Narnia

The advertising frenzy in the US over the upcoming release of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'' has to be seen to be believed. I grew up on the Narnia books and they form an important part of my emotional furniture (heh!). I think I was 12 the last time I climbed into a wardrobe and hoped for some magic! And as an apologist C.S. Lewis was very influential on my early adult thinking about Christianity. I suspect, though, that many people share my experience of becoming increasingly uncomfortable with and unconvinced by certain aspects of his writing and argument. Most of what he writes about gender is just plain horrible, for example. So I really enjoyed reading this article about C.S. Lewis (courtesy of Greg) which is appreciative but thoughtfully critical. One bizarre element of the whole Christian obsession with C.S. Lewis (which this writer doesn't mention) is that an Anglo-Catholic who had no truck with penal substitution or the infallibility of Scripture and who believed in purgatory should be the darling of the most conservative (highbrow) sections of American evangelicalism!