C.S. Lewis, Narnia and a Fallen World

Spirituality Column #85
June 24, 2008
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

C.S. Lewis, Narnia and a Fallen World
By Bob Walters

Prince Caspian, the recent second movie installment of the seven-book “Chronicles of Narnia” series by C.S. Lewis, is
· breathtakingly beautiful in its photography,
· tear-harkeningly tender in its presentation of the lion Aslan as Christ,
· and – for a Disney movie based on a children’s book by perhaps the 20th century’s greatest Christian apologist – almost disturbingly violent as a fallen world metaphor.

Lewis wrote the series in the 1950s. The seven books read the way you expect third or fourth-grade level literature to read. Prince Caspian the book is nowhere near as violent as the movie. The book develops the talking animals as characters of great depth.

One might suppose the movie’s violence is just the heavy hammer of Hollywood, itself a comment on what it takes to entertain us these days since so much of the original Narnia stories unmistakably and entertainingly parallel the teachings of the Bible.

Peter, the oldest of the four children, lurches into the breach of any fight the way one might envision the Apostle Peter. Lucy, the youngest child, is the first to see Aslan (read Matthew 11:25), and is the child that leads the way (Isaiah 11:6).

Alas … these days, more of us understand violence than the Bible.

Lewis, a professor at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities in England, was not just a theologian of towering intellect; he was also renowned for his unparalleled knowledge of literature. That so advanced a scholar could write so clear and simple a set of stories as Narnia reveals unusual genius.

Despite the movie’s being “juiced” with Hollywood action steroids, what Narnia’s violence represents, in a most pointed way, is that the mayhem, strife and sickness we all encounter is a function of our sin problem in a fallen world. Some of us readily admit our sin, and some of us shockingly and self-righteously dismiss the very idea.

Narnia’s capacity for violence and evil is every bit as stunning as its potential for beauty and heroics.

Think of it this way: we have a sin problem, but a Christ opportunity.

Just like Narnia.

We’re better off when we “get” the fallen part of our earthly experience. It often explains the unexplainable.

Walters' (rlwcom@aol.com) faith was heavily informed by Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters, two Lewis classics. Read them if you haven’t.

Noah, Field of Dreams and the Bible

Spirituality column #84
June 17, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current! In Westfield (IN) newspaper

Noah, Field of Dreams and the Bible
By Bob Walters

Our intellectual experience as Americans is, I think, not only diminished but crippled if we are not aware and conversant of what’s in the Bible.

By “intellectual experience” I mean the entire spectrum of thinking, from our childhood education, to our philosophical development, to our faith (or non-faith), and ultimately to our adult actions and beliefs as free human persons, both individually and as a community.

Most literature and art in the Western world has something to do with the Biblical/Christian conversation. It is too bad that so much of our society over the last century and half, and especially over the past 50 years or so, has tried to reinterpret and redefine the Western experience of freedom and individual personhood away from Biblical principles.

We often wind up missing the richness of what is being said in our artistic conversation.

I’m going to use a sports movie and a Bible story to try to explain what I mean.

Field of Dreams, a wonderful baseball movie from 1988, is a terrific morality play about faith, redemption, family, freedom, community, heaven, and God’s permanence and involvement in each of our lives.

If you think the movie is only about a guy dumb enough to plow under a couple acres of corn on the advice of an unknown voice, risks losing his farm, and gets lucky in the end … well, you miss the depth of the movie.

In Genesis chapters 6 to 9, Noah building a boat – where he built it – would have seemed even crazier than Ray Kinsella building a baseball field where he built it. It took Noah 124 years to build the ark in an area that was miles from the sea in a place where rain had never fallen.

Watch Field of Dreams for common Christian symbolism – including the New Testament truth that Heaven will one day be on earth (which obviously includes Iowa) – and it becomes a story about the affirmation of God’s promises, not just a baseball movie.
This is one small example of why it is such a big deal that such a large slice of America is becoming systematically Biblically illiterate. We understand so much less of the gifts we have … not from Hollywood, but from God.

