Rowan Williams deconstructs Narnia

Rowan Williams, when asked his thoughts on C. S. Lewis’s Narnia books, declared that he finds Aslan to be “on the knife-edge of the erotic.”

One wonders what C. S. Lewis would make of Rowan Williams and his ideas; Williams himself provides a clue in the same interview: “”Lewis thought most theologians were gutless liberals who didn’t care about the truth enough.”

And Aslan would almost certainly say: “Oh, Adam’s son, how cleverly you defend yourself against all that might do you good!”

From here:

On C S Lewis and theology: “Lewis thought most theologians were gutless liberals who didn’t care about the truth enough.”

On the sensuousness of Aslan the lion: “on the knife-edge of the erotic.”

On the Aslan resurrection scene in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: “I think it is such an obvious parallel. The more interesting thing is how does Lewis convey a sense of what the religious climate, the religious sensibility might be in another world? That is the teasing thing.”

On his first response to C S Lewis’ Narnia books: “When you’re 14 or 15, as I was when I read some of those books, you think, wow, we’ve got a clever man on our side! Isn’t that good!”

Of a pagan who gets to heaven: “Here is someone with total courage, passion and generosity who’s giving all that to a mistaken target. But the heavenly postman knows better and delivers it to the right address.”

2 thoughts on “Rowan Williams deconstructs Narnia

  1. Well, at least dear Rowan understood Lewis’s views of Rowan’s ilk. Pity he can’t take it to heart.

    Aslan ‘on the knife edge of the erotic.’? Huh? This reveals much more about dear Rowan’s view of the erotic than I might care to contemplate.

  2. “On the knife edge of erotic”? A very cutting edge statement.
    Perhaps Mr. Lewis would comment, as he did in , “Wieght of Glory”;
    “Whenever you find a man who says he doesn’t believe in real Right or Wrong, you find the same man going back on it a moment later.”
    But I do forgive him this, for I believe this is before he had his eye brows trimmed.

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