"Can You Love Aslan More Than Jesus?" Christin Lazo Ep. 2 LFSS Season 8

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Welcome to the C.S. lewis Festival Scholars Series. I'm your host, David Krause. You know, since the festival's inception in 2003, over 22,000 people from around the country have attended a variety of cultural, religious and educational events each fall along the beautiful shores of Lake Michigan in Petoskey, Michigan. And for more information, please visit us@cslewisfestival.org for events and registration. As part of this growing podcast series, we're taking a look at the 2025 CS Lewis Festival and the theme the Faces of CS analyzing the author from New Angles. We just released Andrew Lazo's keynote address until we have Faces. We now showcase his wife, Kristin Ditchfield Lazo, and the most successful children's series of the 20th century, the Chronicles of Narnia. Kristin has spent decades of scholarship on CS Lewis. She's the author of more than 80 books and Bible studies. Kristin is best known for her book, A Family Guide to biblical truths in C.S. lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, introducing thousands of elementary school children and their families to the world of Narnia. In this podcast, Kristin shares her love of Lewis's imagination through her decades of research and writing on the Chronicles of Narnia. Let's take a fascinating deeper dive into into this classic series with Kristen.

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Oh my goodness, it is a delight to be with you. We are going to talk about the Chronicles of Narnia, but first I wanted to show you this image of time magazine from 1947. In the article, the editors of Time magazine called Lewis the young atheist poet who became one of the 20th century's most imaginative theologians. His spiritual journey from a young atheist poet to an imaginative theologian was so shocking. It rocked his world. It rocked the community that he was a part of in Oxford, in Cambridge. It shocked people. And yet it was such a thorough transformation every part of his life. Andrew likes to quote Walter Hooper saying that Lewis was the most thorough, thoroughly converted man when he gave his heart to Jesus. As we say in the vernacular, when he opened his heart, his mind to his faith, it transformed everything about him. And he would spend the rest of his life sharing, teaching, writing, speaking about these things that were so meaningful to him, so life transforming. There have been surveys of pastors asking them what saints or scholars or theologians they are most likely to quote in their Sunday sermons. Do you know that, Louis? You probably do know this if you're a church attender, that Lewis came in the top three of every denomination, Protestant and Catholic, every denomination. People love Lewis. His insights are so profound and so widely applicable to our lives. No wonder he's been called the greatest apologist of the Christian century, of the 20th century. Sorry, I hit the wrong button there. The greatest Christian apologist. Okay, so we know him for his apologetic works. Many people do. But more people, still more people today know him for his most famous work, which is the Chronicles of Narnia. And that's where we are, where we're going to land today. I want to ask you how many of you have read the Chronicles of Narnia?

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Okay, awesome. Some of you have not read them yet. That's okay. How many of you read them recently? Okay, awesome. Some of the things I'm going to share with you today may be things that you have thought about that may not be new. I hope there'll be some new things for you, but mostly I hope it'll fire you up and encourage you to keep on reading, read and keep on reading these amazing stories because of the transformation that can happen when you do. Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. So begins Lewis's most beloved book series. It's been 75 years since the first one was published and the series continues to inspire generations of readers, especially children and their families. My five year old niece is named Lucy after Lucy, and she's learned a new favorite expression. Her parents tell me that now whenever she has something important to say, she walks up to them and she says, so fun fact, We, we actually have video of her telling my father, her grandfather last week what she had just learned about where babies come from. Fun fact. I want to share with you if I can, and I'll see what I can do with the tech here. I want to share with you some fun facts about the Chronicles of Narnia. They were first published between 1950 and 1956, and publishers estimate that 200 million of Lewis's books have been in print. 200 million. Of those, 120 million are the Chronicles of Narnia. The series has been translated into over 40 languages. It's inspired an animated film, a number of live action movies, theater productions, a ballet musical, and even a new series coming from Netflix, which we are all crossing our fingers, will be faithful and accurate to the stories. The first book in the series, the lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, was listed in time magazine's top 100 books in English. Written since 1923. It appears on the National Education association teachers top 100 books for children. It's top five in a list compiled by the School Library Journal and there was a British survey in which they asked adults, what is the number one book that you remember reading as a child? And it came in second only to Alice in Wonderland. It consistently comes in at the top of every list of books that children and families should read because it is such a seminal work, such a powerful, powerful story. But notice that I said, and you can see in the list, lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was the first book. But if you pick up a copy today, a set of the books, it's not listed as number one, is it? There's a little bit of a story about that. As early as the 1970s, school libraries and teachers started suggesting that students read the books in the order of the creation of Narnia. Yeah, I'm in a good crowd. I see you shaking your heads in the creation of Narnia and then reading all the way through to the end. And in fact, a little boy named Lawrence, who we'll hear about later, wrote a letter to C.S. lewis suggesting that. And Lewis said, oh, that makes sense, without giving it a whole lot of thought. And by 1980, Harper Collins, the publisher, had decided to officially renumber them and reorder them. However, Lewis also said that he didn't think it mattered much which way, one way or the other. So it's not like Lewis said, a little boy suggested it. Lewis said, ah, that sounds okay to me. He said, I don't think it really matters. I'm not. He said, I'm not even sure they were published in the order they were written. So if you want to get technical about it. Right. Well, in case you're wondering, I am firmly in camp original order, and I'll tell you that for two reasons. One is that this is hard to admit in a room full of people, wonderful people like you. But not everybody loves fairy tale and fantasy literature, and not everybody is going to make their way through the whole Scene series, and that's okay. But if you're going to be a culturally literate adult, you need to at least have read this one, right? You need to at least have read the one that started it all and. And arguably the most important of the seven stories, although that's kind of like picking in most important limb or finger. But they're all precious and wonderful. But if you're only going to read one, read the lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, right? The other reason I think, so this is something Andrew and I agree on, is that as you read through the stories, there are things that Lewis says as the narrator that only makes sense if you're reading them in the. In the proper order, for example, there's a place where the narrator says, in lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, now you'll have no more idea of who Aslan is than the children did. But of course, if you've read Magician's Nephew, you know who Aslan is, right? So there's a point to reading them in the proper order so you can have those discoveries and let them unfold as Lewis originally envisioned. Great advice. Here's your tip for the day. If you're talking to someone who's never read them, read them in the original order first. And then if you want to go back and read them in chronological order, that can be a fun way to do it. But however you do it, read them. They're fabulous. Many people have discovered what Lewis called the story within the story. But then, as now, it sparked a lot of debate. There's a small minority that take a Lewis quote out of context that we'll talk about in a minute, who like to say that Lewis never intended for these stories to have any symbolism or allegory. There's nothing spiritual about them. It's just, you Christian people, you just want to see Jesus in everything. Everything. To which I say, well, yes, we do. And that's because he is. But. But in this case, in this case, we, we actually have more evidence. They say there's nothing to them. Well, they are fabulous fairy tale adventures. And you don't have to be a person of faith to enjoy these amazing stories. It doesn't. You don't have to be a person of a particular faith to see all of the virtues and the values and the incredible adventures, right? But there is a layer. Because Lewis was so deeply transformed by his own personal faith. There is a whole nother layer, a whole world of spiritual truth. Now, some people I told you about, the tiny minority that say, ah, there's nothing in there. On the other side, there are people who are rabidly and obsessively convinced that Lewis created this to be Sunday school curriculum and that everything in there is somehow we can pull it apart and tear it apart and analyze it and assign a value to it. And it's all. Some of it is just wonderful imagination. It's just creativity. We don't have to go looking under every bush, right, to name every little thing. He didn't write it to be curriculum to be education for children. In an essay called Sometimes Fairy Tale, Fairy Stories May say Best. What's To Be Said. How's that for a title? Sometimes fairy stories may say best what's to be said. Lewis tried to clear up some of the misunderstanding even in his own time, because he was hearing these same arguments even back then. He said, some people seem to think that I began by asking myself how I could say something about Christianity to children, then fixed on the fairy tale as an instrument, then collected information about child psychology and decided what age group I'd write for. Then I drew up a list of basic Christian truths and hammered out allegories to embody them. He says, that's pure moonshine. I couldn't write that way. He says it all began with images. A fawn carrying an umbrella, a queen on a sledge, a magnificent lion. And here's where he says, at first there wasn't anything Christian about them. He says, that element pushed itself in of its own accord. One of the things I love is that this image Lewis had drawn beautifully by Pauline Baines. This is all the artwork I have. Most of the artwork I have in the slides. This vision of a fawn carrying packages in the snow came to Lewis when he was 16 years old, and he didn't know what to do with it until he was in his 50s. And I. I, as a woman in her 50s, I draw hope from that, that there are all kinds of seeds planted in our lives that have yet to bear fruit if we're still above ground.

