectively die twice as I understand it?

Yep, they died twice. Once I think in a train crash in their world, and then again in Narnia. The way it comes across in that scene that Aslan is revealed to them as God (or possibly Jesus, it doesn't say which). I don't think the idea is that they're more suited to Narnia, more that they've gotten to know God in the form he takes in Narnia (i.e. Aslan) and now that they're in the afterlife he reveals himself in the form he takes in their world. Same essence, different forms.

The Silver Chair is a fun read, it features a great villain and mind control. The Last Battle has a really beautiful depiction of the afterlife. It's both incredibly appealing and incredibly chilling.

Aslan is the only character I recall being a direct equivalent to a Christian figure. There are other parallels and similarities of course, but I do think the other characters are characters in their own right too.

[prixmium]

I am tired at the time of writing this, so to this reply I would say yep, sounds good/fine to me lol.

To touch on a couple of things I didn't get to yesterday:

One of the problems with conservative-style evangelical Christianity imo is that it has bought into this idea that religious belief must be fact-based and therefore the Bible is to be taken literally and therefore there must be evidence of its historical validity, and frankly this is just not a good way to do religion and leads to the kind of anti-intellectualism you've described while also butting heads with atheistic/scientific circles in a really unfortunate and unproductive way.

Personally, I don't take the Bible either fully literally or fully figuratively, and I think a lot of Christians take this path to it. I am not anti-science or anti-intellectual, but personally I think that science has a purview and that it cannot make any useful determinations regarding metaphysics. This is what I wrote my philosophy thesis about in undergrad. I get offended by the idea that religious belief or practice, even if it is in the literal existence of something, is irrational or not based on whether science can prove it.

I celebrate Christmas completely unironically without any religious belief. It's the same with Christian themes, motifs etc, in literature and so on. I don't feel alienated by it. But obviously that isn't the case for everyone.

It's great that you don't feel alienated. I think some people do, particularly if they have grown up in an environment where they felt proselytized in a way that felt invasive or tried to force them to deny some aspect of themselves. Personally, I think that one philosophy professor I worked with back in undergrad had a good point about how we really shouldn't continue to just accept that "western norms" get to be "unmarked cases" (i.e. the default, the one without a label, etc.). For example, we should call Western Philosophy "Western Philosophy" as opposed to having "Philosophy" and "Eastern Philosophy." It helps to avoid a lot of disingenuousness in arguments if you actually define your terms.

On the other hand, my family are Christians and hardly celebrate Christmas at all. We don't believe there are any religious holidays apart from the Sabbath (and kind of Easter but that is like a specific Sabbath set aside to remember a thing that happened on Sunday according to the Bible.) It's kinda weird to explain that to people, and it caused a major wedge in my extended family growing up.

[wheatear]

I get offended by the idea that religious belief or practice, even if it is in the literal existence of something, is irrational or not based on whether science can prove it.

Yeah, I think we talked about this before in relation to your thesis, and it's one of those areas where I mostly agree with you. I think religious belief falls better into the domain of philosophy and can be grappled with there.

The part I don't relate to at all, and something I had to learn when engaging in these discussions, is this notion of being offended by that argument. It's an argument, it might be a good or bad argument, but I wouldn't expect it to cause offence either way because it isn't personal. (I might have said this already, but that's what I've learned about having these discussions: it can get unbalanced because for someone with religious belief it might very well be personal in a way that it just isn't for someone who doesn't share that worldview.)

I think some people do, particularly if they have grown up in an environment where they felt proselytized in a way that felt invasive or tried to force them to deny some aspect of themselves.

Yeah, I can appreciate that. I think it raises a question of how important it is to flag these things to ourselves (as your philosophy professor suggested). If you're operating within the norms of a particular culture, like Western culture, then is it okay for that to be unmarked/default? After all, in a very real sense it is the default within that space. Or should you make the effort to mark it as a consciousness-raising exercise.

[prixmium]

I guess the offense comes from someone making a judgment both about you (the believer) and the belief system in one fell swoop. I remember being in a German class with a couple of guys from my philosophy cohort about halfway through undergrad and them both chatting with me before class. One of them in particular just kept grilling me about the fact that I obviously, as an intelligent person, couldn't hold to my faith as anything more than a values system despite obviously realizing that there could be nothing behind it besides a sociological framework. And I was just, like, "No...???" but the fact that I didn't just let him define my terms for me remained a point of contention between us for the rest of the time I knew those people.

I think that some of my experiences with philosophy major types are why I feel the way I do about certain things, particularly feeling personally embattled by certain arguments or at least the spirit in which they're made. I know that's ironic because, in theory, philosophy majors should kind of know better than making arguments personal right away, but especially a certain Type do.

