At a house in Newport, Orange County, California, a group of Christians have gathered for their weekly discussion group. They are members of Mosaic, a faith community “committed to live by faith, to be known by love, and to be a voice of hope”. The topic is the $150 million Christmas blockbuster
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Even though most of them have read C. S. Lewis’s semi-allegorical books, the real impetus for the discussion is the forthcoming movie. But the tone is surprisingly thoughtful, with more emphasis on the story’s themes of redemption than the quality of the CGI.
Se-Young Lee, a physician and father of two who’s been worshipping with Mosaic for seven years, says: “Spiritual issues are not a natural topic for everyday discussion, so it’s great to have a movie that stimulates people to talk about them.”
Mosaic members are so enthusiastic about the film that they have block-booked three screenings for the film’s opening day next week. But they have been outdone by the nearby Saddleback Church, which has booked 13 screens for its 20,000 members. Tom Holladay, a teaching pastor with Saddleback, says that, thanks to the film, “the truth about Jesus’s love becomes a topic around the water cooler in the office. It becomes a personal conversation.”
The loyalty to the film is so great that hour-long Prayer Focus conference calls have been set up to allow worshippers to “pray for children in our community to respond to the message of The Chronicles of Narnia by receiving Jesus Christ as Saviour”.
This is the kind of emotional connection with a product that marketing departments can only dream about unless they are looking after Star Wars sequels. It happened last year with The Passion of the Christ, but Mel Gibson first had to win over America’s religious leadership with his film. The senior pastors and theologians he invited to private screenings were still, at that point, the food tasters for the target audience, checking for impurities or outright Hollywood poison.
Sarah Arthur, the author of Walking Through the Wardrobe, a guide to the spiritual themes in the Narnia books, says: “I would talk with teenagers and realise that the word ‘Armageddon’ had been robbed of all of its biblical connotations. Hollywood was becoming the new Holy Roman Empire.”
The religious leadership nearly all approved The Passion of the Christ for Christian consumption because it was the first unabashedly devout film to come out of Hollywood for decades. It was also seen as a great opportunity for attracting potential converts. To use the modern promotional language of the religious group Outreach Inc, “The Passion of the Christ is a powerful outreach tool for sharing the message of Christ with the unchurched.”
And yet one could detect an ambivalence among some Christian commentators about Gibson’s film. They appreciated that it jolted Hollywood awake to the Christian audience, but none of them relished the task of defending its goriness and melodrama.
The Chronicles of Narnia is a different story — “like comparing a slaughterhouse with a loving family,” says Douglas Gresham. He is C. S. Lewis’s stepson and a co-producer and “creative ambassador” on the film. At the “sneak peek” events, it was Gresham who stepped up to reassure audiences that the film was true to the spirit of his stepfather’s novels. “Until recently,” he told Christianity Today, “cinema has been used almost exclusively to corrupt man rather than to develop man.”
The revelation this week that Lewis once wrote a letter saying that a live-action version of Aslan the lion would be “blasphemy” is unlikely to make a dent in the film’s reception, so fervently has it been championed by America’s religious community:
“The redemptive message was even stronger than I’d hoped” — Outreach, Inc.
“An unprecedented evangelistic opportunity” — Campus Crusade for Christ International.
“We believe God will speak the gospel of Jesus Christ through this film. The Lion of Judah is about to roar” — the Billy Graham Centre.
With The Chronicles of Narnia, the old separation between Church and screen has been washed away. American Christians are not just a potential audience to be won over with wholesome messages, they are part of the marketing department. Outreach Inc is offering a line-up of “top-quality Christian speakers” and Narnia scholars to help to use “the season’s biggest film to start a spiritual dialogue with your community”. They suggest hosting events such as a “Wardrobe” Q&A session to address “critical questions asked by sceptics and seekers”, or a Narnia Christmas Service. “Ask the question: ‘What if there were no Christmas (like in Narnia)?’ and celebrate that there is indeed a Christmas.”
Walden Media, which produced the film, has been laying the groundwork for the past year. Along with the regular academic Narnia tours and C. S. Lewis festivals, Walden has held exhibitions at libraries and installed 20ft high snow globes at shopping malls. Most pertinently for their core audience, they have been hosting “sneak peek” Narnia nights in churches with the help of the evangelical group Mission America, which offers a Narnia package on how churches can use the film to win over converts.
Sermons are available for downloading, relating Narnia excerpts to biblical topics, such as the role of Turkish delight, which figures in a storyline of worldly greed. “Make the candy, share it with children and adults, and use the opportunity to discuss the themes around delicacy-addiction, temptation-overcoming, prudence, etc.”
Narnia paper is available on which to print your church service programme, along with a huge range of banners, leaflets and door hangers. “Pray for your neighbours as you leave door hangers at each home. This is a great way to engage youth in a Narnia outreach.”
Children are encouraged to become ambassadors of Narnia (“our street team of passionate volunteers”) or one of the Knights of Narnia with Christian groups such as the Ground Force Network, because such work “looks great on a resumé”.
Narnia has so far avoided this year’s blockbuster backlash, despite doing tie-in deals with a fast-food chain and even a brand of lavatory paper. This is due to the unique nature of Walden Media, which had full creative control over the film. The company is owned by Philip Anschutz, a 66-year-old Colorado billionaire who made his money in oil and the railway business.
Anschutz is a devout Presbyterian who is still married to his childhood sweetheart. He funded Walden with the aim of creating wholesome, educational family entertainment with a strong spiritual message. “My friends think I’m a candidate for a lobotomy,” he told a college forum last year, “and my competitors think I’m naive or stupid or both.
“But I don’t care. If we can make some movies that have a positive effect on people’s lives and on our culture, that’s enough for me.”
The Chronicles of Narnia is released on Thursday, Dec 8
