FEATURE

NARNIA INVADED
How the New Films Subvert Lewis's Hierarchical World
by STEVEN D . BOYER
simply as movies, nor to the interpolation of much non-Lewis material into both movies, nor even to the appropriateness of film, in principle, as a vehicle for telling such seories. Objections might be made (and have been made) on all three points, bue I shall not make them here. Instead, I have a larger and more basic question in mind. Do these film versions "do" whae Lewis's books ehemselves "do"? Do ehose who see ehe films come away nourished in ehe same way ehae readers of the stories do? Do ehe films give us, or do they try to give us, something recognizably like Lewis's comprehensively Christian vision of the world?

A PECULIAR LOVE OF HIERARCHY In order to address questions like ehese, we have eo ask first what Lewis is trying to do. What is his "Christian vision of ehe world"? We could address ehis question s EVERYONE KNOWS, two Hollywood proby focusing on the Narnia tales specifically, but it ends ductions of recent years bear the titles of up being more productive (and avoiding some of the two of C. S. Lewis's famous stories from twists and turns of scholarship on Narnia) to begin The Chronicles ofNarnia: The Lion, the Witch with a broader account of Lewis's basic theological and the Wardrohe and Prince Caspian. The third install- outlook, and so that is whae we shall do. ment in the series. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, is Underseanding ehis basic ouelook does bring scheduled for release this December, with The Silver with it, however, one really substantial obstacle: we CWr slated for 2011. have to think carefully about a significant elemene in Lewis's vision ehat does not play very well in our Many Christians are very excited about these world, even among contemporary Christians. That developments, believing (quite rightly) ehae Lewis's element is Lewis's peculiar fondness for hierarchy. stories are shot through with deeply Christian imaginative themes. Whae can be wrong wieh disseminaeThe word "hierarchy" does not have very pleasant ing ehe seories more widely in ehis way? The answer connotations in our day, so to speak of someone beis: Absolutely nochingso long as it really is Lewis's ing "fond of hierarchy" sounds very "peculiar" indeed. stories being disseminated. But there's the rub. A It is like admitting that your great-uncle Jack, really ehougheful inveseigation suggests that the Narnia a fine old gentleman, never got over his childhood films are very far from being a faithful representation delight in pulling the wings off flies. Of course, this of Lewis's own Christian vision of reality. odd and even repulsive idiosyncrasy might be ignored This is a serious charge, so let me focus it a bit by members of the family, out of their affection for more. I shall not objece eo the qualiey of the movies Uncle Jack. The only problem with treating Lewis this way Steven D. Boyer is Professor of Tbeolo^ at Eastern University is that his particular oddity reappears everywhere in in Saint Davids, Pennsylvania. He, his wife, and their four his work, usually quite explicitly, and it has an excepchildren attend Community Evangelical Free Church in Elverson, tionally strong bearing upon the way he understands Pennsylvania. orthodox Christianity. If we are going to understand
TOUCHSTONE | N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2010

30

Lewis's deeply Cbristian vision ofthe world, we will need to try bard to understand bow this suspicious attraction to bierarcby is a part of it.

