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Chronicles of Narnia Trailer
Ant writes "After United States' broadcast debut of the "Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe" trailer on Saturday, May 7th during ABC's network premiere of "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets", Ain't It Cool News posted AOL's link to the QuickTime movie (direct link to download the 56 MB high quality trailer file)." Fix yourself some turkish delight and enjoy.
I remembered being in grade school and watching the movie and craving to try Turkish Delight. Well we had a "party" one time in class and one of the teachers brought it in. It was disgusting! So much for childhood dreams... As you can see, it's mainly just water, sugar and corn starch (corn flour).
Anyways, here's a link to the recipe for those that are interested.
Ingredients:
1lt (1¾ Pints) Water
900g (2lb) Sugar
285g (10oz) Corn Flour
225g (8oz) Icing Sugar
1½ tbsp Rosewater
2 tsp Lemon Juice
Red Food Colouring (optional)
And The Lord Of The Rings isn't antimodernist propaganda? A book is going to reflect the author's beliefs in some way unless it's very superficial.
LOTR is subtle where Narnia is obvious, but both advocate their author's views on life, because that is what literature does.
The Screwtape Letters was supposed to be a morality tale. If it disturbed you because it was trying to get across a fairly orthodox Christian point, that's because it was. Lewis wrote a few other `fictional' books with the same idea such as The Great Divorce. That said, I don't think it fair to saying that he was trying to manipulate his readers. It isn't his fault that most readers today aren't cognizant of the original context that The Screwtape Letters originally appeared in. His target audience was fully aware of what he was doing.
But neither The Chronicles of Narnia or his space trilogy was written for that purpose. The Chronicles were originally conceived as bedtime stories for his nieces and nephews that eventually poured themselves out into a series of novels. His space trilogy came out as his attempt to get into that new fangled new literary genre.
EVERYTHING C.S. Lewis wrote was about his Christian beliefs. If you didn't realize that then I'd approach whatever school you went to and ask for my money/time back. Again, do a simple google search and you will find that both Lewis and Tolkien wanted to create stories to teach Christian principles to readers through fun stories. The mark of an educated mind is the ability to hold and idea without accepting it. So do you ALSO complain when you read the Illiad or the Odyssey because Homer was *GASP* really writing propaganda for greek religious beliefs!! SAY IT AIN'T SO! Why is that Christianity is the only religion it is still ok to hate?
That's like complaining that the Fountainhead seems to promote individualism, or 1984 seems down on totalitarianism, or that Mein Kampf seems a touch racist. It's the goal of the author, and it's not hidden.
He's not out to "manipulate", he's out to convert, and then to improve the behavior of the converted. That might be the same thing as manipulation in the books of many folks, and I can definitely see how you wouldn't want that out of a fantasy series...
But honestly, CS Lewis pretty much wrote Christian propaganda, books on why he's not an atheist, etc...
It's just like complaining that when you went walking in the rain you got wet, is all.
Along with the other comments you've recieved to date, I'd like to ask you something: I believe that when a person criticizes someone for something, they should have a plausible alternative in mind. Otherwise they are just whining.
What is the plausible alternative for C. S. Lewis? Authors write things that are true to themselves, be it Christian, Pagan, Materialist, or what not. Any author who tries to be inauthentic to themselves generally turns out garbage; even if you can't put your finger on why, you'll not like it. A lot of young writers make this mistake, by trying to be someone else, instead of themselves.
Was he supposed to write non-Christian stories? But that's not who he was. And it's hardly like the Chronicles of Narnia are blatent propoganda; instead, it's simply that they are set into a Christian framework. I've read things set into Buddhist frameworks, oodles of things in strict materialist frameworks, things set in a Victorian framework, various philosophies, etc. Do you blame any of those authors for their frameworks?
Was he supposed to not write stories, because they bother you?
When it gets down to it, at the level you're talking about, every story "pushes" some worldview at you. Why is it you're only bothered by this one?
The most likely reason is that you don't realize that you're getting many other ones pushed at you, all the time, and you've only been sensitized to this one. In that case, the problem lies with you, not CS Lewis, and you're probably getting yourself nicely manipulated by other people without even noticing it. Everyone has a worldview that colors everything they do and everything they right. (In fact, Christian writings seem one of the best places to pick that up, regardless of how you feel about the rest of them; see Lewis' non-fiction writing and the works of Francis Schaeffer.)
Nope, only four. Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy. There are two other characters that join in later books, maybe thats what your thinking of.
That said, I don't think it fair to saying that he was trying to manipulate his readers
I think that's an important point. Lewis was writing at a time when being a Christian was the norm. His books were written to put across Christian morality, not Christianity in and of itself.
I remember being upset when I found out that the Narnia books were about Christianity; I felt tricked. But really the parallels are so blatent that there's no way he was trying to sneak anything past anyone. It was just his inspiration for the stories.
As for Screwtape, well, it's a story written as letters from a senior to a junior devil - if you can't spot the possibility of a Christian message there, then you can't really blame the author!
--- These are not words: wierd, genious, rediculous
Here are his works catergorized as "Christian" in a faq I found:
P.S. "Apologetic" does not mean making an apology for. In this context it means making a formal justification or defense.
Oddly enough, when I first heard of the Narnia's ties to Christianity, I felt foolish for not noticing it before. I also found them even more interesting, because of how well written the allegory was. It wasn't so much that it was subtle (it's not) but that the story works well even if you are ignorant of the allegory! That is what I found most impressive about them.
The League of Concerned Satanists will no doubt lambast this movie as Christian propaganda, due to its thinly veiled allegory.
English is easier said than done.
He didn't believe in Biblical inerrancy; that is to say, although he believed that the 66 books contained in the Bible are in fact divinely inspired, he didn't believe that all of them were historically accurate. He didn't believe, for example, that Jonah actually got swallowed by the whale, or that the earth is only 8,000 years old. They are scriptures in the sense that they are divine teachings, but they are also myth (according to his line of thinking).
God works "in cognito" in other societies where the Christian gospel is not heard in order to promote his values. Lewis agreed that no one could make it to heaven without believing in Christ, but he also believed that many who never crossed paths with a Christian were given revelation about God through their own mythology. After death, according to Lewis, those who rejected Jesus during their lifetime would surely bring hell upon themselves because they really wouldn't want to spend eternity with a God they hated.
I personally wish more men like Lewis would lead the American church today, because in the absence of reason, superstition has become more and more powerful.
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