We all need to be somewhat aquainted with this Fine work by CS Lewis so that we may seize the oppurtunity when the movie releases. Rember how short lived the window of oppurtunity was for Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Also it would be good to not have our expectations to high in the accuracy of this Disney Motion Picture, but rember that the public won't care about accuracy and if we make it a big issue we might just lose any advantage we might gain by just allowing it to be a spring board for personal evangelism. So lets load up and be ready to use this tool/oppurtunity to reach the lost. :-) :-) God Bless Bro. Daryl

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D.Miller

I must say I do not care for at all the use of things such as the Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia and such as evangelistic tools. Unless, of course, you are planning to preach on Isaiah's famous "woe to those who call evil good and good evil."

A lot of these movies/books are hardly what I would call "Christian." If they put things such as magic and the like in the positive, as being good things, when in fact, they are not good, and are inheriently evil-- even if highly mythologized and allegorized-- then I believe we are actually doing diservice to God. Fact of the matter is, we are only jumping at such movies because of the "Christian" background of some of those who penned the story. It seemed to matter not to us that J.R. Tolkien was not a Christian, and was in fact, Catholic. Yet, for trying to find "common ground" with the heathen, we were willing to compromise a bit, simply because Catholicism falls under the banner of Christendome, and promote Tolkien as being a Christian for the sake of mentioning it to somebody as a hope of making some sort of bridge.

As far as I can tell, CS Lewis seemed very much to be a Christian. He had some wonderful insights, and is ever quotable. However, I think sometimes we toss discernment out the window, and because of the popularity of some of these authors and their works, we tend to embrace a lot of rubbish that some of these authors brought into their works. For example, "The Great Divorce" by C.S. Lewis has a lot of powerful imagery, and is extremely thought provoking, yet is something how the Christian Lewis decided to pepper the book with a bit of profanity! As a literary work, it is no doubt brilliant, and philosophically, it is amazingly stimulating, but as far as providing edification for the Christian, I think such stuff should be strongly avoided. Yet, The Great Divorce and such is considered essential reading by many for Christians, when in fact, it's containing entirely unjustifiable profanity makes it a non-Christian work.

Brothers, let's use a little more discernment. It's sad that we have to water down and compromise for the sake of a chance of witnessing. If a movie or book or song glorifies something contrary to the gospel, there is nothing Christian about it. It only contains the forms of Christianity. If you really want to reach the loss, go stand in front of your local cinema and preach against the ungodly parade of images and sounds that people are are gazing upon in the name of entertainment, things which people declare are good, yet God says "woe" to.

As Keith Daniel once said, if you try to win the world by becoming like the world, the world will only win you.

(note: I'm not against Christians going to the movies, just against Christians seeing movies that glorify ungodliness)

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Jimmy H

Is the Chronicles of Narnia commended SI? A guy from church said to me "I can't believe you haven't read it". I told him I never even heard the book, let alone read it.

I have to agree with you KingJimmy, wholeheartedly.

I must say I do not care for at all the use of things such as the Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia and such as evangelistic tools. Unless, of course, you are planning to preach on Isaiah's famous "woe to those who call evil good and good evil."

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Eileen Teitsworth

if paul had our religious attatude on mars hill, he would have told those idol worshipers they were all going to hell unless they burned those idols; especially the idol to the unknown god. jimp

But Paul did. Paul preached to them on the sin and folly of idolatry, and the judgment to come. Paul was neither entertained by the idol to the unknown god for that matter, rather, the Scriptures say he walked about and in felt provoked in his spirit by the many idolatrous images. Nor did he go about promoting this idol either, and encourage people to go out and see it.

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Jimmy H

the unknown god who i declare unto you... paul used the sinful, worly idol as the open door to preach the truth. what is the question in this forum? God has used me to lead many catholics to a saving knowledge of Jesus by using the jerusalem bible (catholic as it is) this comforts those who otherwise would be afraid of anything not blessed by the church. i also use non-rligious sounding(protstant) language. be all things to all people so you win some. its up to the Holy Spirit anyway, he is the convictor of sin ; not me. jimp

I've seen allegories to familiar secular things used to help non-christians understand the Gospel, but I've also seen many Christians slip on crucial issues because of attempts to do this.

Lately, I've become a huge supporter of people like Ray Comfort, Paris Reidhead, and Leonard Ravenhill because of this simple fact: THEY TELL IT LIKE IT IS. They don't need anything other than the Word of God to help a person understand their condemned position, and their need for Christ.

Also, I look at a family that I know. They were an awesome hard-core, sold out for Christ family. Well, they watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and thought it was great. After all, it's supposedly all about our battle as Christians, right?

Well, the last I talked to them, they were getting ready to watch "harry potter". After all, it's just a harmless kids movie, right? Everyone knows it's just pretend.

Here's the problem. It can give one of two very serious ideas: (1)sorcery is made up, like the movies, and it won't ever hurt anybody, or (2) you find kids that are running around outside pretending that they are themselves a witch or wizard, wishing they were one.

Whey you offer up satanic things like this, and call them innocent because there's another [hidden] message that proclaims God, YOU MISLEAD PEOPLE!

I don't support the use of these things as evangelic tools, let alone as entertainment for our families.

Now, I don't know about the "chronicles of Narnia" series. I haven't read them. But how do they create an alligory? How do they portray what God calls evil? How do they portray God? And do the books/movie lead people to the Lord, or are they created meerly for our entertainment, weather deceptively or not?

Grace and Peace...