Two INTERLOCKED PRINCIPLES Lewis's thinking begins witb the Cbristian understanding of God as tbe Creator of tbe world, and of tbe world as God's creation. Tbe historic Cbristian doctrine of Creation requires Cbristians to insist on j^m uniting two fundamental principles, and oddly enougb, two principles that tbe contemporary The filmmakers have taken the outlook is often prone to separate. single element in Lewis's tales First, it insists upon hierarchy. We migbt not use tbis term very often, but it is clear that any that twenty-first-century viewers serious doctrine ofcreatio ex nihilo ("creation out of notbing") involves tbe recognition of a very real most need to be instructed in, bierarchical distinction between God and world. and they have recast it so that it The difference between tbe great Creator wbo gives reality and tbe cosmos tbat receives reality contributes to the error rather is absolute. Tbe one is utterly independent, tbe than correcting it. otber utterly dependent. Tbe one is worthy of all worsbip; the other rightly offers tbis worsbip. Tbere is bete a hierarchy of tbe deepest, riebest kind, for in every imaginable respect, tbe world is mind, hierarchy is tbe source of freedom. Tbis means subordinateand rightly subordinateto the God wbo that, as odd as it sounds to most of us, bierarchical order creates and constantly sustains ber. is sometbing tbat we all ougbt not to hate or to fear, but Yet tigbt alongside this affirmation of hierarchy in to deligbt in. the Christian doctrine of Creation, we find tbe insistence tbat creation is fundamentally, unambiguously gooJand To be sure, hierarchy has been abused, and Lewis witb a goodness tbat grows directly out of its unqualiIS well aware tbat, in a fallen world, we need equality as fied dependence upon its Creator. Note tbe surprising a protection against that abuse. But it is one tbing to interpntration of tbese two principles. Creation is not protect ourselves from tbe abuse of bierarcby, and it is good in spite of its subordination to God, in spite ofthe anotber to reject outrigbt the thmg that is abusedand it hierarchy; it is good hecause of its subordination, hecause is tbis latter error that tbe modern world has fallen into. ofthe bietarcby. It is good because it is created, and to be Finding that hierarchy has been abused, we have rejected created is to be glorious precisely by virtue of refiecting or bierarcby in principle. showing forth the greater, bigber glory of tbe Creator. But tbis is a dteadful mistake. It is like discovering Indeed, as soon as any created tbing ceases to be that some of our food has been poisoned and therefore rightly subordinate to God, tbat creature ceases also to resolving never to eat again. Worse still, if Lewis is rigbt, be good. It becomes a competitor with God, like Molecb tbis rejection of hierarchy is notbing less tban a rejection or Baal or Satan, ratber than a servant of God. This is tbe of a fully Christian way of seeing tbe world. essence of sin in Lewis s mind: it is a turning away from our true creaturely status. It is an attempt to replace tbe COUNTERCULTURAL CREATIVITY goodness tbat naturally comes from being subordinate to God tbe Creator witb a different, independent, autonoOf course, it is anotber question wbctber Lewis really is mous goodness. It is a rejection of God. rigbt about all of tbis. It seems to be a prett)' important question. Unfortunately, it is also a question tbat most of us have very few resources to answer bonestly, for tbe DELIGHT IN HIERARCHY simple reason tbat, for most of us, "good hierarchy" is a contradiction in terms. Tbe very word hierarchy usually So hierarchy, by its nature, is fundamentally good. And bas a ring of doom to it in our culture: it reeks of domiLewis follows tbe overwbelming majority ofthe Chrisnation and oppression. For most of us, even to consider tian tradition by going further, by believing tbat the
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2010 | TOUCHSTONE

goodness of bietarcbically ordered relationships extends all tbrough tbe world tbat God has made. Relationships of all kinds are ordered, Lewis thinks, with an appropriate kind of giving and an appropriate kind of receiving. Wben tbat order is respected, real joy and freedom are tbe result. Now we don't bave space here to pursue tbis idea very far, but the point is absolutely crucial: in Lewis's

31

the possibility that something called hierarchy could be a good, edifying thing will take an intentional, countercultural act of creative imagination. Enter The Chronicles ofNarnia. At last, we are in a position to see at least part of what Lewis is up to in these delightful tales. He wants to remind us what a beautiful, elegant, adventurous, festive place the world can be, and he thinks that right order is a part of that good world. Through these stoties, Lewis gives us the imaginative tools to think criticallyhe would say to think more Christianlyabout our own cultural assumptions regarding hierarchy, equality, and so on. We can see Lewis's strategy at work if we just think for a moment about what his original stories are like. Narnia is a great repository of hierarchical images and relationsof good kings and noble knights, of laborers who are not disgruntled and servants who are not demeaned, of Asian the great Lion who rules over all, who is never safe, but always good. One can hardly turn a page of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe or of Prince Caspian without encountering compelling images of royal authority and knightly virtueand we see now that both of these themes are intimately connected with Lewis's positive construal of hierarchy, which in turn is foundational to his distinctively Christian vision of reality.

HOLLYWOOD SHIFTS THE CENTER So, what about Hollywood? Is the Christian vision of the Narnia films anything like that of Lewis's own Narnia stories? That is the question we turn to next.

