Weekly Non-Christian Opinion Roundup
Flordia's Narnia essay contest continues to ruffle feathers. There's really nothing new to report: "Americans United for Separation of Church and State" has already protested Gov. Bush's inclusion of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in Florida's "Just Read" program, and the conservaive "Alliance Defense Fund" has already announced that they'll provide legal resources for any Florida school sued by the AUSCS over the contest. What's interesting is that actual citizens seem pretty quiet over the whole thing, and that as time goes by more and more press outlets have jumped on the story, as if they're just waiting for something controversial to happen. As an example, CourtTV.com is running a pretty exhaustive story on the fracas.
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Wanna see what secular Narnia enthusiasts are up to in the way of Narnia-leveraging? An estate in the Irish midlands is being gussied up in an effort to boost the area's tourism. The Sunday Times is running a full article on the event. It actually sounds pretty spectacular.
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In what seems to me a very nasty politicization of Narnia, the Guardian (UK) is running an article that links enthusiam for Narnia with the re-advent of the dark ages. Why? Because the author sees a direct connection between Narnia-lovers and abortion parental consent advocates. Seriously. Wow.
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The Telegraph (UK) is also running a provocative title on their interview-based article with actor Susan Popplewell, who portrays Susan in the upcoming film. The title? "Why I needed a body double by the Narnia star aged 16." Now, what could they possibly be hoping to imply with that lead line?
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"After the movie, the sermon," the Telegraph also warns in a separate article detailing faith-based plans to use Narnia interest for evangelistic purposes. Such warnings for secular audiences shouldn't be too surprising; maybe they're even in order.
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The New Yorker, meanwhile, engages in an exhaustive exercise in historic revisionism, arguing that Lewis ended his life doubting his faith. Why? Because, the article claims, he finally discovered sex and because his wife died of cancer. "We sense a deeper joy in Lewis’s prose," Adam Gopnik writes, "as it escapes from the demands of Christian belief into the darker realm of magic." Unfortunately, Gopnik not only got the title of A Grief Observed wrong, he seems not to have read the whole book, instead cherry-picking quotes from when Lewis' grief was the deepest. Lewis certainly did think, during his grief, that his faith had really been nothing more than a sham. But as Lewis himself said, that was, to a degree, grief and pity talking. He certainly didn't end up "in a state of uncertain personal faith that seems to the unbeliever comfortingly like doubt," as Gopnik claims. Shameful, agenda-driven scholarship.
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But Belfast isn't cashing in on the Narnia hype, anyway. And at least one newspaper finds that pretty shameful.
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Meanwhile, I think the BBC smells a rat, running a surpised-sounding article describing how current Disney publicity is downplaying Narnia's spirituality. "We're not selling the movie to any particular group," producer Mark Johnson is quoted as saying. "With a movie this size, we're trying to sell it to everybody." Duh. That's what sane folks have been saying all along. But I wonder how long it will be before some Christian folks start reading some of these published comments and smell a rat themselves?
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Wanna see what secular Narnia enthusiasts are up to in the way of Narnia-leveraging? An estate in the Irish midlands is being gussied up in an effort to boost the area's tourism. The Sunday Times is running a full article on the event. It actually sounds pretty spectacular.
-----------------------
In what seems to me a very nasty politicization of Narnia, the Guardian (UK) is running an article that links enthusiam for Narnia with the re-advent of the dark ages. Why? Because the author sees a direct connection between Narnia-lovers and abortion parental consent advocates. Seriously. Wow.
-----------------------
The Telegraph (UK) is also running a provocative title on their interview-based article with actor Susan Popplewell, who portrays Susan in the upcoming film. The title? "Why I needed a body double by the Narnia star aged 16." Now, what could they possibly be hoping to imply with that lead line?
-----------------------
"After the movie, the sermon," the Telegraph also warns in a separate article detailing faith-based plans to use Narnia interest for evangelistic purposes. Such warnings for secular audiences shouldn't be too surprising; maybe they're even in order.
-----------------------
The New Yorker, meanwhile, engages in an exhaustive exercise in historic revisionism, arguing that Lewis ended his life doubting his faith. Why? Because, the article claims, he finally discovered sex and because his wife died of cancer. "We sense a deeper joy in Lewis’s prose," Adam Gopnik writes, "as it escapes from the demands of Christian belief into the darker realm of magic." Unfortunately, Gopnik not only got the title of A Grief Observed wrong, he seems not to have read the whole book, instead cherry-picking quotes from when Lewis' grief was the deepest. Lewis certainly did think, during his grief, that his faith had really been nothing more than a sham. But as Lewis himself said, that was, to a degree, grief and pity talking. He certainly didn't end up "in a state of uncertain personal faith that seems to the unbeliever comfortingly like doubt," as Gopnik claims. Shameful, agenda-driven scholarship.
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But Belfast isn't cashing in on the Narnia hype, anyway. And at least one newspaper finds that pretty shameful.
------------------------
Meanwhile, I think the BBC smells a rat, running a surpised-sounding article describing how current Disney publicity is downplaying Narnia's spirituality. "We're not selling the movie to any particular group," producer Mark Johnson is quoted as saying. "With a movie this size, we're trying to sell it to everybody." Duh. That's what sane folks have been saying all along. But I wonder how long it will be before some Christian folks start reading some of these published comments and smell a rat themselves?
posted by Greg Wright at 17.11.05
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