Voyage of the Dawn Treader

My wife and I, along with my Orthodox friend Fr. Philip and his wife, recently watched the new movie The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. As a great fan of C.S. Lewis' work, I've watched with interest the 'movie-fication' of the Chronicles of Narnia, but I must admit I've been anticipating this film in particular, as the sea-faring tale is among my favorites in the series.

As with Prince Caspian and most books converted into films, some liberties have been taken with the story to make the drama somewhat more intense. On the whole, I thought it was a solid contribution to the series (it was much better than Prince Caspian) and quite enjoyable. The themes of greed and temptation remain very present in the translation of the story to film. Happily, one of the most significant conversations, taken from the last pages of the book, also makes it into the film:

“Dearest,” said Aslan very gently, “you and your brother will never come back to Narnia.”
“Oh, Aslan!” said Edmund and Lucy both together in despairing voices.
“You are too old, children,” said Aslan, “and you must begin to come close to your own world now.”
“It isn't Narnia, you know,” sobbed Lucy. “It's you. We shan't meet you there. And how can we live, never meeting you?”
“But you shall meet me, dear one,” said Aslan.
“Are-- are you there too, Sir?” said Edmund.
“I Am,” said Aslan. “But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”

As Aslan spoke these words to the children in the movie, I had the realization that he was speaking it to all of us in the audience. Or rather CS Lewis was speaking to all of us. “The whole reason I have invited you into Narnia, is that you may learn to know Aslan better, by his other Name: the Lord Jesus.”

I am fond of pointing out to people that the first (by my set's count) book in the series, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, is dedicated to his god-child, Lucy (go check out the dedication page).

When a child is baptized god-parents (sometimes called 'sponsors' in The United Methodist Church), along with the child's own parents, are entrusted with the primary responsibility to see that the child is raised in the Christian faith so that he may profess faith in Christ for himself when he is old enough to be responsible for owning this covenant commitment.

Unfortunately, it seems that this responsibility is not always taken seriously by god-parents/sponsors (this is one good reason to have “pre-baptismal counseling sessions” that all sponsors are required to attend). But Lewis took it seriously enough. He invited his god-daughter into Narnia, that she might come to know and love Aslan and ultimately realize that this great Lion exists to point her to Jesus Christ. And he extends this invitation to us all.

Tolkien, Lewis, and others have been called “culturally savvy Christians” who contribute positively to culture, rather than simply criticizing it as Christians are sometimes wont to do. Christians have in fact brought us many of the great masterpieces of our culture: from the great cathedrals to the poetry of the hymns; from the glorious choral music to the vast wealth of scholarship and philosophy to the great paintings hanging in the Vatican and the Louvre, Christians have created many wonderful cultural achievements just because they were Christians, just as a celebration of the reality of God in their lives. As an aside it seems to me that atheism, because it has no unique positive contribution to celebrate but is merely a negation or a deconstruction of theism, is intrinsically incapable of producing the kinds of beautiful and soul-nourishing cultural achievements that that Christianity has brought to the world.

If the Kingdom of God that Jesus proclaims has truly begun to be realized in his resurrection, then part of our proclamation as Christians can and should be a holy creativity; a celebration of God through art and song and story, as sign-posts to his already-but-not-yet Kingdom victory. Rather than merely lamenting the mindless hedonism and depressed nihilism we see in our popular cultural, I believe we are called to “show a better way” to the world by making our own positive, thoughtful, and beautiful contributions that point the culture to Christ.

Bishop Willimon quote on Church

"I'll admit that church can be boring, unexciting. There are Sundays when the Holy Spirit is close and undeniable, and [there are] Sundays that are blah. I think Wesley would have me add that the church is not supposed to make discipleship thrilling; it's supposed to make it normal.

We go to church to practice the faith, to rehearse the faith, to get so good at it that obeying Jesus on Sunday - that joyful obedience - will become the most natural, noramal thing we do on Monday through Saturday."

-United Methodist Bishop Will Willimon from his book, This We Believe: The Core of Wesleyan Faith and Practice, p. 149.