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There's fruit still to be developed. There are things that may, we may have had and held on to for a long time that we don't know what to do with yet, but at the right time, it'll all come together. That's what happened for C.S. lewis. He said, suddenly Aslan came bounding in. I don't know where the lion came from or why he came, but once he was there, he pulled the whole story together. Elsewhere, he said, aslan is an invention, giving an imaginary answer to the question, what might Christ become like if there really were a world like Narnia and he chose to be incarnate and die and rise again in that world as he's actually done in ours. Lewis added, I wrote fairy tales because the fairy tale seemed the ideal form for the stuff I had to say. And I thought I saw how stories of this kind could steal past a certain inhibition which had paralyzed much of my own religion in childhood. Why did one feel it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or the sufferings of Christ? I thought the chief reason was that one was told one ought to. I feel the same way about Hallmark movies. I can't cry because I know I'm supposed to. You know, when the music swells, I can tell I'm being emotionally manipulated and I just don't like it. Don't tell my mother I said that. Sometimes we're told how we ought to feel and we just can't make ourselves feel that right. Lewis says an obligation can freeze feelings. An obligation to feel can freeze those feelings. But suppose that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, by stripping of their. Stripping them of their stained glass Sunday school associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency. Could one not steal past those watchful dragons? I thought one could. Now, here's where those folks who try to say there's nothing spiritual about Narnia get their. This is the quote that they take out of context. Lewis often said, they are not allegories. These books are not allegories. Well, that's because he was a literature professor, kind of like my husband. He was like, all academic and really. And he held to this really strict definition of an allegory. And in an allegory, every single thing is a representation of everything else. And the most obvious, Andrew mentioned earlier, it's a great book, but it is one of the most classic and obvious allegories of all time. And that's Pilgrim's Progress.

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Because Pilgrim's Progress is about a man named Christian who is a Christian who goes on a journey to the celestial city, which is heaven. And along the way he carries burdens which are his burdens of sin and grief and. Right. And he encounters a giant despair who represents despair. You see what I'm saying? It's still a powerful story, but it's pretty. I mean, everything. There is nothing in that story that isn't a specific part of this bigger allegory that John Bunyan is telling. Lewis just wrote. First and foremost, he wrote the kind of books he likes to read. He wrote fabulous fairy tales and adventures. And then the lion came bounding in. Then he recognized some of those spiritual truths that were working their way in, and he gave himself to them. He allowed them to unfold. Jesus said, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. And I think that Lewis had so much of the goodness of scripture and spiritual truth in his heart. He had so much that it just came spilling out everywhere, consciously and at times even unconsciously. I don't know where I'll be in the line in heaven to ask him questions, if we even do such things. I'm Glad for that we'll have all eternity, because I know a lot of you will probably want to be in that line, too. Um, but one of the questions I'd. I'd love to know how much of this, how much of the scripture that's in there he. He did on purpose and how much he didn't even know about until later, right? That. It's just. It's in on every page, in every scene. It's full of beautiful spiritual truth. Many of the characters and events in Narnia don't represent anything in particular. Some of them are just part of the fabulous adventure. So don't. Whatever you do, I appreciate it so much. If you were there last night, Kurt talked about not spoiling the story for kids. Whatever you do, you don't want to just try to label everything, right? You don't want to turn it into a puzzle to solve. You want to first enjoy it as a story and then just be listening to that inner voice, to recognize some of those amazing elements as they come to light. Although Lewis didn't set out to write stories that would illustrate the most powerful truths of the Christian faith, that is essentially what he did. In the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the great lion, Aslan, tells the two Pevensey children that their adventures in Narnia have come to an end. They will not be returning to this country again. Do you remember this scene? And if you've ever noticed this, some of you probably. Probably know it feels kind of final, doesn't it? And that's because if we go back to the original order, Voyage of the Dawn Treader was book three, and Lewis thought he was writing a trilogy, and he was done. So he thought that was the end. And in this last scene, he's going to give his one. He's going to give a special hint, a special nod to the readers who.