Let us begin with some brief attention to Waiden Media's 2005 production of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobevery brief attention, since we need to spend more time on Prince Caspian. This brevity is unfortunate in a way, because I think there really is a fundamental shift in focus in this first film, a shift from a story that is chiefly about Asian to a story that is chiefly about the children, and especially about Peter as he grows toward maturity. To be sure, Asian is quite helpful along the way, but he is no longer the centerand that is big news, if we are thinking about Lewis's Christian worldview. So there is much more to be said about this first film, even if we do not have time to say it here. Yet we must take time to note one aspect of Peter's growing up that turns out to be especially relevant to our concerns. The greater part of Peter's maturation is his learning to take responsibihty for his situation rather than just quietly acquiescing in it. He must learn to take risks even in the teeth of Susan's ever-so-rational good sense; he must learn to follow his own judgment, not just do what "Mum" would want him to do. This is not a bad lesson: unquestionably, maturity does involve this kind of growth toward independence. But consider the way this growth is formulated in the film. The opening scene shows us an air raid in London, and we find Peter very angry at Edmund because the younger boy, rather than running to the bomb shelter as he has been instructed to do, runs back into the house to retrieve a photograph of his father and then has to be rescued by Peter. Peter performs the rescue all right, but he also savagely chastises his brother: "Why can't you just do as you're told!?"

ONE
!
>

G O D , ONE EMPERO

DEFENDING CONSTANTINE
PETER 1, LEITHART
978-0-8308-2722-0, 3 7 3 PAGES, PAPERBACK, $27,00

IVP Academic .., ,.,. ,.,,,.

"Too inniiii people, for far too long, ham' been able to iniirniiir the a-wfid xoord Constantine, knowing that the shudder it produces juill absolve them from the need to think through how the church and the pozuers of the world actually relate, let alone construct a coherent historical or j theological argument on the subject. Peter Leithart challenges all this, and forces us to face the question of what Constantiite's settlement
^''"""l/i/ ?iV7,s, and meant. "

800,843.5)487

32

TOUCHSTONE | N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2OIO

A STRANGE SIGN OF MATURITY These are very significant words, for the movie as a whole consists in Peter learning to think and act independentlylearning, in fact, not to do as he is told. The value of this kind of "disobedience" reappears frequently, but most significantly near the end ofthe film, in the high, climactic moment when the great battle against the White Witch seems all but lost. In despair, Peter commands Edmund to "get the girls and go home"-that is, to abandon this losing fight and get their sisters to safety. But the reformed Edmund now shows his own new maturity and virtue, and he shows it by (obeying. It is a good move: by staying in the battle, Edmund is able to break the Witch's wand and thus to contribute in no small way to the Narnian victory. In the celebration immediately after the Witch's death, with everything now won and Edmund proved a hero, Peter offers a teasing, tongue-in-cheek "rebuke" to Edmund that takes us right back to the opening of tbe movie: "Wben are you going to learn to do as you're told?" he hollers. Of course, he doesn't mean it anymore. By now, he has grown enough to realize that receiving orders and following them is a sign of immaturity and weakness, whereas independent action, especially when it involves of doing as you're told, is the sign of strength, maturity, and success. Note well: disobedience is the sign of real maturity. This quiet, unobtrusive devaluation of humble submission to rightful authority is a significant omen of things to come in the later film. Which brings us to the 2008 production called Prince Caspian. This film once again makes Asian peripheral, and it also includes a greater number of departures from Lewis's original story, including a sixteen-minute siege on the castle of the usurper Miraz that is nowhere in Lewis's text. This film also addresses much more frequently and explicitly tbe important theme of hierarchy. Yet it is a hierarchy much different from that of Lewis's books, and different in some pretty farreaching ways. This difference is evident absolutely everywhere in the film. One could look at Caspian himself, who is transformed from a noble and honorable young king in Lewis's telling, into a tortured warrior whose unchecked desire for personal revenge against his father's murderer leads to the deaths of scores of his Narnian subjects. Or again, one could look at tbe virtuous Red Dwarf Trumpkin, wbose cheerful, good-humored embrace of

obedience in Lewis's story is quietly dropped from tbe film, replaced by the more modern virtues of sarcasm, irony, and cynicism. PETER THE PROBLEM But let us pass over examples like these and focus instead on that one character who demonstrates most clearly in the film that Lewis's positive vision of hierarchy is not merely being overlooked by his Hollwood interpreters but is being self-consciously attacked. That character is the High King Peter. The Peter we meet in the film version of Prince Caspian is a very different Peter from tbe one we saw grow up in the earlier film and certainly very different from the one in Lewis's story. In the first place, it is hard to describe Hollywood's Peter as anything other than a bumbler. He is not part of tbe deliverance that comes from the blowing of Queen Susan's magic born. He is instead part ofthe problem, a stupid, proud, boorish, arrogant fool who speaks and acts with ridiculous vanity and, far from delivering others, needs to be delivered himself. His arrogance and vanity are explicitly highlighted in the film: We first encounter Peter as the cause of a brawl in a London subway, which he started simply because someone bumped him. Once in Narnia, Peter sets out to lead the other children and gets hopelessly lost, but be keeps insisting (with stereotypical male vanity), "I'm not lost," "We weren't lost," etc. When he finally assumes command of the Narnians and then is confronted by Lucy, who tries to talk sense into him and get him to wait patiently for Asian, he
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2OIO | TOUCHSTONE 33