The gifts are wonderful; that so many of us don’t recognize where they come from is a shame.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) loves baseball. He’ll discuss Narnia next week.

Spiritual Nutrition

Spirituality Column #83
June 10, 2008
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Spiritual Nutrition
By Bob Walters

The great banquet of the Holy Spirit, the source of our spiritual nutrition, exists in our very real and palpable relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

Things that enhance that relationship – the Bible, church, humility, service, prayer (the list is long) – feed our faith and both deepen and strengthen our commitment to walking the joyous but often hard steps of the true Christian life.

What steps?

Just take the examples of Christ in the Bible. That’s the most accurate picture of what a walk with God is supposed to look like. We all want the reception with palm leaves; but it’s that walk to the Cross that ultimately defines our faith. We need nutrition for that walk.

I’m not sure we’re going to need nutrition in Heaven, or in Hell, for that matter. Nutrition seems to be the stuff of this life, not the next. The Bible does not reveal a precisely recognizable nature of how the perfection of our eternal relationship with God works (“No eye has seen …” etc., 1 Corinthians 2:9), but there is no hint that it continues to be, on either our part or God’s, a work in progress.

At that point it’s a done deal.

Between the Bible, Christian traditions and my faith, I have no lingering doubts God has the eternity thing all figured out. My hunch is that he saves that part of the mystery for the end because … duh … it’s the best part.

But here and now is when developing that relationship provides the spiritual nutrition for our walk, both through the imperfections of our own lives in this fallen world, and for the hope we find in the glimmers of our potential for goodness in a beautiful world God created for us.

If we are having difficulty being certain of our relationship with God, we should look at the elemental components of how we build relationships with each other:
- we nourish relationships with love and grace and trust,
- we choke relationships with sin and fear and guilt.

It seems obvious which is the more nourishing three-course communion meal.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), who has been putting on weight lately, neither ignores sin nor makes it the center of his spiritual life.

"No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him ..."
1 Corinthians 2:9 (NIV)

Job: With Friends Like These

Spirituality Column #82
June 3, 2008
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Job: With Friends Like These
By Bob Walters

What does Job teach us about faith and trust?

Job is the oldest book in the Bible. The story predates by several hundred years God’s anointing of Abraham. There is no name for Job’s religion; he simply feared God and shunned evil (Job 1:1).

Conversely, God trusted Job. God tells Satan in Job 1:8, “There is no one on earth like him (Job); he is blameless and upright.”

Satan tells God that Job’s faith can be shaken (Job 1:11), and God says, in effect, OK, it’s a bet. Satan suggests God strike everything Job has, but God simply puts Job’s possessions into Satan’s hands.

Job’s children, servants, herds, oxen, donkeys, camels were all wiped out. Job’s reaction was to fall to the ground and worship God (Job 1:20).

God said to Satan, See? “Job maintains his integrity” (Job 2:3). Satan replied, let’s hurt Job himself, and afflicted him with “painful sores from … his feet … to his head.” Job’s wife tells Job to curse God. Job tells her she is a fool (Job 2:10).

Then Job’s three friends show up (Job 2:11), and for the next 35 chapters try to tell Job, basically, that bad things only happen to bad people, so what has he, Job, done to God?

Job’s celebrated “patience” with God is pretty much over by verse 3:26, “I have no rest; only turmoil,” and with his friends by verse 6:15, “… my brothers are as undependable as intermittent streams.” Job and his friends bicker, mourn and lament until God decides to have His say, “The Lord Speaks,” in Chapter 38. God was displeased that Job questioned His intentions.

Notice: Job’s faith wasn’t shaken by what had happened; it was shaken by those closest to him, seeking to divide him from God by saying he was guilty of something.

Key Point 1: No one stopped to think Satan was behind the turmoil.

Key Point 2: Good counsel increases faith and creates focus on God; bad counsel decreases faith and creates focus on ourselves.

Job, who was restored much as we are restored eternally by Jesus Christ, had it right to start with: keeping faith and trusting God always works.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) has learned faith and patience the hard way, and is almost positive there is not an easy way.