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Who are following along. And then he is invited to write more stories. And he finds that he does have more to say. But in this kind of closing scene, or what he thought was closing, Edmund and Lucy realize they're going to have to leave Narnia and they don't get to come back. And they're very upset. It isn't Narnia, you know, sobbed Lucy, it's you. We shan't meet you there, back at home. And how can we live, never meeting you? But you shall meet me, dear one, said Aslan. Are. Are you there too, sir? Said Edmund. I am, said Aslan. But there I have another name. You must learn to know me. By that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia. This is the very reason that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there. Don't tell me there's no spiritual truth in the crowd that Jesus isn't there right now. Years ago, after reading this passage in Dawn Treader, a little girl named Hilah wrote to C.S. lewis and said, what's his other name? A lot of kids caught on quickly, but not everybody could be Gabby. And Hila could not figure it out. And Lewis, who famously answered every letter he received to the tune of 50,000 letters, wrote her back and said, well, I want you to guess. Has there ever been anyone in this world who. Let's see if I can get this going, honey. Arrived at the same time as Father Christmas. I married Andrew for his tech help, in case you're wondering. Arrived at the same time as Father Christmas. Said he was the son of the great emperor. I get that. There we go. All right. Gave himself up for someone else's fault, to be jeered at and killed by wicked people. Came to life again and is sometimes spoken of as a lamb. Remember, he appears in the form of a lamb at the end. Lewis says, don't you really know his name? Think it over and let me know your answer. Well, just as Edmund and Lucy's adventures in Narnia help him come to know Aslan or Jesus better, our adventures in Narnia can do the same for us, have done for millions and millions of people. Although in one case, actually they caused a crisis of faith. Remember that little boy Lawrence, who suggested the whole renumbering thing long before he wrote that letter to C.S. lewis. His mother wrote a letter to C.S. lewis, which is one of my favorites. And I want to share that with you. This is a picture found a picture of Lawrence and my husband, who is a bubbly extrovert, if you couldn't tell, and is friends with everybody, is actually Facebook friends with Lawrence, who's in his Hades. Oh, list that under things I would not think to do, but this is Lawrence. And Lawrence's mother wrote a letter to CS Lewis because she did not know what to do. Her son had come to her so upset because he was worried that he was an idol worshiper. I don't know many 8 year old boys who worry about that. But Lawrence was worried because he was afraid that he loved Aslan more than he loved Jesus and that would make him an idol worshiper. And you can imagine his mother like, what do I say to that? So she wrote a letter to Lewis, care of his publisher. And a few weeks later she got this response. Lewis wrote, Dear Mrs. Krieg, tell Lawrence from me, with my love. Even if he was loving Aslan more than Jesus. I'll explain in a moment why he can't really be doing this. He would not be an idol worshiper if he was an idol worshiper. He'd be doing it on purpose. Whereas now he's doing it because he can't quite help doing it. And trying hard not to do it. But God knows well, quite well how hard we find it to love him more than anyone or anything else. And he won't be angry with us as long as we're trying, and he will help us. Number two, Lewis says, but Lawrence can't really love Aslan more than Jesus. Even if he feels that's what he's doing. For the things he loves Aslan for doing or saying. Are simply things that Jesus really did and said. So that when Lawrence thinks he's loving Aslan. He's really loving Jesus. And perhaps loving him more than he ever did before. Lewis says, God knows all about the way a little boy's imagination works. He made it, after all. And he knows that at a certain age. The idea of talking animals, friendly animals, is very attractive. So I don't think he minds. And he goes on to say, Lawrence will probably grow out of it. Then he adds, number three. If I were Lawrence, I'd just say in my prayers something like this. Dear God, if the things I've been thinking and feeling about those books. Are things you don't like and are bad for me. Please take away those feelings and thoughts. But if they're not bad, then please stop me from worrying about them. And help me every day to love you more in the way that really matters. Far more than any feelings or imaginations. By doing what you want and by growing more like you. That is the sort of thing I think Lawrence should say for himself. But it would be kind and Christian like if he then added. And if Mr. Lewis has worried any other children by his books or done them any harm, please forgive him and help him never to do it again. Lewis goes on to write to Mrs. Krieg. Will that help? You know, I'm so sorry to have caused you so much trouble. I take it as a great favor if you'd let me know how Lawrence gets on. He commends her. He says you might be