Kurt Bruner - Finding God in the Land of Narnia

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Finding God in the Land of Narnia

Copyright 2005, 2020 by Kurt Bruner and Jim Ware. All rights reserved.

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The Library of Congress has cataloged the original edition as follows:

Bruner, Kurt D.
Finding God in the land of Narnia / Kurt Bruner, Jim Ware.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4964-4752-4 (sc)
1. Lewis, C. S. (Clive Staples), 1898-1963. Chronicles of Narnia. 2. Childrens stories, EnglishHistory and criticism. 3. Christian fiction, EnglishHistory and criticism. 4. Fantasy fiction, EnglishHistory and criticism. 5. Spiritual life in literature. 6. Narnia (Imaginary place)
7. God in literature. I. Ware, Jim. II. Title.
PR6023.E926C5323 2004
823'.912dc22 2003024945

Repackage first published in 2020 under ISBN 978-1-4964-4752-4.

Build: 2021-04-21 14:16:59 EPUB 3.0

To Shaun, who can hardly wait to see real Narnia, and to Ian, who is headed Further Up and Further In

Every fan of great literature experiences mixed feelings when a story is put to film: excitement, because characters who had only been imagined will come to life on the screen; dread, out of fear the studio will distort the authentic version beyond recognition. Im one of those who believes no film can measure up to the book. And as an author, I grieve how much more time younger generations spend streaming than reading. But Im a reluctant realist. The days when all people understood the word library as volumes on a shelf rather than episodes in a queue are long gone. So we decided to update this book for those just discovering a magical place called Narnia, thanks to a hefty investment by Netflix.

It was a rainy day in 1999. We had completed recording sessions in London while producing Focus on the Family Radio Theatres adaptation of the seven books that make up TheChronicles of Narnia. So my wife and I decided to visit a little pub in Oxford known as The Eagle and Child, where several writers who called themselves the Inklings had routinely gathered six decades earlier to hear and critique bits of one anothers work. For years I had imagined what it would have been like to sit in a quaint English pub eavesdropping on conversations between two of my literary heroes, J. R. R. Tolkien, creator of Middle-earth, and C. S. Lewis, the man who conceived the land of Narnia. Fifty-plus years later, the closest I could get was to visit the spotperhaps even share the same boothwhere two of the twentieth centurys most brilliant Christian writers once sat.

I dont know what I expectedperhaps a shrine marking the place where these great men once gathered, or a gallery celebrating their legacy, or a reading room filled with their books. What I found was something else entirely. The pub was nothing more than, well, a pub. Peoplemostly college studentswere sitting around eating, drinking, smoking, and talking. As far as I could tell, not a soul was treating the place with due reverence. Not one person seemed to be reflecting upon the spiritual themes within the works of Tolkien, Lewis, or any other Tom, Dick, or Harry. And so, disappointed by the ordinariness of the place, unable to locate a table in memory of my literary heroes, I asked someone to take a quick snapshot of us before we left.

Weeks later, back home, my wife and I were flipping through photo memories of our trip. That was when I noticed that in the top left corner of the picture taken in the pub is the bottom half of a portrait. It seems that just above the booth in which we sat for our photo hangs a picture of C. S. Lewis! The room was too dark and the smoke too thick to notice while we were there, but the camera flash revealed that we were, apparently, sitting in the very place Lewis and Tolkien once sat. I now tell friends that I went to Oxford and had my picture taken with the man who penned The Chronicles of Narniathe man, incidentally, who has done more to inspire my faith than any other.

C. S. Lewis, Jack to his friends, is known today as the Oxford don who became a great apologist for the Christian faith. But it was not always so. In fact, he went to Oxford as a skeptic, seeing the Christian gospel as just another myth bringing comfort to the weak-mindedoffering little to the more sophisticated intellect.

I believe in no religion, seventeen-year-old Jack wrote to a friend. There is absolutely no proof for any of them, and from a philosophical standpoint, Christianity is not even the best.

What made the change in Lewis? In a word, fantasy. It is no stretch to say that Lewiss faith journey began as a result of reading stories that were dripping with Christian truthawakening within him a desire for something he didnt possess. Like the wonderful aroma of home-baked cookies invading his nostrils, these stories gave Jack a whiff of joy, making him hungry for the full reality of its source.

In later life, Lewis would credit the author of those stories, nineteenth-century minister George MacDonald, with having influenced virtually every word he ever wroteincluding Narnia. It began with Phantastes, a dreamlike tale in which a young man wished to visit fairy-country. He woke the next morning in an enchanted wood where he encountered profound happiness mixed with perilous adventure, including death and rebirth of sorts. At first, Lewis didnt recognize the story or the desire it stirred in him to be Christian. Only later, after having found the aromas source, did Lewis realize what had occurred. Lewis said he crossed a great frontier while reading Phantastes that placed him on a quest for joy. This pursuit eventually found its source in the same God of Christianity he had abandoned in childhood. And so, thanks to the imagination of George MacDonald, C. S. Lewis found his way homeand was met by a plate of warm cookies.

I had a similar experience while sitting in that London recording studio. As executive producer for a radio dramatization of