Church taps into magic of Narnia

THERE are few moments in children's literature more thrilling than when Lucy Pevensie first steps through a wardrobe to find herself in a new world.

As Lucy pushes through the racks of clothes, the fur coats brushing her face are replaced by branches, the smell of mothballs by the realisation that the cold, powdery stuff landing on her face is snow.

She has entered the land of Narnia: a world gripped by perpetual winter and ruled by the icy, evil White Witch.

The story of how the four Pevensie children - Lucy, Peter, Susan and Edmund - join forces with the great talking lion Aslan to defeat the witch and release her grip on Narnia is one of the great children's classics.

To most of the youngsters over whom The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe has cast its spell, the fact that the book is a Christian allegory won't have mattered one jot. It's the story itself that's thrilling.

The death of the great lion Aslan - who allows himself to be sacrificed on a stone table by the White Witch in return for the safe release of Edmund - is devastating to any child reading it for the first time. His return to life, meanwhile, is utterly exhilarating. You don't need to realise the story is a representation of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ to get that.

The Church, however, is very much awake to the Christian messages that run through the seven Narnia books.

With a multi-million pound Disney film of The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe due to be released next month, many church leaders are hoping to capitalise on the anticipated success of the film by preparing services around the book.

Manchester Cathedral staged a Narnia day last month that culminated in an "Aslan worship event".

Churches Together In England, whose presidents include the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams and Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, is encouraging children to explore the film's 'deeper magic'.

It all comes as a new Channel 4 series Priest Idol reveals the problems the Church nationally is having in appealing to a younger generation.

The programme follows the struggles of three parish priests to reach out to a new congregation. In the first episode, broadcast on Monday this week, Father James McCaskill arrived at the parish of St Mary Magdalene at Lundwood, near Barnsley - where the number of worshippers in the pews on an average Sunday has fallen to only eight. The programme followed his first three months in the job - during which he resorted to the desperate measure of hiring a marketing company to try to attract more teenagers into his church.

The Rev Roger Simpson, vicar of St Michael-le-Belfrey, beside York Minster, probably would not resort to hiring a marketing company. But he agrees that churches do need to think about the way they present themselves if they are to attract new blood.

"The product of Christianity does not need to be changed - it's a great product," he says. "What we need to do is change the packaging."

Many churches and church groups around the country are dong just that, he says - holding services in nightclubs, pubs, schools and anywhere away from the formal setting of a church in an attempt to make it easier for people to make a first approach. It is amazing, he says, how many people who have never been to church find churches quite intimidating.

St Michael's holds caf-style services where people chat over coffee, he says - and even holds services in a York gym, where the congregation will discuss clips from films and TV programmes such as Sex In The City and Friends.

So might the Narnia books, and the film of The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe in particular, be a good way of encouraging younger people to think about God?

Absolutely, says Mr Simpson. Churches in the York area are not planning a major event on a Narnia theme like in Manchester, but the CS Lewis books may well make their way into services.

The central character of Aslan, the talking lion, is a wonderful depiction of Christ, he says. "He really captures something about the beauty of Christ, but also the ... well, a lion is quite frightening. I think sometimes the picture of Jesus Christ we get today is a bit too domesticated. Actually, He is awesome, He's majestic. I think CS Lewis caught some of that in Aslan."

Mark Troughton, the pastor of York Evangelical Church, agrees. Mr Troughton - the son of Doctor Who actor Patrick Troughton - says Aslan is an incredibly attractive figure to children. "You have the idea of this lion as an approachable, almost cuddly figure and yet at the same time, as CS Lewis himself said, this is no tame lion. I think the holiness, the love, and also the sacrifice, does come across."

The Narnia books are not straight Christian fables, of course. Lewis was a committed Christian - but his books also draw upon a wealth of Pagan mythology. They are filled with fawns, centaurs, satyrs and goblins.

None of that detracts from the value of the Christian messages the books contain, insists Mr Troughton. Lewis had a wonderful imagination that he put to great use by writing stories exploring moral ideas about good and evil, right and wrong, in a way that is accessible to children.

"The issue is not what these creatures are, but what values are coming across through the story," he says.

So will his own church be using Aslan and Narnia as a way of engaging younger people in the run-up to the release of the film? "We might definitely use Aslan," he says.

It won't be the first time churches in York have capitalised on the interest in popular films or books to put across their message.

Mel Gibson's film The Passion Of The Christ sparked huge interest - and St Michael-le-Belfrey held discussion groups based on it. The church also held a service to examine the conspiracy theories contained in Dan Brown's best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code. "We interviewed an art historian who debated some of Dan Brown's ideas," says Mr Simpson.

Not everyone is keen on the idea of CS Lewis's great children's books being used to promote Christianity, however.

Graham Taylor, the former Vicar of Cloughton who has himself become a best-selling children's author following the success of his novel Shadowmancer, says the Narnia books should not be used to try to wow people back to God.

They are wonderful books which do contain obvious Christian and spiritual elements, he says.

"But I'm not too sure about using them as evangelical tools. I think they are best enjoyed simply as wonderful stories."

Countless children will no doubt agree with that.

Christian themes in Narnia books

The talking lion Aslan is seen by many as a powerful representation of Christ. His death and resurrection in The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe closely mirror Christ's crucifixion and resurrection. Aslan's father in the Narnia books is the never-seen Emperor-beyond-the-sea - God.

In The Magician's Nephew, Aslan sings the world of Narnia into existence, watched by two young children from our own world, Digory Kirke and Polly Plummer. It is a powerful and beautiful version of the creation myth.

Lewis refers in the Narnia books to Deep Magic and Deeper Magic. Some commentators see Deep Magic as representing the natural moral order of the world. Deeper Magic, however, represents something even more profound - God's Grace, which upholds and sustains the natural order of things.

In The Silver Chair, the Green Witch, who lives in the underworld, attempts to persuade the marsh wiggle Puddleglum that the world of Narnia above does not exist, but is simply a figment of his imagination. The bemused and bewitched Puddleglum fights against her spell, insisting "One word, ma'am... one word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. (But) I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia." The exchange can be seen as a version of the debate over the existence of God.

In The Last Battle, the world of Narnia comes to an end, and Aslan the lion leads its people through a gate, "further up and further in" to a New Narnia which represents heaven. The storyline is based upon biblical prophecies of the end of the world.

Lewis and racism

Despite the strong moral content of the Narnia books, many commentators have detected traces of racism in Lewis's depiction of the Calormenes, the dark-skinned people who live in the desert lands to the south of Narnia.

The Calormenes appear in both The Horse And His Boy and The Last Battle, and are generally depicted as untrustworthy and treacherous, in contrast with the fair-skinned people of Narnia.

Updated: 10:49 Thursday, November 17, 2005