raising a young saint there. Right. Well, the things that Jesus really did and said. I want to just Touch on a few examples and, and it's just the tip of the iceberg, but we'll go through each of the books in the series and, and just touch on those. Let's see. Well, we all know technologically challenged. Here we go. We all know the story in the lion, the Witch in the Wardrobe, that, that Edmund is a young man. He becomes a traitor who gives in to sin and temptation who joins forces with the White Witch and needs to be saved from himself. Owl of Narnia needs to be saved. Right? And there's only one person who can do it. It's when Aslan comes and delivers him. It's when Aslan lays down his life, right? Lays down his life for Edmund, taking the punishment in his place that Narnia is saved. The scripture says God demonstrates his own love for us in this while we are still sinners. Christ died for us. And there's some beautiful parallels in this story where Aslan is not only jeered at and killed and tied up and bound by the White Witch, but then the power of being raised from the dead. And the women, remember, the women were the ones who met Jesus at the tomb. Who is it that meets Aslan at that moment of his resurrection? Lucy and Susan. There's parallel after parallel. One famous scholar said of the stone table that that was meant to remind people of Stonehenge. I know, I know you think you're wondering where I'm going with this, but. But actually Lewis said it's meant to remind you of the Ten Commandments and the stone tablets. He told a child in a letter to a child is meant to remind us of the law of God and how important it is that be fulfilled and that Jesus was the only one who could do it perfectly right. And so there's all kinds of beautiful symbolism in that story. I won't belabor that one because I think most of us are familiar with that one. In Prince Caspian, we've got a. It's been a thousand years and we've got a people who are hanging on to their faith despite the whole world around them turning their back despite being conquered and oppressed. And they're desperate to remain true. Prince Caspian wants to set things right, but he needs help. And so the four children find themselves in Narnia again, right? And they're trying to get to Caspian because they, they get a sense of the mission. They're supposed to help him overturn the wicked Telmarines and bring that. Bring peace back to Narnia and bring freedom back to Narnia. And they're trying to get to him, and they keep getting lost, and they keep getting stuck in that gorge. You remember that? And they keep taking wrong turns and they're getting all crabby with each other. We don't get crabby when we take wrong turns. And they're tired and they're hungry and they're sleeping on the ground. Lucy thinks she sees Aslan. Remember, there's a moment where she wakes up in the night and she finds him in the forest. She wanders off from the others and she finds him and she. See, I knew. I knew it. I told them I knew it. Here you are. And Aslan sends her on a quest to go back and wake up her brothers and sisters. She knows that is not going to be a popular thing for her to do, to wake them up in the middle of the night. And he says, what if they won't come? What if they won't listen? And Aslan says, then you must follow me. You must follow me. Others may make their choices. There was a moment in my own faith journey where I realized that the faith I had been raised in was when I could choose to make my own or not. Would I make that choice? Would I choose to follow him regardless of what others did? And there's that beautiful moment where he breathes on her courage. Jesus breathed on his disciples, too, and gives her the courage to be obedient and to be faithful. Andrew mentioned the story of Eustace, who gives into his greed and literally becomes a dragon in the Voyage of the Dawn Treader. And it's only in an encounter with Aslan who undragons him, who peels back all of those layers and baptizes him in that cool pool that cleanses him. And he, in this. In the story, says it would be great to say that he was a. That after that, he was a completely different person. Person. It would be more accurate to say he began to be a better boy. We're all on a journey, aren't we? We're all on our own faith journey. It's a process, but this is a significant moment. A little boy. I was doing a radio show years ago, and a little boy called in and said, Asked if Eustace was the devil. He was trying to do that. That allegory thing, right? Trying to. No, no, no. Eustace is all of us. Eustace is all of us giving into our dragon heart and needing to be set free. He began to be a different boy. In the silver chair, which Andrew also mentioned, there's an amazing Scene at the very beginning, one of my favorites. This is Jill when she's been separated from Eustace. And I'm keeping myself to the things Jesus actually said and did. Theme not just all the spiritual principles, because I could. We could be here for the next eight hours. She's on the mountainside. She's hot, she's tired, she's thirsty, she's looking for water. She finds a stream and there's this great lion. And she's terrified. She doesn't know who it is. The lion speaks to her. If you are thirsty, you may drink. Jill just stands