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The Musicat®

Disney is allocating about 5 percent
of its promotional budget to wooing
Christian groups. Peter Sealey, a market-
ing professor at the University of
California Berkeley's Haas School of
Business and the former president of
marketing and distribution for
Columbia Pictures, describes this as "a
very effective use of that money — that
audience does not have as many films
as it wante .

3

Actors Georgie Henley, Anna

Popplewell, William Moseley and

Skandar Keynes in a scene from The

Chronicles of Narnia.

Sealey, however, saw "duplicity" in the
way Disney is shying away from men-
tioning Lewis' Christian message in its
general publicity materials. In .a 16-page
"Narnia Educator Guide" that Sealey
found on the film's Web site, religion
and Christianity aren't mentioned even
once.
"The issue is secular audiences. Will
they appreciate seeing a religious mes-
sage without knowing it?" he asked.
Disney "should make a statement, they
should let people know. The lion is res-
urrected. It's a great piece of entertain-
ment and you can enjoy it if you're .
Christian or not. However, the under-
pinnings of the work reflect the New
Testament."

Obvious Parallels

Once ifs known that Lewis was a the-
ologian who wrote with a Christian
message in mind,. the parallels between
the Narnia tales and the New Testament
easily fall into place.
For starters:
• Narnia is a magical kingdom creat-
ed by the divine King Asian, but cur-
rently in a state of perpetual winter due
to a curse of the evil White Witch. The
four children (two "Sons of Adam," two
"Daughters of Eve") stumble in via the
enchanted, eponymous wardrobe and
become the disciples of Aslan.

•Aslan is resurrected and the White
Witch is vanqUished. The four children
are crowned kings and queens of
Narnia. Peter — not a coincidental
choice of names — becomes High
King.
• In the last of the Chronicles of
Narnia, fittingly titled The Last Battle,
an army of people described in a man-
ner recalling the medieval Turks and
aligned with a donkey in a lion costume.
(a false god, if you will) invades Narnia..
Those who. believe in Asian pass
through a gate into another realm.
After a terrifying moment passing
through the gate, a beautiful kingdom
is revealed. Asian decrees that he has •
ended Narnia just as he began it, and
the four children, who died in the
world of postwar Great Britain, can
now live with him forever in paradise
along with other believers.
Pastor Earl Palmer, co-founder of
Berkeley's New College and a scholar .
on Lewis, said Lewis always saw his
tales as "stories of the marvelous," but
Palmer admits that Aslan is a loosely
veiled Christ figure.
But Lewis wasn't trying to fool any-
one, Palmer says: Before turning to chil-
dren's books, he wrote Christian reli-
gious tracts.
"Lewis said you can take a rock out of
your shoe, but you can't take an idea out
of your mind. His faith is in ever
g
he writes',' said Palmer, senior minister"
at Seattle's University Presbyterian
Church.
"I always say that you should let the
story flow over you. Don't try to inter- .
pret it," he said."Later, when you look
back, you'll see certain biblical allusions.
There are theological themes, just like in
Lord of the Rings."
Lewis, however, denied he was writ. ,
ing allegorically. Instead, he claimed to
simply be imagining the concepts of
good, evil and the ultimate redeemer in
a mystical world of his own creation.
But he never went so far as to claim
the obvious Christian parallels were a
coincidence.
"There's one funny line he put in a
letter. He said children know who Aslan
is," Palmer said. "The great golden lion,
son of the emperor from beyond the
sea, is a Christ reference."
And the golden lion is the sole
redeemer. ❑

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