condescendingly replies, "I think it's up to us now.... We've waited for Asian long enough." In the enemy castle, in the midst of their failed attack, Peter stupidly and obstinately refuses to call for retreat, crying out instead, "No, I can still do this!"which prompts Susan to ask, "Exactly who are you doing this for, Peter?" These instances could easily be multiplied. At every point, the Peter of Hollywood's Prince Caspian is the problem, not the solution. The high king of Narnia seems to have devolved into a young, handsome version of Homer Simpson. ADAMSON'S A I M But how has this happened? The point here is absolutely decisive. The makers of the film leave us in no doubt whatsoever that the brashness and insolence and haughtiness of Peter in the second film are precisely the result of his having been exalted as king in the first one. Our first encounter with Peter in Prince Caspian makes this point quite intentionally. The scene opens with a general mle in the subway station, of which Peter is the cause. Order is finally restored by the intervention of the police, and then the four children are left waiting for a train. Susan takes this opportunity to ask Peter caustically, "What was it this time?"giving us an unmistakable hint that this clash was only the latest in a series of confiicts that have had Peter at their center. After Peter explains what happened (including the satisfied acknowledgment that he himself threw the first punch), Susan sighs and asks, "Is it that hard just to walk away?" Peter snaps back, "I shouldn't have to!" Then follow some remarkable lines. Says Peter, "Don't you ever get tired of being treated like a kid?" "We are kids," Edmund wryly observes. "Well, I wasn't always," Peter retorts. He is obviously remembering that he used to be a king in Narniaand he wants the kingship back. Director Andrew Adamson helps us understand just what is going on in this scene in a commentary that is one of the bonus features on the Prince Caspian DVD. Adamson explains, I always felt... how hard it must have been, particularly for Peter, to have gone from being high king to going back to high school, and what that would do to him, do to his ego.... I always thought that would be a really hard thing for a kid to go through. Adamson acknowledges that this emotional turmoil
TOUCHSTONE | N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2010

was "not something that C. S. Lewis really got into," but as director he wanted "to create more depth for the characters, more reality to the situation." He wanted "to deal with what all the kids would go through having left behind that incredible experience and wanting to relive it." This emotional realism was Adamson's explicit aim, and as a result, the screenwriters who put this scene together were actively encouraged to think about what it would be like to go from "king" to "schoolboy"not a pleasant prospect, of course, and one to which any of us might react with bitterness and resentment, just as Peter does. Right, any of us might react that waybut that is because we have not breathed the air of Narnia. We are thinking like ordinary persons (and worse, like selfsufficient, twenty-first-century. Western intellectuals) instead of like knights or kings. In Lewis's telling of all of the Narnia tales, the children's experiences as kings and queens in Narnia consistently transform them into nobler, more virtuous people in their own world. They are not spoiled children wanting to be kings again; they are noble kings who carry that very nobility back into their non-royal roles as schoolchildren. But not so in Hollywood. To be a king at all is to hunger for power forevermore, like a tiger that has tasted human blood and ever afterwards is a "man-eater." To lose imperial power by being transported back to England is to become a bitter, sullen, acrimonious brat. That is just what Peter has become, and his folly is the driving force behind most of the action in the movie.

