By Owen Carson | Broadcast Reporter
“Narnia: The Magicians Nephew,” directed by Greta Gerwig, is set to hit theaters February 2027. Based off the series “The Chronicles of Narnia” by C.S. Lewis, discourse has stirred among fans as they compare the story to it’s biblical ties.
First, the choice to cast Meryl Streep as Aslan instead of a male actor. Additionally, mixed reactions to the movie’s trailer are leaving fans wondering what has happened to their favorite Christian movie.
However, that’s where people need to re-look at what these books are. “The Chronicles of Narnia” have many similarities to the Christian story, but they are not Christian pieces of media.
Lewis was one of the greatest Christian speakers and he constantly defended and advocated for Jesus. During his time writing the series, Lewis often created many incredibly close similarities between the bible and his stories.
In Genesis 1:3 for example, Jesus says “Let there be light,” and there was. He spoke the universe into existence. In the Narnia books, Aslan, the creator of the world, sings Narnia into existence.
Additionally, Jesus died for all of mankind. In Narnia, Aslan ends up dying because he sacrifices himself so that another character may not be punished by the evil White Witch.
Both of these characters rise once again and they do it very similarly as well. In Mathew 27:51 it says that when Jesus died the “veil was torn in two… and the rocks split.” Before Aslan comes back to life, the stone table he dies on splits in two.
“Lewis always insisted that his seven Narnia books were not a point-by-point Christian allegory,” a TIME article wrote when the original movies came out. “Much of The Lion, the Witch owes more to English folktales or Norse and classical myth than to the New Testament.”
“The passage of the four Pevensie children through the magic closet into a world laboring under a spell of eternal winter is not Christian, nor are the cruel white witch, talking animals, centaurs, and even a duo of Roman gods who inhabit it,” the article said.
In a Q&A about her upcoming Narnia remake, Gerwig said “I tried to read everything that C.S Lewis wrote, then I tried to read the things he read … so that my instincts would go in the direction his soul was.”
People can argue over what the chronicles of Narnia are really supposed to be but let’s look at the way the Bible is being used and advertised as so from the U.S. secretary of defense Pete Hegseth.
He is currently on a military recruitment tour using the phrase “Send Me,” directly inspired from the verse in Isaiah 6:8.
Someone should not use the Bible to advocate for something scripture is clearly against. Yet, people aren’t even close to as upset about this as they are with “The Chronicles of Narnia” remake.
There cannot be a double standard for something like this. If people are going to be angry that a remake of a movie is not christian enough but stand by while Hegseth uses a bible verse to recruit people to fight other countries then there is a much bigger issue at hand.
