Left-Wing Movie Review: 'Narnia represents everything that is most hateful about religion'

The Guardian ^ | 12/6/05 | Polly Toynbee

[JamesP81]

Wow, she's as ignorant of Christianity as she claims all other people in secular england are. Clearly, she's never heard of the Lion of the Tribe of Judah and never heard that we are heirs with Christ.

[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

Obviously, she’s the perfect person to review a movie with an underlying Christian subtext. Much like asking a skinhead to review “The Color Purple.”

LOL!

[jrestrepo]

Just read her article...

Man, that lady does have issues!

[JamesP81]

Children are supposed to fall in love with the hypnotic Aslan, though he is not a character: he is pure, raw, awesome power.

An accurate description of the Most High God, I would think.

[KC_Conspirator]

There is so much hate and bigotry in this she ought to be fired.

[Killing Time]

What would she say about a movie that presented a positive view of Islam? Really, all this Christian bashing is getting tiresome.

To be fair to Polly Pot she is an equal opportunity religion hater - she was voted islamophobe of the year by islamist extremists last year.

[KStorm]

I doubt she's ignorant. Scores have seen Christ on the Cross and despise Him for it. You can't despise what you don't know.

[badbass]

Of all the elements of Christianity, the most repugnant is the notion of the Christ who took our sins upon himself and sacrificed his body in agony to save our souls. Did we ask him to?

Wow. In one statement, she reveals the basis for all of the liberal arrogance you see around you. Pathetic.

[Killing Time]

Nah, it's expected of her - she's the grande dame of Guardianista secular humanism. She would love it if she knew that religious conservatives wer offended.

[Tenacious 1]

"Most British children will be utterly clueless about any message beyond the age-old mythic battle between good and evil. Most of the fairy story works as well as any Norse saga, pagan legend or modern fantasy, so only the minority who are familiar with Christian iconography will see Jesus in the lion. After all, 43% of people in Britain in a recent poll couldn't say what Easter celebrated."

I see their problem. Their ignorant. Now it all makes sense. I am still not sure what about this movie affends the British except that Disney chose a publisher that also publishes Christian themes.

[Woman on Caroline Street]

"What would she say about a movie that presented a positive view of Islam? Really, all this Christian bashing is getting tiresome."

I'd bet the professor in this story shares your opinion about Christian bashing. Or should I say, Christians that do the bashing:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1534692/posts

[marvlus]

There are too few practising Christians in the empty pews of this most secular nation to pack cinemas. So there has been a queasy ambivalence about how to sell the Narnia film here.

No wonder there is such great ignorance on that side of the Atlantic!

[Redbob]

Sorry Polly.
We're going to see it when it opens!

[RexBeach]

Polly Toynbee is one angry woman. Wow!

I'll also bet that she doesn't think that she will be judged.

43% of the people in Britain do not know what Easter celebrates? Good Lord. How can that be?

I shudder when I think of what that number might be in the US?

Ms. Toynbee writes of a "human moral compass." OK. But where does that morality originate? In faith.

I pity her.

[dukeman]

Lion of Judah may be my favorite name for Jesus. I lurk frequently on DU, particularly in their Religion & Theology forum. The ones who profess Christianity are careful to say that they follow the New Testament God as exemplified by Jesus' beatitudes and not the "blood thirsty" God of the Old Testament to which conservatives and "freepers" flock (of course, God is unchanging from age to age). To them, Jesus would not be the lion but the lamb. They cherry pick the warm and fuzzy passages of the Bible and leave out the fact that God loves justice and sin will be dealt with by Him. And as for the notion that Jesus will return to judge the quick and the dead and will make a footstool of His enemies-- not on their radar screen!

[js1138]

Most reviews are favorable.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/chronicles_of_narnia_lion_witch_wardrobe/

[Tirian]

Of all the elements of Christianity, the most repugnant is the notion of the Christ who took our sins upon himself and sacrificed his body in agony to save our souls. Did we ask him to?

Polly has apparently long been feasting on Turkish Delight. I find it fascinating that her hideous response mirrors exactly the instinctive revulsion that Lewis portrayed in Edmund when he, having planned to betray his siblings, first hears of Aslan. In both cases, the revulsion reflects the character not of the Object but rather of the subject.

[maestro]

.....'Narnia' is anti-CHRISTIAN-TRINITY....and is poly-religious-myth-theological-'PLURALISM'.....tash read TRASH!

/OFF all GNOSTIC false kingdoms of 'light vs evil' nonsense!

The real truth is Revelation 6:16

The ABSOLUTE and ONLY Eternal Righteous Kingdom.....The KINGDOM of the LAMB!

St. John 1:29.......St. John 14:6......1st Corinthians 15:1-4.....St. Luke 24:39

/OFF Gnostic (Anti-Biblical-TRINITY-Christianity) religious-theological PLURALISM cults.....

/OFF Pseudo-christian-gnostic myths......The Son is NOT the Father, the Father is NOT the Son,.....IN TRUE BIBLICAL-HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY the 3 Persons of the ONE ESSENCE Godhead are NOT confounded but are eternally 3 absolute and SEPERATE PERSONSSSSSSSS!....3=Echud!

[Zeroisanumber]

She had a good point here:

Over the years, others have had uneasy doubts about the Narnian brand of Christianity. Christ should surely be no lion (let alone with the orotund voice of Liam Neeson). He was the lamb, representing the meek of the earth, weak, poor and refusing to fight.

I've always thought that a lion was far too aggressive and prideful a face for Jesus' stand-in to put forward. Also, the fact that the lion is a warrior rather than a peacemaker seems very out of place.

[BoBToMatoE]

She calls it "disgusting." I call it "amazing", as in Amazing Grace.

--

Yup.