Two ROYAL STINKERS The difference between Lewis and his Hollywood interpreters could hardly be greater on this score, and it is demonstrated most clearly in the astonishingly different ways that the relationship between Peter and Caspian is portrayed in the film and in Lewis's own text. The film version shows us a relationship of almost unrelieved hostility, suspicion, and animosity. It begins when Peter and Caspian first meet and mistake one another for opponents. They finally realize that they are fighting on the same side, but the civility that is practiced thereafter is obviously a thin veneer that masks a seething competition between them. The confiict comes to a head after the failed attack on Miraz's castle. As we have already noted, part of the fault for the failure lies with Caspian for abandoning the original strategy in order to pursue his own plans for vengeance, and part of the fault belongs to Peter for his proud insistence that no retreat be allowed until it is too late. But given what we have already seen of their

Movie Admissions

movies reveal a great deal about themselves: They are essentially admitting that they understand nothing about power other than that it is N M Y COLLEGE literature classes, meant to make other people do what I preach the goodness of hierar- you want them to do. Underlying chy all the eimein Spenser, in this utter blindness is a not-very-wellDante, in Milton, even in the pagan concealed contempt for the male. Ic's Virgil. The students get it. Both sexes, right there in the films. The strange too. They understand the idea that thing about it, too, is that the filmjust rulership and obedience are in- makers' tiresome feminism ended up extricable one from the otherthat making Susan, in the first movie, into they are, in fact, the same virtue in a real snot, a thoroughly unpleasant different modes. Someone who does young lady. I don't chink they innot understand that we are all called tended that, but just as they have no to obedience, both kings and peas- concept of male virtue, they have no concept of female virtue, either. ants, is simply a brat. The producers of the Narnia It is amusing to ponder, though.

how these .same people could possibly produce and direct a movie without hierarchical relationships among themselves. Professors, too, are quite the egalitarians until some student questions a remark of theirs in a paper. Then they might as well be ensconced on the throne of Louis XIV.
ANTHONY ESOLHN

characters, it is no surprise that each of these royal stinkers refuses to recognize his own part in the fiasco and instead blames the other. The result is a fierce public quarrel that finally descends into a childish exchange of insults. When Lucy asks what happened in the battle, Peter spitefully replies, "Ask him." Caspian is shocked to be blamed, and he retorts, "You could have called it off There was still time." Peter; "No, there wasn't, thanks to you. If you had kept to the plan, those solders might be alive right now." Caspian; "And if you had just stayed here like I suggested, they definitely would be!" Peter; "You called us, remember?" Caspian; "My first mistake." Peter; "No, your first mistake was chinking you could lead these people." (One can almost hear the "Nah-na-nah-na-nah-nah!" in the background.) The insults continue and escalate, until Peter even insults Caspian's fatherat which point swords are drawn in rage, and violence is barely averted. Two NOBLE KINGS This account of hatred and rivalry and mutual recrimination is about as far as it could be from Lewis's own account of the relationship between these two noble kings.

For Lewis, that relationship is overwhelmingly marked by support, trust, and generosity. Consider just a few lines from the drastically different story that Lewis tells of the first meeting of the kings. In Lewis's story, that meeting takes place just after Peter has leaped in to help Caspian in a fight with the deceitful Black Dwarf Nikabrik. As tbe heroes catch their breath after this deadly clash, the following remarkable exchange occurs: "We don't seem to have any enemies left," said Peter. "There's the Hag, dead.... And Nikabrik, dead too... . And you, I suppose, are King Caspian?" "Yes," said the other boy. "But I've no idea who you are." "It's the High King, King Peter," said Truinpkin. "Your majesty is welcome," said Caspian. "And so is your majesty," said Pecer. "I haven't come eo take your place, you know, but to put you into it." We are clearly in a different world, with a conversation like this one. Caspian is not overbearing and selfimporeane; be knows that his army is in trouble, and he is glad for assistance. And when be learns that the assistance comes from the High King, he is not put off or threatened: "Your majesty is welcome," he easily declares. Peter's reply is equally striking: "So is your majesty." Each side happily welcomes and supports the other. There is no pompous ego or arrogant competition here. Instead,
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2010 | TOUCHSTONE

35

we find nobility, autborit)', courtesy, and bumility all wrapped into one.

