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Alice Cooper, Prince Caspean and the Second Coming

March 27, 2025 — Leave a comment

It’s been a few years since I read the seven books in the Chronicles of Narnia to my kids.  But my kids recently sat down and started watching the movies.  I can’t tell you how bad they botched Prince Caspean.  Narnia is a world of child’s imagination that is spiritually analogous to our own.  C.S. Lewis wrote the seven books between 1949 and 1954.  Lewis talked about how he came to write the books of Narnia, saying that they “all began with a picture of a Faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood” in around 1939.  He originally got the idea for the   The seven books follow the adventures of several groups of children most prominently being the four peveinse children, lucy, edmond, susan and peter.  The Lion the witch and the wardrobe the first published  in that world that they have stubbled upon.  

School’s out for summer

School’s out forever

School’s been blown to pieces

No more pencilsNo more booksNo more teacher’s dirty looks

At least four books in C. S. Lewis’ Chronicle of Narnia form pairs.  The Magicians Nephew and the Last Battle, books six and seven, are about the creation and apocalypse of Narnia.  The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and the Silver Chair, books three and four, are about the quest for heaven and the escape from hell.

It should not come as a surprise than to find that C. S. Lewis originally saw his first and second books as a pair.  The Horse and His boy, book five, is clearly the odd man out, having no children coming to Narnia from our world, and taking place during the reign of Peter, Edmond, Lucy.  So what exactly is the relationship between the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspean?

I believe C. S. Lewis originally conceived of Prince Caspian as a Second Coming and should be read as such.

The lion the Witch and the Wardrobe is about Aslan’s redemption of Narnia from the curse of the White Witch through his arrival in Narnia, death and resurrection.

Prince Caspian takes place 1300 years after the events of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.  In the mean time pirates from the world of men have colonized Narnia, sending the wild creatures of the wood into hiding.  The Talmerans deny the true stories of narnia and educate children in there own ways.  The return of the children, the once great kings and queens of Narnia, to Narnia coincides with Aslan’s own return which overturns the Talmereans industrial world and frees these “mythical” creatures from hiding.   In essence Prince Caspean has a similar theme to one running through J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.  Where Sauron cuts down the trees and dams up the river by imposing his industrial reshem for war and its the trees who eventually fight back.

It appears Prince Caspean is originally is the second coming.  

That leaves three books left.  And I think the first two are also meant to be grouped together

Redemption and Return

  • The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Redemption)
  • Prince Caspane

 

The Holiday

Early that morning, after a few hours’ sleep, the girls had waked, to see Aslan standing over them and to hear his voice saying, “We will make holiday.”  They rubbed their eyes and looked round them.  The trees had all gone but could still be seen moving away toward Aslan’s How in a dark mass.  Bacchus and the Maenads – his fierce, madcap girls – and Silenus were still with them.  Lucy, fully rested, jumped up.  Everyone was awake, everyone was laughing, flutes were playing, cymbals clashing.  Animals, not Talking Animals, were crowding in upon them from every direction.

“What is it, Aslan?” said Lucy, her eyes dancing and her feet wanting to dance.

“Come, children,” said he.  “Ride on my back again today.”

“Oh, lovely!” cried Lucy, and both girls climbed onto the warm golden back as they had done no one knew how many years before.  Then the whole party moved off – Aslan leading, Bacchus and his Maenads leaping, rushing, and turning somersaults, the beasts frisking round them, and Silenus and his donkey bringing up the rear.

The Bridge

They turned a little to the right, raced down a steep hill, and found the long Bridge of Beruna in front of them.  Before they had begun to cross it, however, up out of the water came a great wet, bearded head, larger than a man’s, crowned with rushes.  It looked at Aslan and out of its mouth a deep voice came.

“Hail, Lord,” it said.  “Loose my chains.”

“Who on earth is that?” whispered Susan.

“I think it’s the river-god, but hush,” said Lucy.

“Bacchus,” said Aslan. “Deliver him from his chains.”

“That means the bridge, I expect,” thought Lucy.  And so it did.  Bacchus and his people splashed forward into the shallow water, and a minute later the most curious things began happening.  Great, strong trunks of ivy came curling up all the piers of the bridge, growing as quickly as a fire grows, wrapping the stones round, splitting, breaking, separating them.  The walls of the bridge turned into hedges gay with hawthorn for a moment and then disappeared as the whole thing with a rush and a rumble collapsed into the swirling water.  With much splashing, screaming, and laughter the revelers waded or swam or danced across the ford (“Hurrah! It’s the Ford of Beruna again now!” cried the girls) and up the bank on the far side and into the town.

