Actually, this Salon article argues, pace Christian scholar and learned fairy tale analyst John Goldthwaite, that C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia series (the first of which will be released this weekend as a film) is bad, bad, bad theology. First, it subscribes to a Manichaean worldview—"the idea that standing opposed to God's good creation is another, separate and equal, or nearly equal, creation given over to evil."
Secondly, it seeks to improve on God's creation by imagining a whole new—and vastly more perfectible—world. It appears that not only do Christians know better than science, but some know better than God!
Thirdly, Lewis believed that his Chronicles of Narnia could do a better job telling Christ's story than the Gospels did. "Lewis wrote that he wanted 'The Chronicles of Narnia' to take the parables of the New Testament and cast them 'into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday School associations,' hoping that this would make them 'appear in their real potency.' "
Of course, arrogance, hubris, and stark dualisms are antithetical to today's American Christianity.
This movie's going to do so poorly at the box office, I'll feel sorry for Aslan. And by poorly, I mean insanely well. And by feeling sorry for Aslan, I mean I feel sorry for America's aesthetic standards. Have you seen the trailer? The computer animation—which is essentially the entire movie—looks like crap.
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