This Friday, when tens of thousands head to the theaters for the motion picture release of “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe,” church groups will have with them a new piece of evidence that the children's story tells a Christian message.

Recent reports revealed the discovery of a letter written by the famed author C.S Lewis in 1961. The letter, addressed to a child fan, reads: "The whole Narnian story is about Christ," according to The Sunday Times of Britain. It was found by Walter Hooper, literary adviser to the Lewis estate.

Christians and secularists have been tugging at their ends in debating Lewis' message in the popular children's series. Churches have cited allusions to the gospel and Jesus while others, including Douglas Gresham, Lewis' stepson, simply regard it as an adventure story.

Professor Andrew Quicke, professor of Cinema Television at Regent University, said Narnia was not written as "an evangelical religious tract" but rather "as a story."

"The nonbelievers and believers are getting much too uptight about this," he said.

Speaking more to the literary art of the allegory, Quicke quoted T.S. Eliot, who he said "summed up the discussion perfectly."

"Literary criticism (for us film criticism) should be completed by criticism from a definite ethical and theological standpoint," he said.

"The subject of literature was too important not to be completed from a theological perspective," he added.

Quicke attributed credibility to the recent letter finding.

"I'm sure the letter is genuine. I don't disagree with it at all," he said.

However, he clearly stated, "C.S. Lewis writes allegory and we should judge his stories in terms of their literary merit when we look at the story and cinematic merit when we look at the film."

While Narnia is not written as a way of promoting the gospel, Quicke says Lewis wrote stories "very much within the Christian tradition with strong Christian undertones and overtones."

Lewis converted to Christianity as an adult after having abandoned it as a child.

A volume of Lewis letters is slated for publishing in 2006.


Lillian Kwon
BREATHEcast Contributor