Moral Storytelling

Ok, ok, so I ranted against the mindless summer movie season, and all my posts since have been about movies. So sue me. I did meditate, clean, and cook today if it makes anyone feel better. Ahem. Anyway. There are two main fantasy worlds a kid is allowed to read if they grow up in a conservative Christian home. Most stuff involving wizardry, sorcery, magic, and such is off limits, whether the ultimate lesson of the story is moral or not. Harry Potter would have probably been off limits in my house, because there is no clear association between Rowling and the organized church. Enter Lewis and Tolkien. Most Christian kids are allowed to read Lord of the RIngs and Narnia, but not much else in the way of fantasy literature. Too prone to the occult, the satanic, and the always vaguely defined "New Age" mentality, or what have you. This presents some interesting dilemmas. For one, Narnia represents clear allegory of Christian myths. It's pretty straightforward, saccharine Christian fare with a clear moral lesson, and what might pass for a "spiritual realm" in Narnia. While Gandalf is also clearly a Christ figure, he's not quite the Christ stand-in that is Aslan. Lord of the Rings, therefore, presents a different myth, and while there are clear Christian themes of sacrificial love, etc. the world itself is not superficially Christian, but really pre-Christian. None of the characters prays or acknowledges a supreme being of good, and Gandalf, finally is too grumpy to be a Christ stand-in, and he smokes, on top of that. But the differences don't end there. The drama in any good story is the moral dilemma faced by the character, and consequences of choices, and then dealing with those consequences. In this sense, LOTR is a far more grown-up story as it presents a greater depth of drama and moral choice. This has made the recent LOTR films far easier to enjoy for grown-ups than the simple childish morality of the Narnia franchise. Rolling Stone's Peter Travers notes "There's no reason to criticize Narnia for being Lord of the Rings-lite. That's the point." Roger Ebert, who clearly grew up in a different home than me, has the following astute insights:

Character is not destiny in the "Narnia" pictures. Destiny is. Which creates some moral and dramatic dilemmas for the viewer. With all the dramatis personae Lewis has crammed into his filagreed fantasies, few of the players have the opportunity to leave much of an impression, or acquire significance, beyond what the tale demands of them. (Who's that badger again?) They do what is asked of them -- in the story and by the story. And once we realize that even the leads are predestined to play their parts in fulfilling prophecies, and that all they have to do to meet the requirements is to abide by (or guess) whatever certain mystical authority figures want them to do, the tension deflates a bit.
The moral options, as set forth in the movies so far, are fairly clear-cut: believe the beautiful lion and the friendly beavers; don't trust the sepulchral ice queen bearing Turkish Delight or the hideous dark demons extolling the forces of hate. What could be simpler? A child could do it. And what kind of lesson does that communicate to the child who can? That it's easy to tell right from wrong? Not a wise maxim.
What responsibilities do the Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve (how does that work?) bear for their own decisions, and the consequences of their actions, if everything can eventually be set right by some deus ex machina -- the healing properties of supernatural potions, or the corrective powers of magic lion's breath? What becomes of free will, of meaning itself?

This leaves me wondering about the many people I know who grew up in Christian homes and have a tenuous relationship with Christianity or have left the faith altogether. Or even if they remain Christians, genuine or nominal, their lives didn't quite turn out as squeaky clean as their parents would have had for them. They were immersed in a simplified moralistic myth, in which "it is easy to tell right from wrong" and if it isn't "Jesus/Aslan will show up and get you out of the bind."

Gregory Wolfe of Image Journal fame has some words of discernment in this regard, essentially painting Lewis and Tolkien as part of a greater project of Romanticism, and that a sole literary diet of Tolkien and Lewis tends to a kind of infantilism. Hear hear. Although, for my tastes, Wolfe places too much emphasis on the work of Walker Percy, Flannery O'Connor and T.S. Eliot, but at least he presents a well-argued, erudite reason.

I also came across some interesting blogs regarding this discussion:
first, Gregory Wolfe's exquisite editorials Agree or disagree with him, this is territory worth mining.

Also, a blog from some lads at Regent in Vancouver. Judging by their insights, I should have gone to Regent instead of Fuller.

And finally, another blog with links and entries aplenty that taps into a similar vein. I kid myself that I would have sounded something like either of these blogs if I had stayed in academia. Instead, I let my mind atrophy in the sun-drenched sidewalks promising fame and the self-promotion projects of even the Christian marginalia here in Tinseltown, and plan mediocre lessons on grammar for the terminally uninterested. O me, o life.