Narnia, Aslan, Tash, Foreigner

Warning: Spoilers Ahead

So I just finished reading The Chronicles of Narnia. I think it's safe to say I can add Clive Staples Lewis to the list of people who have actively tried to make me Christian. What is that now, three?

Anyway, after page after page of preaching and proselytizing, Aslan (ie God) meets Emeth (a Calormene warrior - one of the "bad guys" ) who had been worshipping Tash (the Devil, or some such representation) but was sincere in his worship and honestly wanted to do good. So they have the typical benevolent-god-meets-errant-but-all-in-all-good-creation conversation. "Fear not my son" etc etc. And then Clive Staples Lewis writes probably the most liberal passage in the entire 767 page tome, and I, shockingly (shockingly because I tend to disagree with things both liberal and conservative - and this is a liberal passage by a conservative writer), agree with it almost completely (see near the end of this posting for the point that prevented me from agreeing with it completely completely).

Anyway, for those of you who care enough to still be reading this post, here is the passage (from near the end of book #7, The Last Battle), as narrated by Emeth: "Then by reason of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, 'Lord, is it then true, as the ape (*Blogger's Note: The ape is a jackass) said, that thou and Tash are one?' The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, 'It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites - I take to me the services which thou hast done to him. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore, if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath's sake, it is by me he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. Dosts thou understand, Child?' I said, ' Lord, Thou knowest how much I understand.' (But I also said, for the truth constrained me), Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days.' 'Beloved,' said the Glorious One,'unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek."

Notice how terrible Aslan's subject-verb agreement is? "If any man swear"... "though he know it not"... I suppose as God, you're allowed to mess with the language as you please. Though it could just be Harper Collins messing up... God knows. Haha.

My interpretation of the above is, briefly,
1. Keep your promises,
2. Search for truth, and
3. Be nice to people
and you'll be A-OK. I guess my only issue with it is that it seems almost relativistic and hippyesque... "Dude, your God's cool, as long as we can get high together... wooooow, pretty rainbowwwww." I think it's alright to be "cool" with other people's "God" as long as you sincerely try to understand them and see where they're coming from. But the "it's all good let's drink some beer" approach is a bit flippant. I think we should
1. Keep our promises,
2. Search for truth,
3. Be nice to people, and
4. Be aware that it's not ALL good .

Maybe C.S. Lewis feels that number 4 is covered in number 1, or something like that, but I wouldn't have minded if he had been more explicit. On the whole, the above passage didn't really fit in with the rampantly Christian hurrah that the rest of the book was. I was completely expecting Aslan to say something like, "Thou shouldst have looked harder for me, silly boy," but all he did was go, "Meh, Tash, me, whatever, as long as you're cool, dude."

It's a nice thought though...