Ironies Abound

Listening to the BBC World Service this morning reporting on C.S. Lewis and the new film "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," I was brought up by the reporters repetition of the phrase "the Christian myth." A phrase no U.S. reporter would ever dare utter, much as they might consider it appropriate.

But it is a phrase perfectly applicable to C.S. Lewis who, as the reporter pointed out, considered "the Christian myth" to be a myth like others in world culture, and one which shared with those other myths "a deeper truth." That jogged a memory of Tolkien's eventual conversion of the atheist Lewis to Christianity, one which, if memory serves, was abetted by Tolkien making just this connection for Lewis: that certain aspects of the Christian story were indeed mythological, but that they were acceptable because, like world myths, they contained deeper truths.

Which, of course, explains why the Roman Catholic Tolkien could write a fantasy epic like "The Lord of the Rings." Although Tolkien never cashed in on his Christianity, whereas Lewis managed to make a cottage industry of it.

Which is the irony, of course. Once again we see that that which does not challenge us, makes us morally lazy.

This idea of "mythology" was not original with either Tolkien or Lewis; it was a staple of 19th century thought, and became a part of 19th and 20th century Christian theology and apologetics. Rudolf Bultmann actually wrote a book trying to explain this position to lay people (The New Testament and Mythology and Other Writings) in which he coined the rather awkward phrase "demythologizing." Bultmann rather famously considered the doctrine of the eucharist (that one must consume the body and blood of our Lord) a "primitive mythology" which we could still enact faithfully, without ever being able to accept what was represented there as our "primitive," i.e, pre-Enlightenment, ancestors did. He was trying to praise Christianity, not to bury it.

Ironically, his attempt brought him more attention, and more misunderstanding, than his far better and far more helpful and magisterial (and seminal) study of the Gospel of John.

Where's the irony for the movie goer? Lewis wrote The Chronicles of Narnia as just another myth, but one that would be accessible to modern children. Perfectly in keeping, in other words, with Bultmann's agenda. But it is not necessarily in keeping with any Christian doctrine (in fact, I've always found the "sacrifice" of Aslan both dramatically awkward and unsatisfying, and quite a bit odd, as it is attributed to "a deeper magic." People who complain about Harry Potter digest this with no qualms at all. "The things that pass for knowledge I don't understand.")

Will the movie-goers flocking to the theaters realize their "hero" was intentionally peddling a "myth" to them?

Probably not. And would they appreciate having that pointed out?

Probably not.