Narnia (again)

[altivo]

For those who have not yet been to see The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe because you feel the expected Christian religious content will be irritating or offensive to you, I offer this very amusing review from the Christian Childcare Action Project, which does NOT recommend that you let your children see the film. (Note

Comments

[kistaro]

As ridiculous as the linked review is (especially the "Offense to God" summary of the thoroughly conceptually amusing "WISDOM" scale), I have to respect it for what it is. If I had conservative Christian religious beliefs- not even fundie-conservative, just a lower-key sort of conservative (understands why creationism can't be taught in school, is only slightly to moderately homophobic, accepts science as beneficial rather than evil, etc.)- I'd want this information, and I'd agree with the summary. I'd probably discount the "O" category somewhat, but it is, on the whole, reasonable from its perspective.

The reviewer in the document is not suggesting a widespread boycott of the movie by any means, only that those with young children approach it with caution- and from a violence standpoint, that's perfectly valid advice in general. But from a Christian perspective, if the biblical references are clear enough for a youth to perceive, the sharp deviations from such (as referenced in the review) are potential cause for confusion. From an objective standpoint, a Christian has every right to be worried about his or her children getting confused by such pseudomisrepresentation (no overt attempt is made to draw this as What Christianity Is, but the references are strong enough that the deviations are a form of misrepresentation, but not a true one as it was never technically represented in the first place) and should at the very least be aware of it so he or she can clarify what the Bible actually says.

If those of Neo-Pagan beliefs, such as myself, can get offended and irritated by those representing us as baby-eating devil worshippers, Christians are more than reasonable to be personally concerned for themselves about potential religious problems with a show.

I'd have much less respect for the reviewer if he concluded that all good Christians should boycott the show and start a letter-writing campaign to get it pulled from the shelves, but he stayed far short of that and in fact gave a tacit endorsement of the show- just with warnings that its religious conclusions are not as consistent with Christianity as might be expected, and it contains content the religion disapproves of.

And if a Christian reviewer wants to say that Christians might find this offensive, I'd say he's given perfectly valid rationale to draw that conclusion.

[altivo]

That's all quite rational and I won't argue with you at all. My focus was on the folks who are boycotting the movie because they think it's going to try to indoctrinate them into Christianity, which it will NOT do.

Frankly, I think the reviewer in this instance has built his own personal version of hell and must live a pretty unhappy life. But that's his problem, not mine. ;)