there, terrified. Are you not thirsty? Says the lion. I'm dying of thirst, says Jill. Then drink, says the lion. But Jill is too frightened. She doesn't dare trust him. He won't promise that it's safe. Oh, dear, she says, I suppose I must go look for another stream then. And Aslan replies, there is no other stream. Do you remember Jesus's encounter with the woman at the well when he says to her, if anyone is in John 7:37, he says, if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink, whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him. He described himself as the living water. And we have that beautiful picture of that. Some of us are waiting for him to promise that it will be safe. He's not safe, but he's good, right? And Jill experiences that. I just as we're going through this, a little thought flashes through my mind again. I remember another conversation I had with someone about Narnia. When the first movie came, the big movie came out, the Disney movie came out, Remember, back in 2005. And someone said to me, they've said they were going to, you know, it was such a success, they're going to make all the other movies, right? And someone said to me, well, this is great that you get to go around talking about the spiritual truths in line, but you're going to be pretty hard pressed for the other ones because that after lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, there's nothing really spiritual about them. No, no, no. See, I'm like, I'm giving you one example for each story, but there's. There's thousands of them. Like, no, I don't think I'm going to run out of things to say. Here we have the horse and his boy. Several of you have asked me what my favorite Narnia is. And again, that's like picking a favorite limb. Every time I pick one, then I think of all the reasons I couldn't live without the other ones. But if I had to choose, if you forced me to choose, it would be the Horse and his boy. Andrew and I used a line from the Horse and his Boy in our engagement announcement. Because we're that Narnia nerdy. Remember at the end it says that Shasta and Erevis. Sorry, spoilers. There's no way to do this without spoilers. I meant to apologize for that in advance. It says that they decided they grew up and they decided they were quarreling all the time. So they grew up and then decided to get married so they could go on doing it more conveniently. So we combined it with a line from Jane Austen, from Persuasion, that says they fell in love over poetry. And we added and decided to get married so as to go on doing it more conveniently. So Horse and His Boy is a story about going from darkness to light, from slavery and captivity to freedom, about finding your true identity and who you really are. But even more than that, it's about God at work behind the scenes when we can't see him, when we don't know where he is. And Shasta has this moment in the fog where he is lost. He's separated from the hunting party. He's in Archenland, Arkinland. He doesn't know where he is or what to do. And he's feeling so sorry for himself. I never feel sorry for myself. Do you feel. And he's going on and on and. And all of a sudden he realizes that there's somebody walking beside him. And the voice says, tell me your troubles. And despite his fear of this mysterious presence, he's so. He's having such a big pity party. He can't help it. He just starts talking about it and going on and on and on. And he says, I'm. He says he's the most unluckiest person ever. Look at all these bad things that have happened. And the voice says, I don't call you unlucky. And the voice begins to tell him how all through his life he was watched over and protected and provided for, and how everything that has happened is part of a bigger plan for his good and for the glory of the one who's speaking. And suddenly the mist flies away. And who does he see beside him? Aslan the lion, who has been behind every moment of his life, protecting him, watching over him. I can't help but read that and think of Luke 24, where the disciples, after the crucifixion, had left Jerusalem and were on the Road to Emmaus. And they were miserable and they were downhearted and they were despairing and someone they didn't recognize comes up and walks beside them and says, tell me your troubles. And as they pour out all their grief and anguish and despair, he says, let me tell you, and begins to explain how it all fits together as part of God's beautiful plan from the beginning of time in the Magician's Nephew, which we're all excited to see what happens with Netflix. Commonly misnumbered is book number one. We have the Creation and the Fall of Man, and we have Aslan singing the world into existence. Our scripture tells us God created everything through Jesus. Nothing was created except through Him. The Word gave life to everything that was created and brought his light to everyone. We also have a wonderful Aslan prophesies When the witch, the woman who will become the white witch, does this horrible thing, he says evil will come of that evil, but it's still a long way off and I will see to it that the worst falls upon myself. Just as in Genesis 3:15 from the beginning we have a promise that though there is evil, though there is heartache, though there is sin in this