The Girls School

Everyone in the streets fled before their faces.  The first house they came to was a school: a girl’s school, where a lot of Narnian girls, with their hair done very tight and ugly tight collars round their necks and thick tickly stockings on their legs, were having a history lesson.  The sort of “History” that was taught in Narnia under Miraz’s rule was duller than the truest history you ever read and less true than the most exciting adventure story.

“If you don’t attend, Gwendolen,” said the mistress, “and stop looking out of the window, I shall have to give you an order-mark.”

“But please, Miss Prizzle–” began Gwendolen.

“Did you hear what I said, Gwendolen?” asked Miss Prizzle.

“But please, Miss Prizzle,” said Gwendolen, “there’s a LION!”

“Take two order-marks for talking non-sense,” said Miss Prizzle.  “And now–”  A roar interrupted her.  Ivy came curling in at the windows of the classroom.  The walls became a mass of shimmering green, and leafy branches arched overhead where the ceiling had been.  Miss Prizzle found she was standing on grass in a forest glade.  She clutched at her desk to steady herself, and found that the desk was a rose-bush.  Wild people such as she had never even imaged were crowding round her.  Then she saw the Lion, screamed and fled, and with her fled her class, who were mostly dumpy, prim little girls with fat legs.  Gwendolen hesitated.

“You’ll stay with us, sweetheart?” said Aslan.

“Oh, may I? Thank you, thank you,” said Gwendolen.  Instantly she joined hands with two of the Maenads, who whirled her round in a merry dance and helped her take off some of the unnecessary and uncomfortable clothes that she was wearing.

The Whipping Boy

Wherever they went in the little town of Beruna it was the same.  Most of the people fled, a few joined them.  When they left the town they were a larger and a merrier company.

They swept on across the level fields on the north bank, or left bank, of the river.  At every farm animals came out to join them.  Sad old donkeys who had never known joy grew suddenly young again; chained dogs broke their chains; horses kicked their carts to pieces and camp trotting along with them–clop-clop–kicking up the mud and whinnying.

At a well in a yard they met a man who was beating a boy.  The stick burst into flowers in the man’s hand.  He tried to drop it, but it stuck to his hand.  His arm became a branch, his body a trunk of a tree, his feet took root.  The boy, who had been crying a moment before, burst out laughing and joined them.

The Teacher

At a little town half-way to Beaversdam, where two rivers met, they came to another school, where a tired-looking girl was teaching arithmetic to a number of boys who looked very like pigs.  She looked out of the window and saw the divine revelers singing up the street and a stab of joy went through her heart.  Aslan stopped right under the window and looked up at her.

“Oh, don’t, don’t,” she said. “I’d love to.  But I mustn’t.  I must stick to my work.  And the children would be frightened if they saw you.”

“Frightened?” said the most pig-like of the boys. “Who’s she talking to out of the window? Let’s tell the inspector she talks to people out of the window when she ought to be teaching us.”

“Let’s go and see who it is,” said another boy, and they all came crowding to the window.  But as soon as their mean little faces looked out, Bacchus gave a great cry of Euan, euoi-oi-oi-oi and the boys all began howling with fright and trampling one another down to get out of the door and jumping out of the windows.  And it was said afterward (whether truly or not) that those particular little boys were never seen again, but that there were a lot of very fine little pigs in that part of the country which had never been there before.

“Now, Dear Heart,” said Aslan to the Mistress: and she jumped down and joined them.

 

In Culture
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3 Ways to Stay Relevant.

March 27, 2025 — Leave a comment

I’ve noticed something about the staying power of movies in my 36 years of living.  The movies we’ll most likely be watching say 10 or 15 years from now are the ones that aren’t overly trendy or fashionable.  By this I mean   The movies that we love and will continue to love appear to have a timeless feel.  It’s particularly historic films which blend modern trends with historic style and dress which lift themselves outside of time.

Although a very short book, 119 pages, Prophetic Untimeliness packs a very powerful punch. Os Guinness calls the Church to bear the offense of the Gospel and walk out of step with the temporary trends of our times.  “To always be relevant,”  He says, “you have to say things that at are eternal.”

Its difficult but Guinness offers three ways we can learn.

