Marginal Christianity

  The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe:   Vocation and Destiny           I conclude our series on images of faith and discipleship in the first of the Narnia stories, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by noting Lewis’ portrayal of vocation and destiny of the four Pevensie children to be the kings and queens of Narnia.   He does this is several ways.           The first is to indicate that these children are the fulfillment of ancient prophecy.   The White Witch’s insistent questioning of the Turkish Delight-enchanted Edmund on the number and gender of his siblings is our first clue.           “You are sure there are just four of you?” she asked. “Two Sons of Adam and two Daughters of Eve, neither more nor less?” and Edmund, with his mouth full of Turkish Delight, kept on saying, “Yes, I told you that before.” (37)  ...

For this installment of “Images of Faith and Discipleship in The Chronicles of Narnia ,” I reproduce a brief chapter from Mark Baker’s book Proclaiming the Scandal of the Cross:   Contemporary Images of the Atonement on Lewis’ wonderful picture of Aslan’s death and resurrection in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe .   Enjoy. What is sin? How does Satan rule and enslave? How does God provide salvation from sin and freedom from Satan's reign? Often stories help us understand answers to these questions in ways beyond what we can grasp from statements in a theology text. C. S. Lewis, a masterful storyteller, takes us to another world, Narnia, to help us better understand the power of sin and salvation in our world. Lewis wrote The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the first of The Chronicles of Narnia, in England in 1950. Lewis's story clearly displays the substitutionary character of Christ's death. However, unlike stories that paint a picture of penal substitution, Le...

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe:   Gluttony “In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe , the character, Edmund Pevensie, personifies gluttony, the sin of excessively using things in themselves legitimate, normally associated with the appetite, and, in effect, making one's belly the god he serves (Phil. 3:19). Jadis, the White Witch, exploits Edmund's weakness when she meets him in a snowy woods, offering him a warm drink and Turkish Delight, his favorite candy. From the first bite, he is hooked, for each "piece was sweet and light to the very centre and Edmund had never tasted anything more delicious." As she pumps him for information regarding his brother and sisters, he readily replies, driven by an insatiable hunger for more and more Turkish Delight: "At first Edmund tried to remember that it is rude to speak with one's mouth full, but soon he forgot about this and thought only of trying to shovel down as much Turkish Delight as he could, and the mo...