broken world, It's a hot mess now. It's going to be okay. An answer is coming. Hope is coming. In the last battle. We have the last days of Narnia. We have an antichrist figure and his false prophet. And when Aslan finally does appear, it's to welcome his people into not making. He doesn't come to make Narnia great again. He comes to make a new heavens, a new earth, a new Narnia better than the old one, and one that will last forever. And we have this picture of people choosing which direction they want to go. Jesus talked about the sheep and the goats, about those who whose hearts are are open to him and those who are not. And we see clearly as they pass through the door, they make a choice. Those who look on him with love, who are excited, who are happy to be there, are welcomed in those who don't want to go disappear. We have echo after echo of things that Jesus really did say and did, really did say and do. And I, as I mentioned, I've just touched on the surface. But I know that there are hundreds, I would dare say even thousands of scripture references in the Chronicles of Narnia. And I'll tell you how I know. I read the Chronicles of Narnia as a little girl when I was seven years old. I read them over and over until they fell apart. And as a Young woman raised in a household of faith, I recognize I had my moment. I'm like, it's Jesus. And that brought great comfort to me as a child. And then in my teenage and young adult years, very often I would. I was struggling to live out my faith, and I would try to think of what I should do in a given situation. And back then, people were always wearing those WWJD bracelets. And so I'd ask myself, well, what would Jesus do? Or, what's a biblical principle? What's a spiritual truth here that I can apply to this situation? And as I was scrolling through my mind, often a scene from Narnia would pop up and I'd be embarrassed because I know the difference, right? It's not the Bible. I mean, it's got a lot of Bible in it, but it's not the Bible. And then I. After a while, it kept happening. And one day I slowed down long enough to go, okay, why does that scene from Narnia come to mind? Wow, that sounds. Oh, and Horse and his boy, when Aslan is talking to Rabadash, it's exactly what God says to Cain in the book of Genesis. Jesus, almost word for word, I would think of. If I thought about it hard enough, I'd find, oh, there's a scripture behind that. Oh, there's a truth behind that. And so I let that. I'm like, okay, all right. I'm not going to worry about it when that happens anymore. I'm just going to let it lead me on this trail. Right then. I was a teacher. I was teaching kids in a school where I was allowed to talk about spiritual truths, a Christian school. And my principal asked me to read the books to kids, middle school boys, which I thought would go over like a lead balloon. But they were excited and they were into it. And we were having these teachable moments. And so often I wanted to say, did you get it? Did you get it? And I'd let them explore it. And then I wanted to follow up and say. And I'd be like, wait, was that Jesus or Paul? I can't remember. I know that's a scripture, but I can't remember where it is. And I thought, wouldn't it be great if there was a resource where you could just take a quick look? I mean, we don't want to do what Lewis said not to do. We don't want to turn it into curriculum and take all the joy out of it. But there are spiritual conversations that come up, come about as a result. And I wanted to Be prepared. I had this idea for a book, and it's a very long story how it came to be, but it turned into a family guide to Narnia. And once I finally found a publisher through that epic journey of what it took, I had a contract and I had to sit down. I had said there's lots of scripture, but now I had the contract. I actually had to write the book. And I sat there for six months with a huge. This is before Google and Bible Gateway and all these things. I had all these concordances piled around me. And I spent day after day going chapter by chapter, scene by scene, through the chronicles, blurring, looking for spiritual truths. And it was overwhelmed. So many times I'd be sitting there and tears would be streaming down my face as I read truth after truth. There's so much of the Old Testament in there, as well as the New Testament. It was powerful. It was life changing. And, you know, we had committed to a format of one to two pages for every chapter. Because the idea is, as a parent or grandparent, if you're reading it along, if you're using it in Sunday school or children's church or whatever, you might want to have something for every chapter. I have to tell you, there were only like two chapters in the entire series where I was kind of stretching it a little bit. There's one where the scene is mostly the White Witch is driving off and. And trying to get to the. To Aslan. And that's mostly what happens. The snow is melting. And I was like, okay, how do I pull a spiritual principle out of that one? Well, she's cruel to her animals. And Proverbs says the wicked are even cruel to their animals. Okay, so I made it okay. But that's like two out of the entire seven books. In every chapter, there were. I had to leave stuff out. There's stuff you will