Develop an awareness of the unfashionable. Its easy to preach the “good news” it’s quite another to preach the bad. The heart of the Gospel is hostel to our carnal nature. Yes there are doctrines and beliefs that we are comfortable with but there are also doctrines and beliefs which offend us. We must seek balance messages of condemnation/confrontation with comfort/consolation.

Cultivate an appreciation for the historical. Nothing can confront our modern perspectives like a healthy dose of history. For our American Church living a life of luxury in this modern age it has become a popular belief that God will not allow the righteous to suffer. By cultivating an appreciation the historical we are confronted by this modern distortion. A good way to gain an historical perspective is by reading old books.

Pay constant attention to the eternal. This may seem as difficult as asking a fish to think of a world outside the water, but its not. We as Christians recognize that God’s word is eternal. The same word that spoke the worlds into existence is the same word that sustains the world today. That same Word has been given to us in the Bible. I can hear my audience groaning even now. “The bible is old news, we want something new.” But let us remember that today’s new is tomorrow’s old. Only by interacting with God’s word can we interact with the eternally relevant.

John Piper says of C. S. Lewis’ appeal

Lewis’s unwavering commitment to what is True and Real and Valuable, as opposed to what is trendy or fashionable or current, has been another kind of liberation for me, namely, from “chronological snobbery.” He loved the wisdom of the ages, not the whimsy of the passing present. He called himself a Neanderthaler and a dinosaur.

He didn’t read newspapers.

He never wore a watch.

He never learned to type.

He did not own or drive a car.

He cared nothing about cutting a good appearance and wore the same old clothes until they were threadbare.

He was incredibly free from the addicting powers of the present moment.

The effect of this on me has been to make me wary of what he called “chronological snobbery.”  That is, he has shown me that “newness” is no virtue, and “oldness” is no fault. He considered the present time to be provincial with its own blind spots. He said once: every third book you read should be from outside your own (provincial) century. Truth and beauty and goodness are not determined by when they exist. Nothing is inferior for being old, and nothing is valuable for being modern. This has freed me from the tyranny of novelty and opened for me the wisdom of the centuries.

Originally published February 11, 2006.

In Church, Culture
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The Meaning of Cast Away Pt. 1

November 15, 2016 — Leave a comment

Have you ever noticed the relationship between Cast Away and Back to the Future? Robert Zemeckis’ 1985 classic might not look like Cast Away but, in fact, they share a unique motif. Clocks and other references to time pervade the earlier film – which is fitting since it’s about time travel. Marty McFly finds himself trapped in the past, trying to get back to the present in a classic race against time.

But references to time also saturate Robert Zemeckis’ 2000 film. The opening FedEx logo proclaims “the world on time.” And it’s Chuck Noland’s purpose as a FedEx analyst to invent ways to beat the clock. Like a package himself, he’s rushed around the world to ensure that the system only ever speeds up. Clocks loom over events. Music taps out a quick time. But then Chuck is marooned on a deserted island with his only timepiece stopped. From here, there’s no conversation. No musical score. Not even the sound of insect or bird. Alone in the silence, Chuck finds all the time in the world. It’s a contrast which is foreshadowed in this opening shot. Here the slogan “the world on time” is rushed to the truck but then retrieved upside down and moved at a more leisurely pace. The film’s main idea.

But the island also represents a different time. Chuck arrives, overdressed and overweight, still planning on delivering those packages. But when the surf batters his one hope of escape, he makes a cave his home and let’s go all but a single delivery. He then makes a friend in an object that resembles an idol. And just in case we haven’t recognized the makings of a caveman, he’s shown painting on his cavern wall. When, at last, he resorts to this extremely primitive surgery, the film jumps four years where his transformation into a native is complete.

Do you see it? Chuck has gone back in time. He’s eroded back to the timeless existence of ancient man. And perhaps nothing speaks to that timelessness more than his charting of the annual course of the sun. The figure eight that it makes is our sign for infinity – eternity. Chuck has come to know the world before our enslavement to the clock. And it’s this earliest view of time which is key to his escape and return. To get back to the present in Back to the Future, Marty McFly must connect his time machine’s mast to a precisely clocked bolt of lightning. And Chuck likewise must release his mast at a precise turn in the season to harness the power of the wind.

But Chuck’s return, while echoing back to the future, is also different from Marty’s. Marty finds his present better than the way he left it while Chuck finds it’s moved on without him. And here in the difference lies the why of Chuck’s symbolic journey back in time.

There’s a great deal about Cast Away worth taking the time to see. Why the allusions to the Back to the Future? How does Wilson fit in? And what’s the significance of these film’s ending reference to roads?

