Category: Articles

Missing Aslan: A Review of the Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

You have to be careful when you try to improve a work of art. Sometimes when you gild the lily, you lose the lily.

I’m afraid this is what has happened with Prince Caspian, the second installment in the Disneyfication of C. S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia. They’ve lost the lily, and only the gilt is left. It’s pretty, but it’s not enough.

Caspian has gotten off to a good start at the box office. But then it’s only competing with movies based on comic books and video games. Even with its flaws, it can’t help being better than these.

Where’s Aslan?
As Lewis wrote them, the Narnia tales are centered on the figure of Aslan, the Lion—and Aslan represents Jesus Christ the Lord. It is Aslan who gives life to Narnia and all its creatures, who draws children from our world into Narnia to carry out important missions: who, by sacrificing himself on the Stone Table and then rising from the dead, is Narnia’s redeemer. Without Aslan there is no Narnia, and no Chronicles of Narnia.

But you would never get that from this retelling of Prince Caspian.

If you didn’t see The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe first, or read the books, you’d have no idea, from this film, who Aslan is or why he matters. You’d think he was just another fantasy creature in a fantasy world inhabited by fauns, centaurs, dwarfs, talking animals, river gods, and whatnot.

Aslan’s in this film, of course, but the filmmakers have played him down. This is where they’ve lost the lily they were at such pains to gild.

They should not have assumed that the audience, especially the children in it, already knows all about Aslan. Some will surely never have seen or heard of him before.

But even if that assumption were correct, Aslan is still the most important person in the story, and should have been treated as such. No direct mention is made here of his atoning sacrifice. If you didn’t know about it from another source, you won’t learn about it in Prince Caspian.

Continue Reading “Missing Aslan: A Review of the Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” →

My Notes ECUSA Flirting with Paganism? REPRINT

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

(Originally published in 2006, by The Chalcedon Foundation)

Is a historic Protestant denomination in America falling into neo-paganism? Teetering on the brink of apostasy? And if it is, why should that concern the rest of us?

A little over a year ago, the Episcopal Church USA — already deep in controversy for having America’s only openly homosexual bishop — sank deeper when Christianity Today reported that the ECUSA’s official website (www.episcopalchurch.org) sported openly pagan rituals dedicated to a “Queen of Heaven,” complete with offerings of raisin cakes (see http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/print.php?storyid=1565/ for a reprint of Ted Olsen’s Oct. 27, 2004 article/). The ritual begins:

“Mother God, our ancient sisters called you Queen of Heaven and baked these cakes in your honor in defiance of their brothers and husbands who would not see your feminine face.”

The Bible specifically condemns such rituals in Hosea 3 and Jeremiah 7.

Writing with the Spirit from April 2011

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

With Bell Mountain I began to write fiction in a way I’d never done before. But first I’d like to tell you about the way I used to write–a way which, after all, helped me to get four horror novels published.

I always started with a very general idea for a story. My first published novel, Lifeblood, began with the idea of a vampire coming to a suburban township in New Jersey. At the time, I was covering such townships as a newspaper reporter–and oh, boy, did I know a lot about them! “Write what you know,” and all that…

Continue Reading “Writing with the Spirit from April 2011” →

Christian Professor’s Potter-Mania

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Also Posted at NewsWithViews.com

There is a professor at Covenant Theological Seminary who says the Harry Potter books are the best thing written in a century. He read the last one six times, and then read it backwards, he says. Wonder what kept him from reading it upside-down, inside-out, and sideways.

These are “some of the most beautiful books ever written,” exults Prof. Jerram Barrs. He insists they are the most profoundly Christian books around. We can’t see it. Maybe “Harry Potter” has a stealth theology. Maybe it doesn’t. But that’s not the point.

What we do see is a man who is paid to be a Christian teacher, in a world that is falling away from Christ and falling into moral meltdown, bending his knee to the popular culture. Maybe he believes in what he’s saying, but so what? To the anti-Christian world, and to the world of those who don’t know any better, his comments sound like “I surrender!”