have discovered. Had to leave stuff out because there's so much scripture and so much truth. You know, it's been over 20 years as I come to come to a close here. It's been over 20 years since this book was published. And I've had the privilege. It makes me feel very old, but I've had the privilege of meeting people who say they raised their children reading it. I've heard some amazing stories of people and their own experience. People love to tell me what Narnia has meant to them and how they have been blessed and how it's blessed their families. But one of my favorite stories of all time is one that took place at a Bookstore. When I was doing a signing for another book, my friends had a big Christian bookstore. And a woman came up to me and shoved an envelope in my hand and said, this is for later. I said, okay. So I continued on with the event. And later I pulled it out. It was a handwritten note, pages long. I have it somewhere. I want to summarize it. For me, for you. She told me this story of how a year before, she and her kids had been in this shopping plaza. She said, we are not a family of any kind of faith. We didn't have any religion at all. But we were in the. In the shopping plaza. It was a hot day. The kids saw all the toys in the window and they wanted to go in. So we went in and she's. The kids ran off. They had a big kids section, lots of toys, Bible stories, Veggie Tales playing on a screen. Kids ran off and mom dropped into a chair in the. In the cafe for a few moments of peace and quiet. And she said. She looked around, and it was the strangest thing. She didn't know any of these authors. She didn't know any of these titles. She didn't know anything, that this was a foreign world to her. She said, and then I looked over and I saw a rack that said Local Authors. And I saw a book that said Family Guide to Narnia. And she said, I thought, narnia, Narnia. My third grade teacher read that to me, and she bought the book because it was something familiar. Right now, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to confess to a moment of pride and weakness. I had been so annoyed when I saw that it was in Local Authors. My friends, the bookstore owners had put it there. And, you know, back in those days before indie publishing was so hip, it was like, these are the people that sell books out of their trunk. And I have this epic story of how I got a literary. A big literary agent and a big Christian publisher. And this. I am not a local author, but that book was right where it needed to be. In her letter, she told me that she went home and she read it, and she was astounded that there was all this scripture she'd never connected with before. So she went back the next week and she bought a Bible. And she and her family started reading and looking at the Scriptures together. And they came to a place. They realized they needed something in their lives. They had been missing something. They ended up finding a church and a place where they could grow together as a family. And she told me the story of her faith journey, the power of those spiritual truths that Lewis wrote. No, he didn't set out to write curriculum. Yes, you can enjoy them on many different levels, but there are powerful spiritual truths. In the dedication to the book that started it all, the lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Lewis wrote, dear Lucy, I wrote this story for you, but when I began it, I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result, you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound, you will be older still. But someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take them down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear and too old to understand a word you say, but I'll still be your affectionate godfather. C.S. lewis, someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. In an essay for children, Lewis confessed, when I was 10, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I'd been found doing so. Now that I'm 50, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up. So if you have never read the Chronicles or tried but just couldn't get into them, I'd like to suggest that maybe you just weren't old enough yet. Or maybe you enjoyed them as a child, or enjoyed reading them to your children. But you're old enough now to enjoy them in a whole new way. You'll find that there's so much more, more to encourage you, more to challenge you, more to transform you. There's still more truth and beauty, more inspiration and revelation that you can discover in the Chronicles of Narnia and the story within the story. Thank you

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thank you, Kristin, for your wonderful talk on a family guide to nature Narnia biblical truths in C.S. lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, which is still available for purchase. It's a user friendly companion to this classic series, I might add. Come visit us for this year's festival. It's easy. Log on to CS LewisFestival.org for events and registration. Upcoming this fall. This entire podcast has been made possible by the C.S. lewis Festival in Petoskey, Michigan and its generous sponsors. I'd like to thank the festival as well as podcast producer Zach Smith of Hands Media.