I’ll be back next time with a continuation of my take on Cast Away. In the mean time subscribe, comment, and share. And check out some of my other videos.

In Culture, Film
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The Meaning of No Country for Old Men

July 3, 2016 — 1 Comment

I’ve been thinking about No Country for Old Men (2007); a great film with an ending that, like most Coen brother films, is rather odd.

A couple years ago, I was struck by it’s similarities to the Seventh Seal, a 1957 film about the silence of God. After years spent in crusade, a knight returns to his homeland. The figure of death comes for the knight on the beach whereupon the knight challenges him to a game of chess. They make a deal. As long as the knight holds out, death will not take him and if the knight wins, death will let him live. For the rest of the film, the knight uses his reprieve to search for meaning and certainty. He wants to know, not just to believe, God exists. He fears the silence of God means God isn’t there and his life (mostly lived in crusade) was therefore meaningless.

No Country for Old Men

No Country for Old Men also has a figure of death offering reprieve through contest. As with the classic depictions of death, No Country’s villain, Anton Chigurh, wears contrasting black attire with a kind of hood (his strange haircut covering his forehead and ears) and employs the use of a harvester (a cattle gun in place of a scythe). Chigurh is a clinical automaton of destruction. He casually stalks his prey, killing anyone else who takes note of him. He’s clean and principled. Not at all, as someone says in the film, like a man. And as with death, he operates by the invisible hand of chance. This is symbolized in the one reprieve he offers some victims – a coin toss. If they “call it.” he lets them live. And if they get it wrong… Well, you know. But one thing they cannot do is refuse to play. A refusal to play is an instant loss.

These life and death stakes along with the uncertainty in the coin toss is No Country’s defining metaphor. Just as in the Seventh Seal, No Country wrestles with the problem of knowledge and faith. Here’s why the film, with its shots of arid landscapes, men on horseback, wearing cowboy hats and boots etc., feels like a western; No Country in its depictions of amoral violence disabuses us of the classic westerns moral guarantee. The virtuous-man in the white hat does not necessarily defeat the corrupt man in black. In essence, No Country for Old Men calls to mind the good old days of the Hollywood western (good guy defeats bad guy) and in doing so offers our modern era as those days very own dystopia (good guy isn’t guaranteed to win and often doesn’t). Now it’s just the flip of a coin. Nothing in life is certain.

This loss of his youthful certainty and meaning weighs on the aged Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, the film’s main character. Bell remembers the good-old days and is himself an embodiment of the good old days. His occupation, southern accident, small town location, goofy deputy, and his clear reluctance to use a gun, point to Sheriff Andy from the Andy Griffith Show who likewise typified classic Hollywood’s moral guarantee. Like an aged Andy Griffith, confronting the heinous crimes committed in our world, Sheriff Bell finds himself an exile from those simpler black and white days.

In this chaotic new world, Bell becomes increasingly averse to risk. His opening monologue says it all.

“The crime you see now, it’s hard to even take its measure. It’s not that I’m afraid of it. I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job. But, I don’t want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don’t understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He’d have to say, “O.K., I’ll be part of this world.”

In the end, Bell quits, undone by fear of losing his life for nothing. His last straw comes when he is forced to “call it.” In returning to the scene of a murder, Bell finds the door’s lock punched out, evidence that Chigurh has also returned to the scene. Bell looks into the circle. In the reflection, the film shows Chigurh standing on the other side of the door, waiting for him to make his move. Bell hesitates, considering what to do. This is in essence the western dual or Chigurh’s coin toss. Will it be heads or tails? Will he enter or turn tails and run? Is Chigurh there or not? Bell chooses to enter and confront Chigurh. But Chigurh is no longer in the room. On the floor, Bell sees a dime showing heads. Bell has called it. He can live another day. But he sits down in the dark a broken man. This risk was too much. He won’t risk again.

In the end, he sits at home, pondering with his wife the emptiness of his dreams.

“Two of ’em. Both had my father in ’em… The second one, it was like we was both back in older times and I was on horseback goin’ through the mountains of a night… It was cold and there was snow on the ground and he rode past me and kept on goin’… and he had his blanket wrapped around him and his head down and when he rode past I seen he was carryin’ fire in a horn the way people used to do and I could see the horn from the light inside of it… And in the dream I knew that he was goin’ on ahead and he was fixin’ to make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold, and I knew that whenever I got there he would be there. And then I woke up…”

Given that he’s quit the fight, waking up from his dreams refers to Bell’s loss of faith in the reality of some good place where his father has gone before him.
Is Bell right to give up? Does the film agree with him? Given life’s uncertainty it could very well be that he’ll never find security with his father. Heaven may not exist. This disordered world may never be put right. But is uncertainty a reason to give up on the dream? To lose faith?