Would you like to say a controversial thing? Try this:

“In all our dealings with non-believers, we Christians must never forget one thing—they’re wrong.”

When you say that, do you know who’s going to howl the loudest?

Christians!

Yes—your fellow Christians will be horrified when you say unbelievers are wrong. Professor Barrs might have an apoplexy. “How dare you say that? How dare you even think it?”

Continue Reading “Christian Professor’s Potter-Mania” →

The Silver Goddess from 2010

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

(Originally published in 2006 by The Chalcedon Foundation)

“I inhaled deeply the earthy scent of incense … From the basket of rosaries I took into my hand a strand of vibrantly-colored beads with a silver goddess icon in place of the traditional cross … Once gathered, we began to recite together the ‘Our Mother’ and ‘Hail Goddess’ prayers … some rang bells or sounded the Tibetan bowls.”

The above is a description of a worship service at the Ebenezer Lutheran Church, San Francisco, excerpted from an article on the church’s website (“Experiencing the Goddess Rosary” by Dalyn Cook, http://www.herchurch.org/id8.html). It comes with a picture of a “goddess rosary,” showing the stylized figurine of a nude, pot-bellied “goddess.”

Let it serve as the symbol of a neo-pagan movement that is corrupting America’s mainline Protestant churches — and spilling over into unexpected places.

Continue Reading “The Silver Goddess from 2010” →

Living with Fantasy from 2010

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Fantasy writers are perceived as having lively imaginations. Who can deny it? But when it comes to actually putting over one’s fantasies, and making people believe in your fantasy and even order their lives around it–well, we just can’t compete with those folks in science, the government, and the news media.

Our fantasies are clearly labeled as such. No one would dream of introducing a bill in Congress to fund an expedition to Bell Mountain. That money is already spoken for by other fantasies. Here are two of the more outrageous examples.

“Man-made global warming is real–but big government can control it.”

“Life on earth arose spontaneously from non-living materials like mud and gravel, and by an infinite series of totally random mutations, went from bacteria to Beethoven.”

Those are big fantasies! Nothing ever cooked up by C.S. Lewis or J.R.R. Tolkien comes even close to these for sheer audacity of the imagination.

It’s staggering to realize that millions of people–who would never, never expect to see Mr. Toad in his motorcar passing them on the freeway–have actually been brought to believe in these colossal fantasies. You’d think they would just burst out laughing at a statement like, “Paying teachers’ union members higher salaries, and granting them tenure and fabulous pension packages, will improve your children’s education,” but they don’t. They don’t even crack a smile.

Maybe it’s saying too much, to say that anyone actually believes that particular fantasy. But people act like they believe it.

When it comes down to the serious business of telling whoppers, we fantasy writers are pretty small potatoes. But we like to believe that our fantasies, at least, are edifying: and never cost our readers anything beyond the price of a book.

What’s Wrong with Un-Christian Fantasy for Young Readers REPRINT aders?

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

“Of course there must be lots of Magic in the world,” he said wisely one day, “but people don’t know what it is like or how to make it. Perhaps the beginning is just to say nice things are going to happen until you make them happen …”
—Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden (1911)1

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
James 1:17

Visit the young readers’ section of your local bookstore, and you’ll probably be amazed by the plethora of fantasies. There are still plenty of more or less “realistic” novels, mainly dealing with sexual issues and assorted teenage angst; but it certainly looks like fantasy is king in this market.

In this sea of fantasy, islands of Christianity are few and far between. This seems strange when you consider that among the most famous young readers’ fantasies are those written by C. S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia) and J. R. R. Tolkien (The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings), which are widely—we cannot say universally—recognized as “Christian fantasies” written by “Christian writers.”

