| HERALD MINISTRIES EDITORIAL PAGES FROM THE DESK OF THE FOUNDER AND EDITOR OF HERALD MINISTRIES :
"C.S. Lewis & Narnia"If you have recently watched some of the Christian television networks, or looked into some Church of God Forums, you will hear and read people recommending that Christians should see a movie based on a C.S. Lewis book entitled “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”. In it, “Aslan” the lion is sinless, dies for his friends and is resurrected. However, if you dig a little deeper, you start to wonder if this alleged allegory, in which Asian obviously represents Jesus Christ, truly is a movie Christians need to see. I invite you to read an article that appeared in Truth on the Web’s weekly paper, E-Clipz. Truth on the Web dug a little deeper and found some little known and unpublished facts about C.S. Lewis and his beliefs. We wish to thank Truth on the Web for giving us permission to reprint their article entitled “Lewis and Narnia”. Lewis and NarniaThe late C.S. Lewis is perhaps best known to the world as a “Christian apologist”. There are some who see him in a different light – as more of an occultist. C.S. Lewis had a seemingly irresistible attraction to the shadow world of occult fantasy – a mingling of darkness with light evident in writings apart from his apologetics. Lewis penned some material with the witchcraft fantasy of Narnia and the Screwtape Letters (about a demon named Screwtape) which could be compared to Harry Potter material today. One of his Chronicles of Narnia adventures (part 7) “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe” has been made into a movie which was just released in theaters. Throngs of churches are touting the movie as a great story with a “hidden Christian message” or as a “Christian analogy.” According to Christianity Today, “not only was Lewis hesitant to call his books Christian allegory, but the stories borrow just as much from pagan mythology as they do the Bible”. [Josh Hurst, “Into the Wardrobe and Straight to Hollywood.” Christianity Today (11/07/05). Some surmise that in presenting a blend of fantasy with analogy to Christian truths, Lewis hoped to encourage his readers to search out the truth further. However, many of Lewis’s characters in his fantasies depicted as “good” are in reality associated with witchcraft, pagan mythology, and the Norse mysteries. One could, by the same measure of judgment, surmise that partakers of the works of Lewis could decide alternately to search out further the paganism and witchcraft in his works. Author Philip Pullman [Dark Materials] was asked about Narnia and he said, “If the Disney corporation wants to market this film as a great Christian story, they’ll just have to tell lies about it,” he told The Observer. Lewis himself didn’t even want his story to become a movie. In fact, a letter from Lewis to BBC producer Lance Sieveking, who had created a radio version of his book which had Lewis’ approval, Lewis wrote “I am absolutely opposed – adamant isn’t in it! – to a TV version.”
What can we expect from the man who wrote: “I have the deepest respect for Pagan myths, still more for myths in the Holy Scriptures”? Some other reasons to be on guard with anything from Lewis: Lewis believed the Book of Job is “unhistorical” (Reflections on the Psalms, pp. 110), that the Bible contained “error” (pp.110,112) and is not divinely inspired. After advancing to preparatory school, Lewis gradually “ceased to be a Christian” [atheist]. He became interested in the occult and embraced an attitude of pessimism about what he considered a faulty world. His taste for the occult was nurtured and grew as he became enthralled with Wagnerian operas and their Norse sagas derived from Celtic mythology. Lewis also indicated that shortly before his death he was turning toward the Catholic Church. Lewis termed himself “very Catholic.” He even went to a priest for regular confession (C.S. Lewis: A Biography, p.198), and received the sacrament of extreme unction on 7/16/63 (p. 301). His prayers for the dead, belief in purgatory and his contention that some pagans may “belong to Christ without knowing it”: are serious deviations from Biblical Christianity. He made a statement that “Christ fulfills both Paganism and Judaism…” that could be taken as a destructive heresy (Reflections on the Psalms, p. 129). Texe Marrs had this to say about C.S. Lewis, the author of Chronicles of Narnia: “In 1987, as one of only a few lone voices in the wilderness, I warned the Christian world of the insidious, unscriptural, satanic, and magical messages and images contained in the books of famous “Christian” author, C.S. Lewis. I wrote particularly of Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia series for kids and adults, demonstrating how these works were from the very pit of hell. And though British author C.S. Lewis was one of the most quoted, admired, and beloved of all “Christian” writers and teachers., I demonstrated that Lewis’ own personal and doctrinal life was stigmatized by pagan beliefs, mythological imagery, sexual kinkiness, and adultery. I showed also C.S. Lewis’ mixture and confusion of Hindu and Greek gods with Christian heroes. In one instance, C.S. Lewis even equated Jesus Christ with the ancient Greek sun god Apollo, the son of the mythological Zeus. C.S. Lewis was most fond of expressing a belief in Jesus, followed by a clarifying exclamation, “Jesus was the fulfillment of myth.” According to Lewis, Jesus deserved worship because he was “the myth that had come true.” As I point out in my book, Ravaged by the New Age, Lewis also taught in his novels, the Chronicles of Narnia series, that all service done by a person on behalf of Lucifer and the dark side was, in fact, also credited by God as service to him! In Lewis’ nonfiction writings, we discover his belief in evolution, in the Catholic version of Mary, and in the odd notion that in our “next lives”, Christians may just become planets, stars, or other heavenly objects.” So
why do so many Christians like C.S. Lewis? In a recent issue of
Christianity Today, Millet, dean of Brigham Young University,
is quoted as saying that C.S. Lewis “is so well received
by Latter-day Saints because of his broad and inclusive vision
of Christianity.” (John W. Kennedy, “Southern Baptists
Take Up the Mormon Challenge,” Christianity Today. 6/15/98,
p.30). Perhaps Paul said it best to Timothy in I Timothy 4:3-4 “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears. V. 4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”
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