I think the film actually condemns his decision to quit. The film, appears to me, to be alluding to pascal’s wager. Not as a pragmatic reason to believe in God, per say, but as a pragmatic reason to risk. Given the certainty of death, a failure to “call it” is an instant loss. Given the inevitability of death the only option is to bet it all on hope of that better day.

Life has always been uncertain. Young men live by risk because they don’t know what they can lose while old men die for fear of losing. There is No Country for Old Men.

In Culture, Film, Meaning, Stories
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Was Jesus’ Resurrection the Result of a Missing Page?

November 15, 2013 — Leave a comment

Wow!  The History Channel is at it again. This time with Bible Secrets Revealed.  And like Banned From the Bible and other programs like it, it’s doing a real bang-up job of distorting the facts with quick sound bites and brazen insinuation.  I received this message from a troubled friend.

So they say the gospel of mark ended originally with the women going to the tomb to wash his body, but when they realized he was gone, they left & said nothing for they were afraid. Yet later on someone added the resurrection due to being unsatisfied with the original abrupt ending

You can find the segment of the program here between 19:27 and 21:21.

It’s true. I agree with the facts. BUT not the inference. Mark did originally end at 16:8 and that later Christians added a new ending because they were unsatisfied with the old. But its not at all for the reasons the program suggests.

The program implies early Christians later made up accounts of Jesus’ resurrection because of Mark’s missing ending. Wrong!  Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, writing 20 years before Mark, tells us who and in what order more than 500 people saw Jesus bodily risen from the dead.  A fact he had already received from others.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.

But the writers of Bible Secrets Revealed are apparently so ignorant they feel they can rhetorically ask,

“Is it possible that the account of Jesus divine resurrection, one of the most important tenants of Christianity, was the result of a missing page? (21:09 – 21:21)

NO!  IT’S NOT!

Just read Mark!  It’s obvious he knows of these early resurrection appearances!  He points to them!  Three times, he records Jesus predicting his resurrection.

And He (Jesus) began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. (Mark 8:31)

For He was teaching His disciples and telling them, “The Son of Man is to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill Him; and when He has been killed, He will rise three days later.” (Mark 9:31)

They were on the road going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking on ahead of them; and they were amazed, and those who followed were fearful. And again He took the twelve aside and began to tell them what was going to happen to Him, saying, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death and will hand Him over to the Gentiles. They will mock Him and spit on Him, and scourge Him and kill Him, and three days later He will rise again.” (Mark 10:32-34)

Mark also tells us that the angel at the empty informed the women that Jesus had fulfilled these predictions and would later meet his disciples in Galilee.

And he said to them, “Do not be amazed; you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who has been crucified. He has risen; He is not here; behold, here is the place where they laid Him. But go, tell His disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see Him, just as He told you.’” (Mark 8:6-7)

If Mark believes that Jesus was clearly correct about His resurrection, don’t you think Mark intends his readers to trust the predictions of the angel, that they did see Jesus in Galilee.  “There you WILL see Him, just as He told you.”  Any basic introduction to Mark would reveal this.  But you won’t get this from the History Channel.  They just let this leading questions dangle out there as if no one could possibly think of a better explanation.

So WHY doesn’t Mark end with a resurrection appearance of Jesus?

It’s vital part of his message. Throughout his Gospel, Mark has shown that true disciples follow Jesus wherever he goes. And that includes to the death. But the disciples of course ran away and abandoned Jesus in the hours before his death. The invitation from the angel is that Jesus is once again waiting for them. To find him they must follow. Mark ends his gospel, with that invitation still ringing in his readers ears. And the question he wants his readers to ask is, “will I follow?” “Will I start over and follow him in His death and resurrection?”

That point has been lost on a number of people, not least many readers in the early church. It’s a bit too subtle for some. That’s why someone felt it necessary to include Mark 16:9-20, which is itself a basic summary of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances from the book of Luke and Acts. The summary is accurate. It’s just not the point of Mark’s Gospel.

I’ve dealt with this topic in a couple of posts. You might find these helpful.

In Bible, Culture, Jesus
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