After the last Harry Potter book came out, I remember our theologian-in-residence included in his weekly email a glowing review of it, praising it for its Christian themes such as self-sacrifice.
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You mean the film in which the god-like figure in which everyone places their unquestioning faith turns out to be a complete charleton. 
[edit] Seriously, though, i find that film interesting. Just becuase a film is considered a classic, or lacks any obvious profanity, etc. doesnât neceassarily mean that it therefore has a great mesasge. Appriciate that wasnât what you were saying. Just a thought.
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Donât make me get my flying monkeys on you! Pre-cable and VCR/DVD days, that show was broadcast once a year, and was a tradition to watch. Also was at the advent of color TV, so the transition from black and white in Kansas to color in Oz was a wow moment. Yes, I am that old.
I whistled the tune to âIf I only had a brainâ while seeing patients a lot, partially to see if anyone paid attention, and also because I am a little compulsive about things and it got stuck in my head, so still do so at times.
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While the Wizard himself is a human and a charlatan, there definitely is real magic in Oz. Unlike the movie, in the books Oz is a real place with all kinds of magical creatures, and that seems to have some source of magic that can bring inanimate things to life. The entire series was a favorite of mine when I was younger (I actually first discovered it when Project Gutenberg started putting them out in the public domain), most people donât even know thereâs a whole entire series of wonderful Oz books with a whole slew of delightful characters.
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C.S. Lewis clearly intended the Emperor as an allegory for God the Father and Aslan as Jesus⌠but he never definitively states that all magic in the universe of his books derives from the Emperor, only the magic in Narnia itself. Jadis seems to have a dark magic derived from her own world, that is not fully available to her in Narnia. So while the Emperor clearly the most omnipotent figure in the books, the idea of having to establish him definitely as the source of all magic doesnât seem at all as important to Lewis, when he introduced other magical worlds such as Charn later in the series. We also see Aslan as the Creator of Narnia, which is clearly a diversion from the Father-Son allegory, for the sake of a better narrative.
So yeah, certainly a book that is trying to have very overt religious allegories in it is more likely to have an omnipotent, God-like figure, than the bulk of fictional stories that tend to be more subtle in their imagery. But even books as intentionally allegorical as the Narnia series is, still arenât quite spot-on in meeting this very arbitrary kind of requirement for âsafeâ mentions of magic in their universe.
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Itâs very kind of you to hide spoilers to a book series that has now been out for nearly 20 years (send help, Iâm old)
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Personally, this has always been my issue with Narnia: allegory. Growing up outside of the Christian world, and not becoming a Christian until my late teens, I missed the Narnia catechism that many of my Christian friends had in their youth. When I finally read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as a young adult, I have to say I struggled to see what the fuss was about. Apart from what I felt was a rather clunky Christian allegory, it seemed like a pretty average book. 6/10, perhaps. Maybe the others are better? I donât know.
Later, when I became involved in church leadership, I was always uncomfortable with the way some congregants co-opted Narnian language in their descriptions of Jesus. Sometimes, it was passable. Other times it was downright idolatrous. And that I think is the problem with allegory. The lines between the poetic description and equivalence can become very blurry in the mind of the reader. Especially, those without Lewis literary background. For example, if someone says, âJesus isnât safe, but he is good.â Is that, illustration, comparison or idolatry?
At least the themes people draw from the MCU, Harry Potter, or even The Matrix are unintentionally Christological. Since Aslan is intended to be Christological, I think that has more potential for misunderstanding and confusion for the Christian reader. If anything, I would suggest more discernment is needed when reading the Narnia books, than, says, a non-christian fiction series.
So, if I were the chappy from Focus on the Family that @Laura mentioned earlier, I think I might be guilty of using different weights to judge between The Narnia Chronicles and the Harry Potter series, for example.
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Oh I definitely agree. I have a particular fondness for the Narnia books because they are the first real books that I read myself. My mom had started to read Wardrobe to me when I was about 5, but being a busy mother of 5 kids, she had trouble finding time to continue the story and so I just got frustrated enough to figure it out and read it myself! Thus started my lifetime love of reading.