Bishop Willimon has written several books on Methodist beliefs and Wesleyan Spirituality and this one is pretty good. He is here re-affirming something that the Church has taught through the ages, but which many in Western (particularly American) culture don't always immediately recognize because of our ubiquitous celebration of individual spontaneity:
rituals are powerful; habits and symbols shape our awareness of who we are and who we can become. This is why the liturgy of the Church works the way it does.

Archbishop calls for Wesley's "catholic spirit"

The turmoil of the Anglican Communion has been so complex in recent years that I've blogged on it less. Here is a very simplistic overview:

In 2003, The Episcopal Church (in the USA) made an openly practicing homosexual man a bishop, contrary to the teachings of the Bible, the Christian tradition, and the Lambeth Conference (when every Anglican bishop in the world meets every 10 years or so).

This innovation caused massive turmoil and friction within the Anglican Communion, with several American dioceses defecting from the Episcopal Church altogether and coming under the provincial supervision of other, more orthodox, Anglican provinces (national churches; mostly in Africa and South America). A number of provinces of the Anglican Communion declared themselves to be in impaired or even broken communion with the Episcopal Church.

In response to this crisis and to avoid an all-out schism, Anglican leaders began developing a "Covenant" that would bind the various provinces of the Communion more closely together and would provide mechanisms to deal with Communion-wide disputes in the future.

In the meantime, matters have been complicated further as the Anglican Church of Canada has moved forward in developing rites to bless and celebrate life-long homosexual unions (while being very careful thus far not to call them "marriages") and the US church has recently elected a second bishop living in an openly homosexual lifestyle.

The Lambeth Conference of 2008 met with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams (pictured right) presiding, but was content to discuss these matters and engage in a listening process, rather than making any judgements or declarations. However, a large percentage of the more orthodox and traditionalist bishops did not come at all in protest. These no-show bishops, along with many who did attend Lambeth met together later that year at the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) in Jerusalem, which issued a statement of fundamental Anglican beliefs and values.

At this point, the Covenant document has now been completed and submitted to the various Anglican provinces for their consideration and endorsement. Some liberals complain that it will be "punitive" in practice, while many conservatives claim that the final version of the Covenant lacks the disciplinary teeth that are necessary to deal effectively with the crisis that led to the creation of the Covenant to begin with. The provinces are now considering the Covenant, and will be for a couple years.

The Church of England, the mother church of world-wide Anglicanism, recently took a step towards endorsing the Covenant at its Annual Synod. Amid debate over the merits of the Covenant, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, strongly endorsed the Covenant, calling for the synod to embrace the "catholic spirit" described by John Wesley (Anglican priest and Methodist revival leader, pictured left):

A day ahead of the debate the Archbishop of Canterbury used his presidential address to make what was undoubtedly the decisive intervention in the Covenant debate. He cited a famous sermon by John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, on “The Catholic Spirit,” which “is neither a climate of imposed universal agreement nor a free for all.”

He continued: “Wesley wants us to be settled in the basics of the faith, ‘fixed as the sun’ in our allegiance to the creed and the doctrine of a free and God-given atonement for sin.” This however is “consistent with readiness to hear arguments against what we believe without panic... [and] consistent with the knowledge that opinions vary even when doctrines are shared.”

Coming directly to the proposed Covenant he said: “It is an illusion to think that without some changes the Communion can carry on as usual, and a great illusion to think that the Church of England can somehow derail the entire process. The uncomfortable fact is that certain decisions in any province affect all.”

Wesley's idea of a catholic spirit is often summed up in the quote "In essentials, unity; In non-essentials, liberty; In all things, charity." There is a core of essential Christian faith that must be affirmed for any church unity to exist, which Wesley highlights in this sermon and in other places. It is that faith "once delivered to the saints" (to quote St. Jude) and which has been "held in all times, in all places, by all faithful Christians" (to quote St. Vincent of Lerins). Yet beyond these fundamentals, there are less-essential doctrinal or devotional areas in which differences of opinion should be allowed honestly. In all things, the Christian community, even in its disagreeing, must conduct itself with "agape" (self-giving love or charity). The trick has always proved to be deciding which beliefs and practices belong in each category.

The synod voted overwhelmingly to move the Covenant process forward. Check out the entire article from Living Church and also Wesley's original sermon, Catholic Spirit.