But the bulk of it is anything but Christian. Whether the fantasy world described in a novel is openly antagonistic to God and His Word, or simply oblivious to Him, some of these books are bound to fall into young Christian readers’ hands. The booming popularity of fantasy practically guarantees it.

What’s wrong with un-Christian fantasy? How, if you deem it necessary, might you convince your twelve-year-old to stay away from it—or at least equip him to recognize its faults? And given the powerful allure of imaginative fiction, is it possible to offer your child “Christian fantasy” in its place?

Continue Reading “What’s Wrong with Un-Christian Fantasy for Young Readers REPRINT aders?” →

REPRINT Satanism for Young Readers: A Review of His Dark Materials

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Books in the trilogy:

—The Golden Compass (1995)
—The Subtle Knife (1997)
—The Amber Spyglass (2000) If you find that you inadvertently become a satanist, you can write to the publisher and get your money back. —Philip Pullman[1]

Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read. —Publisher’s Disclaimer

Showered with awards on both sides of the Atlantic; promoted enthusiastically within the public schools; hailed as the greatest children’s entertainment since Harry Potter first bestrode a broomstick; converted into a major Hollywood movie just in time for Christmas: you’ve got to admit Mr. Pullman’s trilogy suddenly has a lot going for it.

But before you run out and buy His Dark Materials as a Christmas present for your twelve-year-old, there’s something important you should know about it.

Philip Pullman has been anything but bashful about his atheism. He proudly proclaims it whenever he spots a microphone.

The message of his books, however, is not atheism.

It’s satanism.

We’re not talking about pop-culture satanism here, a bunch of dolts in black robes dancing around a pentagram. This is real satanism.

Continue Reading “REPRINT Satanism for Young Readers: A Review of His Dark Materials” →

My Favorite Authors

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

I’ve always said that if you want to write, you’ve gotta read–a lot. And I’ve learned a lot from my favorite authors.

If I wanted to show off, I’d say they were Henry James, Proust, E.M. Forster, Alice Walker, and so on. But that would be a lie. Serious Mainstream Literature–phooey. But without further ado, here are my favorites (in no particular order).

1. Agatha Christie. Never mind the whole mystery aspect of her work, which is justly famed. I read Dame Agatha for her wonderful and pithy insights into character. Nobody understood human nature better. And she can say so much about a character in so few words, deftly employing dialogue. Not like Stephen King, say, who beats you over the head with the character’s whole life story.

2. Edgar Rice Burroughs. The creator of Tarzan has two things going for him. First, nobody, but nobody, ever did a better job of juggling a complicated plot. When it comes to interweaving a bunch of subplots and keeping the action going, he’s up there with Charles Dickens. And second, Burroughs was one of those rare writers who let his imagination rip. I mean, he came up with some very wild stuff! And he knew how to make you believe in it. His Mars/Barsoom novels are his finest work.

Continue Reading “My Favorite Authors” →

The United Methodist Church: Weeping for Tammuz

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

[God] said furthermore unto me, Son of man, seest thou what they do? even the great abominations that the house of Israel committeth here [in the Temple], that I should go far off from my sanctuary? but turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations.

And he brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, behold a hole in the wall …

And he said unto me, Go in, and behold the wicked abominations that they do here.

So I went in, and saw; and behold every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, pourtrayed upon the wall round about …

Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord’s house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz [a pagan deity] …

Then he said unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here?…

Therefore will I also deal in fury.

Ezekiel 8:6–18 [T]here be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.

But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.

Galatians 1:7–8 Today Paul Woodall is the pastor of the fastest-growing church in the town of Gove, Kansas.

Three years ago, Pastor Woodall and his flock seceded from the United Methodist Church, lost their building, and had to transfer their worship services to a small, struggling Baptist church nearby. The UMC dismissed Woodall from its ministry, and he soon dropped out of a legal battle over possession of the church building.

Why did Woodall and his people leave the UMC?

Continue Reading “The United Methodist Church: Weeping for Tammuz” →