Encountering Aslan

A Narnian Baptism

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This image is graciously provided by our AI overlords at ChatGPT. It captures the themes of a modern reader engaging with fairy tales; wading into the river of Christianity; and encountering the figure of Aslan. The article, however, is human-made.

In the days after Hurricane Helene destroyed my entire region and cut me off from the world, I found myself craving the familiarity and comfort of books I loved as a child. So, I pulled my volume of The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis from the shelf. I’m now nearing the end of the series, and it has been a beautiful experience.

For those unfamiliar, The Chronicles of Narnia is a children’s fantasy series by Medievalist and Christian apologist C.S. Lewis. It is a straightforward allegory for the Christian message. The series mostly follows the adventures of children who find their way from our world into the magical land of Narnia, where Aslan ­— Christ-figure and creator of Narnia — reigns. I won’t give more of a synopsis than that. If you haven’t read the series, you must.

Narnia is, in my view, a magnificent piece of literature. Lewis breathes mythical fire into these books. They are as pagan as they are Christian, and he draws from Greco-Roman myth and the deep well of medieval literature to inform the stories. Narnia is heavy with scholarship, wisdom, and imagination. When we first step foot through the wardrobe with the Pevensie children, we are in the skillful hands of a brilliant scholar of myth and literature.

I don’t have only nice things to say about Narnia. I have criticisms of how these books have shaped generations of young Christian minds. But, before I unleash my displeasure, I thought that I should dwell on the beauty of the books, and the impact this reading has had on me. As much as I wanted to remain unmoved by these stories, I found that even I was not immune. Reading these books transformed this jaded skeptical atheist in ways I did not anticipate.