[anirrationalseason]

Your post reminds me a little of the Christianity Today article "CS Lewis Superstar," talking about how some evangelicals behave as if Narnia was a modern-day addition to Christian canon and end up substituting its messages for "actual" Christian belief (granted, the writer is writing as an evangelical and I feel like they specifically criticized the Calormene salvation scene as being "too universalist" and contrary to "what Christians actually believe" about salvation. Unfortunately, it's been years since I read the article, and it has since disappeared behind a paywall).

As for Narnia-the-books versus Narnia-the-movies, I love them both but I agree they're very different. They have different rhetorical concerns so make different rhetorical choices (the psychological realism that the movie endows the Pevensies with makes for more appealing drama, for example).

It's also kind of funny how much even the hardcore Protestants adore Lewis, for all that the man believed in purgatory and prayers for the dead, and spoke about the Eucharist as if the Real Presence inhabited the bread and wine. I grew up Methodist and was in and out of churches of all Protestant stripes (mainline Congregationalist/United Church of Christ, Southern Baptist, evangelical) my whole life, and nearly every church library could be counted on to have at least one Narnia or CS Lewis book.

I have heard really interesting things about Planet Narnia, although I've not yet read it. I saved the video to watch when I have more free time.

[prixmium]

That description of the article sounds really interesting and like something I would tend to agree with. It really is baffling.

I think that the reason that people in some protestant circles especially latch onto stuff like Narnia is that they have this tendency to want to surround their children with a Moat of Christian Influence as though protecting them from mainstream (pop) culture will make it more likely that they'll be converted Christians as they age. I think that this backfires more often than not, and while my parents did occasionally create a content restriction when I was growing up, for the most part they didn't try to Brand My Life with the Christian Lifestyle Brand and I hated hanging around families/kids who had that going on. I could tell even as a child that it was making a bunch of kids who parroted their parents' for their own safety who would ultimately renounce their beliefs as something they had to do to survive, which is the opposite of doing your faith's healthy practice a service. Because of the Christian symbols, parents Like That deem Narnia "safe" no matter how many interestingly troubling things there are in it if one thinks about it for five minutes beyond just absorbing the content.

Apparently I already watched that The Narnia Code video in like 2011??? I was looking at the notes for the Narnia fic I am mulling over writing or not, and I found that I had mentioned watching it.

I do not remember that at all.

Weird what depression brain does to people.

[anirrationalseason]

I think that this backfires more often than not, and while my parents did occasionally create a content restriction when I was growing up, for the most part they didn't try to Brand My Life with the Christian Lifestyle Brand and I hated hanging around families/kids who had that going on-- Oh yeah, I remember that whole subculture thing. You saw it a lot in the South. I remember as a teen performing a Rent song (...giggle) for a Christian academy, and when I peeked at their library it was all conservative Christian-branded books, DVDs, etc. One book that makes me really sad in retrospect was an "answers to common objections to the faith" manual that tried to logically explain how the earth was created in six thousand days, or where the other people came from during Cain and Abel. I mean it's an interesting thought experiment to propose how all that stuff could have been literal, but there was just no room for the "the Bible was not intended to be a scientific manual" explanation, and I imagine it caused a lot of pain and confusion when those kids went out into the wider world and encountered robust objections/evidence that, on their face, would seem to disprove what they believed. 'Cause that's what I went through, and I wasn't even particularly raised that way. (Even in my own middle school, my science teacher had to tell kids raised by those types of parents that "evolution is just a theory" before she could start teaching that chapter in our books.)

I also think parents like Narnia because they associate Lewis with "mere" Christianity and think of him as like the representative of nondenominational Protestantism. Which I guess he sort of was, with Mere Christianity ("[Christianity] is more like a hall out of which doors open into several rooms [denominations]. If I can bring anyone into that hall, I have done what I attempted"), but that didn't mean there wasn't also some subversive stuff in Narnia, or that his own personal beliefs weren't largely Anglican (rather than proto-evangelical) in character.

I forget that I've watched/read certain things all the time. Bizarrely, I'll remember other, pedantic little things that it makes no sense for me to retain -- even years and years later!

[prixmium]

Regarding the creation of the earth and macro-evolution (micro-evolution I have no question about whatsoever), I tend to fall on the side of believing that the universe was created with apparent age and that, perhaps, transition from one species to another one entirely may not be a thing, but if it was then I don't have a major crisis of faith over it. That said, even my stance on this while being a little more in-line with church-typical beliefs is too liberal for some people, and that's exhausting.

On the thing about memory: I started watching The Expanse Season 2 again today, and wow I remember almost nothing even though I was obsessed with this last year.