Christians battle over 'Narnia'

The legacy of one of the 20th century's most influential religious figures is suddenly up for grabs, thanks to a new family film intended to make millions at the box office.

That's because Walt Disney's "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," set for release nationwide Friday, has helped fuel fresh interest in the beliefs of its late creator, C.S. Lewis. Though perhaps best known for his entertaining children's books, Lewis has attained a following among millions of Christians drawn to explore - and debate - what he believed to lie at the heart of Christianity.

In one camp are evangelicals, whose churches regularly use Lewis's book "Mere Christianity" to introduce newcomers to orthodox understandings of Jesus Christ. The evangelical magazine Christianity Today goes so far as to call this work "the best religious book of the 20th century."

"He still gives one of the best rational defenses of the Christian faith," says David L. Neuhouser, director of the Center for the Study of C.S. Lewis and Friends at Taylor University, an evangelical school in Upland, Ind. "His view of biblical truth in particular might not be where fundamentalists would like him to be, but in the important things [such as doctrinal claims], I think he is one with evangelicals.... Evangelicals do claim him, certainly."

Others, however, insist that Lewis cared chiefly about bringing the worldwide Christian family together. Since he helped advance a vibrant ecumenical movement in his day, he must not be reduced to a sectarian champion posthumously, according to the Rev. Dr. Clair McPherson, associate priest at the Church of the Transfiguration, an Episcopal congregation in lower Manhattan.

Lewis "makes it very clear ... that his purpose is not to be biased toward any denominational point of view or even any theological point of view within Christianity," says Reverend McPherson, who's been leading about 50 adults this fall in a four-week study of Lewis's "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe." "I would never say to evangelicals, 'you can't have him.' I would say, 'he belongs to all of us.' "

Laying claim to Lewis's legacy is serious business in the diverse world of 21st century Christianity. That's because 42 years after his death, this Irish-born Oxford University instructor still sells books like hotcakes: "Mere Christianity" alone has sold almost 1 million copies since January 2001.

Through a corpus that includes more than 30 books, Lewis explains and popularizes a faith that now nurses painful fractures along political as well as theological lines. Whichever of the competing strains can lay claim to his legacy stands to enjoy the fruits of association with a widely loved giant of Christian faith.

In this milieu, left-leaning Christians are refusing to let Lewis fossilize as an archetype of modern-day evangelicalism.

Adherents to "a sectarian style in confrontational evangelical circles could learn a lot from Lewis," says Stephen G. Post, a bioethicist at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. "I think what I do is more in tune with his tonality and content" when turning to science, Islam, and elsewhere for guidance on unforeseen moral dilemmas.

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