But even though raised Catholic, I didnât see it as anything more than a neat story about a magical land and the kids that discovered it. Only many years later did I figure out the Christian messaging inherent in the story, and that is typical of most childrenâs experience of it⌠unless specifically guided to see the allegorical elements by adults. While Lewis clearly uses Christian imagery in the books, his love of fantasy and story-telling predates his conversion and he certainly would have balked at the idea that his books were in any way intended to teach children about Christianity.
Hereâs a really good article on that very topic in fact:
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Thatâs an interesting viewpoint, and I can see why youâd feel that way when it wasnât part of your childhood. Sometimes an âoutside perspectiveâ can give others a clearer view on things they might take for granted.
Maybe one reason some like the books is that they associate them with childhood, which often involves fun and imagination. Like @Keyhlar, Narnia was one of the first chapter books I read on my own, so itâs stuck with me because it introduced me to reading in a special way. But also, I think being raised in the church sometimes meant that for me, Bible reading unfortunately felt like a chore. So having an allegory that was something I personally enjoyed and pursued rather than something I was told I had to read or else something bad would happen to me⌠was a breath of fresh air, even though I may not have understood that at the time.
Speaking of The Matrix and Focus on the Family 
, I still remember reading a review of theirs when the Matrix came out, and the reviewer called it âanother slickly packaged Hollywood counterfeit.â (Maybe because it was R-rated?) Which is really interesting when compared with how you view allegory⌠it sounds like there are some very different ideas about what makes a âgoodâ allegory. Perhaps some are wary of anything that appears to be âtrying too hard,â while the, as you say, âunintentionally Christologicalâ story is more indicative of some underlying desire to have a Christ figure even without any obvious external religious compulsion.
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This describes how I feel about Narnia and Asian, with his sacrifice and resurrection. Of course, I have to remind myself that it is for a young audience that requires a bit more obvious analogies. I grew up in a rather impoverished literary environment, with childhood books being limited to popular fare like Hardy Boys and Little Golden Books when smaller, though amazingly my parents invested in multiple sets of encyclopedias. I read the Book of Knowledge set and the Grolier science set cover to cover.
In any case, in fiction, I prefer my Christological references to be a little more obtuse as in LOTR. Even that I did not know existed until college, when a room mate was big into it. That was then the gateway drug in the Dune seriesâŚ
Back to the subject though, I think the objection to fantasy in books and TV is not appropriate, but worry more about the violence and objectification of people sexually. If I objected to Disney + it would be on those grounds,
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Has anyone read âLooking for God in Harry Potterâ? That sounds interesting.
Amazon.com: Looking for God in Harry Potter (9781414300917): Granger, John: Books
It has a very strong female protagonist. That matters to me, at least.
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Some years ago I heard that there was a group of fundagelical parents who objected to their children hearing about the legend of Faust in the classroom!
Yes, that is a good point. And probably (though I donât know for sure) fairly unusually for the time it was filmed? Would that be fair?
Iâm talking about the book here. Sure it was unusual. But Baum had a strong wife and mother-in-law.
His mother-in-law, Matilda Gage, co-founded the National Woman Suffrage Association with Susan B. Anthony. She went on to write a whole book about womenâs rights, decrying the oppression they suffered throughout history, including in the churches (being denied ordination, etc.). Her daughter, Maud, went to Cornell, one of the few male colleges that was starting to admit women. At the Baum wedding, their vows were exactly the same, surprising at the time. Baum became a champion of womenâs rights, at a time when men were expected to dominate women. Baum was a good husband and father. The Wizard of Oz was a truly important work, being the first great American fairy tale.
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I remember something about how it was a political satire, involving the gold standard (yellow brick road) and such.
Very helpful background. Thank you.
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A very humorous thread. Iâll just say that, as a professionally trained actor who performs on stage, produces audiobook novels for Audible, and who is a believer, I find it funny when Iâm held accountable for the sins of my characters!
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Who says that?
I wish I had the same excuse (impoverished literary environment of youth), but as it is; my boyhood obsession with Hardy Boys (and Nancy Drew), and how many times I read every one of those many books - all that is information that I hope goes to the grave with me. Maybe we could start a lowbrow literary club.
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