My first experience with Narnia was when I was a very little kid. I grew up with my parents reading many of the books from this series to me at night before I went to bed. And even better yet, one of my favorite movies growing up was the Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe on VHS. I don’t know if any of you have seen these but they’re great. The beavers are played by adults in huge beaver costumes, and the graphics are just amazing ha. Recently the Narnia movies have stepped their game up quite a bit, and it has been fun thinking about these stories again.
Brandon already hit on one of my favorite lines from the book about Aslan, referring to Aslan as a good lion, yet not safe or tame. I agree with Brandon, I think a lot of time we focus and think about God as this big, loveable old man. Which is fine to some extent, because God is our loving father, but I think too often we forget that he showed a completely different side of Himself in the old testament. This is the same God who almost killed Moses for not circumcising his son. Moses! Easily one of the most significant figures in the entire Bible, and God almost killed him, that says something. But that’s enough on that subject.
Something I have always been curious about is why the white witch did not just kill Edmund when she had the chance. Wouldn’t that have ruined Aslan’s entire plan? Without all four children on the throne the prophecy would not have been fulfilled. Which brings up another question I have about death in Narnia. Peter makes a comment about how he promised his mother he would take care of his siblings and that he is not willing to risk any of their lives, but it is never clearly stated (at least I don’t recall) whether or not if one of the four children were to die in the land of Narnia if they would die in England as well. Would they?
In The Problem of Pain, which we'll read in a while, Lewis says that what we want in God is "not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven--a senile benevolence who, as they say, 'liked to see young people enjoying themselves,' and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, 'a good time was had by all.'" It's hard not to agree! But, on the other hand, there are stories of what God does in the Old Testament that we find really troubling: Terror Texts, as some have called them.
ReplyDeleteI take it the witch wanted to kill all four of them. But you have a point. Of course, in many stories the plot requires the villain not to act too decisively, or else what would there be for the heroes to do?