Posted on 10/07/2005 10:14:26 PM PDT by goldstategop
Canada's liberal press has greeted Disney's coming movie version of C.S. Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia" with a delicate note of caution. "Be alert for hidden Christian messages," warns the Toronto Globe and Mail's movie reviewer Liam Lacey.
No question, this is a man sensitive to religious innuendo. In the opening Narnia episode, "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," after all, the lion plainly represents Christ, the witch is Satan, and the whole thing is an allegory of the Christian doctrine of the atonement.
So yes, there could definitely be "hidden Christian messages," perhaps because Lewis wrote the whole series for the express purpose of putting them there. In reading Bunyan's "A Pilgrim's Progress," one must be similarly on guard against "hidden messages" about the Christian life pilgrimage, and in watching Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," one must watch out for "hidden allusions" to the Passion and the Christ.
Nevertheless, the warning is warranted. A devout liberal cannot be too cautious these days. God might jump out at him from the most improbable books, and ever since Gibson's opus took in $84 million on its opening weekend, movies, too, may become downright dangerous.
How dangerous, I had cause to discover last week. I was in Alexandria, Va., visiting Helen Devitt Holt's studio, Summer Productions, to explore possible television interest in the history of Christianity. Six of the 12 projected volumes of our own book series on the subject are now in print, and we're at work on the next six. For years, her company has made documentaries for the Discovery Channel, and she says our highly illustrated books demonstrate great TV potential.
So we quickly discovered how fascinated with the subject of God the industry has become. Hearts once religiously stone cold have perceptibly warmed. Atheism is now altogether out, and what they're calling "agnosticism" is in. Not real agnosticism, for the genuine agnostic contends that, if there is some kind of reality beyond the natural, we humans could not know what it is. The agnostic is not saying, "I don't know." He's saying, "I can't know, and neither can you or anybody else." The real agnostic, in other words, has a dogma to which he firmly hews. (Though he does face one awkward little problem. If we can't know whether anything is true, then how do we know even that?)
The television industry's insiders – those few I encountered, anyway – are not saying, "Nobody can know about God." They are just saying, "I don't know." And one of them thoughtfully added, when I asked him about his own religious belief: "I'm a seeker, a searcher."
A seeker is a very tolerant thing to be and, in the heavy liberal ozone of the media industry, it is also a very safe thing to be. A seeker does not offend anybody or please anybody, refute anybody or affirm anybody. There is no such thing as a "bigoted seeker" (unless, that is, the seeker develops a distinct contempt for those who claim to have found something – not an unknown bigotry).
But in seeking there lies one great danger. Jesus said that if we really seek, we will find; if we really knock, the door will be opened. So what happens if the seeker actually finds something, finds some belief about God or in God which he is convinced is genuinely true? Not just "a view," or "my view," or "one way of looking at it" – but really true, literally and conclusively. That will mean, of course, that he must consider beliefs that are inconsistent with his own to be actually wrong, not merely different. Now that would be very, very illiberal, which no doubt is why so few such seekers ever find much.
Seekers have another problem, one that few admit to, though not all. Helen Whitney, producer of the much-acclaimed PBS movie "Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero," confided a certain inadequacy when confronted with people bereaved by the cataclysmic disaster of 9-11. It was almost enough to make her take "the leap of faith," she said. Almost.
I asked Summer Productions' Helen Holt where she stood. "Every week in church," she replied, "I say the words, 'I believe.' And what follows is what I believe." Obviously a hopeless Christian.
Meanwhile, this unwonted Hollywood interest in God strikes some as plain preposterous. "Christianity in the movies?" wrote one wag to the Toronto Globe and Mail. "Omigawd! Why can't the movies just sell us sex and violence and cheap thrills like they're supposed to? Is nothing sacred anymore?"
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
May be one movie I go to see...
hidden?? Have these people never heard of this story before?
There was some speculation that the Christian themes might have been squeezed out of the movie version. I hope that's wrong. The person mentioning the possibility said, "I hope so, so everyone can enjoy it." And they need to make a movie version of the Satanic bible that Christians could enjoy. It isn't a two-way street for people like that, though.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
December 9, 2005 is the opening for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in thaters nationwide. I'm looking forward to the movie so I can see and hear " the hidden messages".
Apparently not. But then again, it is a Canadian reviewer.
thaters rhymes with tators but I meant to type theaters. LOL!
These books are an excellent christian-friendly gift for children, if anyone wants to do some early Christmas shopping
I bet you played Beatles' records backwards when you were a kid. ; )
I saw the trailers for this thing. It's going to make a fortune. Superb release date.
I can't see how they can edit out the Christian messages without completeley changing the story.
I love C.S. Lewis's Christian apologetic writing but don't care much for the Narnia stories. However, I will see the movie.
So what happens when a liberal is confronted with a Christian message?
"Stop, stop, make it quit, nobody go see it !"
followed immediately by:
"See how open-minded I am?"
Cheers!
You might say that if Canada is against I am for it.
I read the entire seven volume set to my 7 YO last winter/spring as a bedtime story. These books are great that way: each chapter takes just about 15 minutes to read out loud. The perfect time alotment for a bed time story.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
We saw the trailer for LWW when we saw Serenity. It looks outstanding. The trailer begins with the Pevensie children getting off the train and being taken to the Professor's estate by Mrs. Macready. As soon as my daughter saw the three children standing on the train platform, she sat straight up and gasped. She knew instantly what movie the trailer was for. More interesting still was the audience's reaction to the trailer: There was applause. Serenity was the #1 movie this past week. I wonder how common that reaction was and if the LWW trailer was shown in all of those theaters. That might go a long way toward explaining the liberal's dismay.
After I had a bar of soap, I did.
Agreed. Prior to Christmas, I'm sure it will.
I can't wait to see this movie.
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