Live Like A Narnian: Christian Discipleship in Lewis's Chronicles

by Joe Rigney

Had Lewis written his stories in Moses’s day, I have no doubt that Narnia would have been recommended reading on the Sabbath.

“Since it is so likely that they will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage… Let there be wicked kings and beheadings, battles and dungeons, giants and dragons, and let villains be soundly killed at the end of the book.”11

a children’s story which is only enjoyed by children is a bad children’s story.”

My contention is that Lewis intends the Narnian stories to inculcate Christian beliefs, values, habits, and affections. By reflecting on Lewis’s critique of modern education in his brilliant little book The Abolition of Man, we can better apprehend how he viewed the process of discipleship.

we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful. (36–37)

A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery” (81).

The Witch and her evil are the origins of both gluttony and asceticism, of sinful indulgence and sinful austerity.

We are always becoming who we will be.

Peter is a skillful leader who knows how both to control his own temper and to diffuse potentially explosive situations.

the roots of Narnian cultural superiority are not to

be found in race or ethnicity, but in worship and allegiance.

if you worship a bloodthirsty

and demonic god like Tash, then your culture will come to reflect him, just as

if you worship a liberating and loving deity like Aslan, your cult...

For this is what it means to be a king: to be first in every desperate attack and last in every desperate retreat, and when there’s hunger in the land (as must be now and then in bad years) to wear finer clothes and laugh louder over a scantier meal than any man in your land. (Ch. 15)

to be a leader means that you have the

privilege of dying first.

Kingship and headship, as both Aslan and Jesus have shown us, is about love and sacrifice, giving up your whole self for the sake of...

That last phrase is key. In all the stories, Aslan has permitted and allowed (and even ordained and guided) evil actions and events. The White Witch’s triumph, the Telmarine conquest of Narnia, Shasta’s entire story—all of these were governed by the wise paw of Aslan for the ultimate good of his people. The situation in The Last Battle is very different. To Tirian, Aslan is not merely ordaining that evil exist; he is calling evil good. Aslan has come, but he is not Aslan. It is not unlike those dreams in which someone you love suddenly turns into something horrible right before your eyes.

The lesson is that we must prepare for dark nights by cultivating strong relationships while it is yet light. “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity” (Prov. 17:17).

know your enemies, both those without and those within.

External enemies are no true threat unless their lies find a willing embrace in our hearts and minds.

the importance of doubting my doubts.

it is no use arguing with the devil on his (or her) terms; far better to pick up a sword and kill the dragon.)

The picture that emerges is one in which the male characters are the overall leaders, but the female characters are the wise counselors and guides, whose intuition is not to be ignored. The lesson for Christian marriages, families, and churches is plain.

There must be something unnatural about the rule of wives over husbands, because the wives themselves are half ashamed of it and despise the husbands whom they rule.

The point is simply this: if given the choice, women ought not fight in battle. However, in emergencies (such as when an army makes a surprise attack on an ally, or when there are only a handful of faithful Narnians fighting dozens of Calormenes and traitors), women too can show themselves valiant in war.

I do not believe God created an egalitarian world. I believe the authority of the parent over the child, the husband over the wife, the learned over the simple, to have been as much a part of the original plan as the authority of man over beast.68

They are not spoiled children wanting to be kings again; they are noble kings who carry that very nobility back into their non-royal roles as schoolchildren.

We often think in pictures, and a distorted movie can impress distorted pictures on our minds.