Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Mere Christianity

Ohmigoodness. If you haven't noticed already, I am in love with Narnia.
I don't know what it is, but there are certain stories that grab me. My daddy used to read to me and Tashi every night before bed up until we were in 2nd grade. He read classic stories. Little Women. Anne of Green Gables. Narnia.
And I never really understood what he was reading to us. But I still liked it.
After he would read to us, he would go read the Jane Austen romances out loud to my mom.
And I've been able to read since I was 4 years old. I couldn't understand what I was reading, but I would do it anyways. I would find any book and get lost in it. For Christmas and my birthday, all I wanted was books.

Now I don't have as much time to read as I used to, but I still like it. And I am amazed by this man: C. S. Lewis. We all know he was an amazing religious writer, but I was doing some research on his life. I was very surprised.

His family were members of the Church of Ireland, but he declared he was an atheist when he was 15 years old. Because he was "very angry with God for not existing". And "Had God designed the world, it would not be a world so frail and faulty as we see." And the interesting thins part is, his best friend J. R. R. Tolkien helped him change his mind. Tolkien really wanted him to join the Catholics, but he joined the Church of England instead. "You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England....I came into Christianity kicking and screaming".

But after he became a Christian, he never stopped. The Narnia series are so much deeper than I thought. I'm so excited for the next movie to come out! Because in the next book, when Aslan is asked by Edmund whether or not Aslan exists in their world he replies:
"I am... but there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there."
And I'm excited to see if they'll say that in the movie or not. Probably not. But you never know, because Douglas Gresham is helping with the movies. Oooooh I'm so excited.

C.S. Lewis wrote the Narnia series while Tolkien wrote the Lord of the Rings series, as a contest to write the best fantasy series for children. Both of the series became some of the most famous ever.And both of them are so deep in Christianity symbolism.

C. S. Lewis believed that Jesus was NOT God. Which is surprising. And he talked about in one of his books he says that there is a common morality known throughout humanity. Lewis discusses the idea that people have a standard of behaviour to which they expect other people to adhere. This standard has been called Universal Morality or Natural Law. Lewis claims that people all over the earth know what this law is and when they break it. He goes on to claim that there must be someone or something behind such a universal set of principles.

"These then are the two points that I wanted to make. First, that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Secondly, that they do not in fact behave in that way. They know the Law of Nature; they break it. These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in."

Lewis also portrays Universal Morality in his works of fiction. In The Chronicles of Narnia he describes Universal Morality as the "Deep magic" which everyone knew.

I love his books. I think that Edmund and Eustace in the Narnia series are supposed to be himself. They don't want to believe in Narnia and cause trouble for everyone else. But once they meet Aslan, they become the truest to it and never forget Narnia.

I am I C. S. Lewis nerd. haha Anybody else?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

We are excited for you and Maika to stay with us. I live really close to Jordan Landing which has everything. And we can watch movies and play games and hang out! But I won't be offended if you stay at Nat's more because she is closer to the freeway. I am really sad you are moving! But excited for you also. Love you!

My name is Lexi said...

we want to go to lagoon on the 15th
do you want to come?
haha we need a ride
i hate that it's so far away