THE OUTLOOK OF MIRAZ Indeed, for Lewis, tbe whole notion that kings must live in competition and suspicion of one anotber refiects tbe outlook not of Peter or Caspian or the noble Narnians, but of Miraz. It makes all tbe sense in the world tbat Miraz sbould be threatened by any autbority otber tban bis own, for his own autbority is only tbat of a tyrannical usurper. Miraz doubts tbe very existence of sucb a tbing as legitimate authority; for bim, tbere is only power. And power is always threatened by any otber power. In fact, wben we first meet Miraz in Lewis's story, we find him disbelieving the ancient tales of Peter and Susan and Edmund and Lucy on precisely tbese grounds. He cries out in a rage, "How could tbere be two Kings at the same time?" How could tbere, indeed! Sucb a barmoniotis, supportive, virtuous understanding of hierarcbical rule is foundational to Lewis's deeply Cbristian worldview, but it is utterly incomprebensible to Mirazand also to tbe unwitting disciples of Miraz wbo wrote tbis Hollywood screenplay. In Miraz's view, kingsbip is all about wbo calls tbe sbots, wbo gets bis way, wbo is top dog. Tbose who adopt tbis view cannot but find tbe notion of courteous, cooperative kings to be impossibly unrealistic. And this, of course, is exactly my complaint. Everywhere you look in tbe first two Narnia films, you find incontrovertible evidence tbat the creators of tbose films take exactly tbis view. They simply bave not seen tbe vision that Lewis saw. Tbey bave never tasted the joy, the power, tbe life of bierarcbyand so tbey drop all sucb foolishness and replace it witb a more modern, more sensible story tbat reveals tbe dangerous, oppressive thing tbat bierarcby really is.

instead of bealing it. As a result, viewers encounter wbat tbey tbink is Narnia, and tbey get mere entertainment instead of tbe richly Christian view of tbe world tbat Lewis bimself provided. I confess, in closing, tbat I do not really know wbat anyone sbould do about all of this. Tbere is a faint cbance, I suppose, tbat future Narnia films will be more faitbful to Lewis's own vision. Tbe next installment. The Voyag of the Dawn Treader, is scbeduled for release in Decemb^ under a new director (Michael Apted, wbo directed tbe film Amazing Grace in 2006), but since tbe same screenwriters are in place and since Andrew Adamson is now serving as one ofthe producers, I am not bopeful. Moreover, if my experience witb my own cbildren and witb students whom I have casually surveyed is any indicator, tbe damage is already done. When one refers to The Chronicles of Narnia, most people already tbink of tbe films, not of Lewis's own stories.

BAD MEDICINE But hold on a minute. If tbere is a possibility that Lewis was rigbteven a bare possihilitythen tbis loss of tbe original Narnia, tbis domestication of Asian, is distressing indeed. It signals notbing less tban an invasion by a foreign and hostile power. The creators of tbis "new improved" Narnia have taken tbe single element in Lewis's tales that twenty-first-century viewers most need to be instructed in, and they have recast it so tbat it contributes to the error ratber tban correcting it. Lewis tbe pbysician prescribed a strong medicine to treat our imaginative ailment, but tbe pharmacists in Hollywood have substituted a different medicine of the same name, and one tbat exacerbates tbe sickness 36
TOUCHSTONE | N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2010

THE NEEDED INSIGHT In many ways, tbe damage has probably even been done inadvertently. Remember tbe comparison I mentioned earlier: Lewis is like a member of tbe family wbose idiosyncrasies we try to ignore or smootb over. I suspect tbat Doug Gresbam and the filmmakers are simply doing wbat every polite, kind family member would do: tbey are telling "Uncle Jack's" stories witbout all of tbe bothersome quirks and eccentricities. Tbis is a generous, benevolent way to bandle tbe flaws that appear in all of our cbaracters, is it not? Yes. But wbat if tbe flaw we are trying to smootb over turns out to be tbe very heart of the person? Further, wbat if tbe flaw turns out not to be a flaw at all, but a supremely countercultural insigbt tbat tbe world desperately needs? Wbat if the kooky opinion turns out to bave been right tbe wbole time? One can tbink of anotber well-known figure, tbis one ofJewisb descent, wbose well-meaning family was happy to talk about bim to anyone wbo would listen: "Ob, Yesbua? He's afineyoung man . . . an excellent carpenter . . . quite pious in his own way . . . always cared very deeply for bis mother . . . yes, a.fineyoung man. Wbat? Obwell, yes, tbere is tbat silly business about bim tbinking bimself the Messiah.... Let's just let tbat pass, shall we? Did I mention what a skilled carpenter be is? . . . " "Yesbua" witbout "Messiab" is just anotber carpenter. So also "Peter," without tbe wisdom and dignity and nobility appropriate to "High King Peter," is just anotber struggling leaderand we already bave plenty of those. Asian, without his appallingly bierarchical claws, is just anotber pussycat. I myself would prefer to bear him roar. --

Copyright of Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity is the property of Fellowship of St. James and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.