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FOLLOWING PRINCE CASPIAN
Further Encounters with the Lion of Narnia
By THOMAS WILLIAMS Thomas Nelson
Copyright © 2008
Thomas Williams
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8499-1997-8
Chapter One PRINCE CASPIAN'S NARNIA
Hundreds of years have passed in Narnia since the days of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Foreign invaders from the country of Telmar have taken over the land, ridding it of talking animals, centaurs, fauns, giants, and other nonhuman citizens that formerly filled the mountains and forests.
A new way of looking at the world prevails in Narnia. The Telmarines hate wild, natural things, so they are destroying forests and ruining rivers to build their civilization. They have ushered in a new, "enlightened" age freed of ancient myths and magic. It's a time of no-nonsense, practical thinking. The Telmarines have zero tolerance for belief in the old magical stories of talking animals, especially the accounts of a Lion called Aslan, Son of the Emperor-over-Sea who created Narnia. Though the old stories are forbidden, a few Narnians remain who have not forgotten them.
The king of the new Narnia is the Telmarine Miraz. He is not the rightful king; he seized the throne after murdering his brother-the true king and Caspian's father-when the prince was an infant. Caspian's mother died soon afterward, and the boy has been raised by a nurse whom he loves dearly. He treasures the time when she tucks him in at night and tells him stories of Old Narnia, when animals talked, fauns danced in the woods, dwarfs mined glittering stones and metals from the hearts of the mountains, beautiful dryads danced in the forests, and the great Lion Aslan often appeared.
But when Caspian innocently asks his uncle about the old stories, Miraz angrily tells him that none of them are true and that he must never think about them again. The king banishes the nurse and hires a tutor to train Caspian in the practical things he must know to be king of Narnia.
Shunning the Old Stories
It's not too hard to see the resemblance between Caspian's Narnia and our world today. A new way of thinking is sweeping our schools, universities, governments, and media. Technology and materialism dominate today's worldview, and the old stories of creation, miracles, and a God who came down and died for us seem out of place. A growing number of people consider religion a superstitious fantasy, neither true nor relevant to real life.
As in the new Narnia, many expressions of belief are forbidden in certain venues today. Public prayer is forbidden in public schools, and even speaking of God is forbidden in many. Sharing one's faith is forbidden in many workplaces. Political candidates are ridiculed for believing in a creator. Christian organizations are banned from many college campuses. Christianity is on the defensive. To take it seriously as a foundation for a credible worldview or adopt it as a way of life is becoming an embarrassment almost everywhere except inside the walls of churches.
Don't you sometimes feel the effect of this thinking? How do you react to words such as sinner or salvation, to terms like Bible believer, faith in God, the power of prayer, or absolute truth? Do you feel uncomfortable, maybe reluctant to take these terms seriously because they seem so quaint and out of place? Maybe the term absolute truth makes you uncomfortable because you doubt whether there is such a thing or, if there is, whether it can be known. If you are a Christian, do you feel embarrassed to express your beliefs outside church settings?
If you experience any of these feelings even to a small degree, as most of us do at times nowadays, it's a sign that we're living in a time like Caspian's Narnia. The old beliefs that once defined our culture are being discouraged or even repressed. The intuitive understanding of basic right and wrong is fast disappearing. We live in an age that largely rejects the old explanations of why we were placed on this planet. The idea that we can have a relationship with a higher power who created us for a glorious destiny is slipping away. Instead, human beings are assumed to have no higher purpose than following our own desires and scratching our own itches.
A New Way of Thinking
The culture today tells us that the old truths were never really true. What's true for you may not be true for me, so you and I must find our own truth. Absolute right and wrong are considered repressive, outdated concepts; after all, what's right for one person may be wrong for another. Therefore, the argument goes, others have no right to impose on you their idea of what's right and true. You must decide such things for yourself.
You may be caught up in this way of thinking. Maybe you are now following your own "truth." Maybe you've bought into today's mantra that life is meant for pleasure, and you've filled your life to the brim with continual stimulation-iPods, online games, movies, concerts, cuisine, TV, drugs, alcohol, sexual encounters-so that there's scarcely a free moment when your senses are not bombarded with pleasurable sensations.
Maybe you've bought into the cultural idea that happiness is found in having it all. You work yourself to exhaustion day and night to fill your life with things-a newer car, a more upscale home, clothing to match your peers, up-to-date electronic devices, golf clubs, ski equipment, snowmobiles, motorbikes, boats ...
Maybe you've bought into the idea of finding significance in your career, and you are doing whatever it takes to scramble up the corporate ladder, to build a successful business, or to get to the top of your field so you'll be admired and respected.
These are the values that have largely replaced the values of the old stories. Yes, our culture is strikingly like that of Narnia in Prince Caspian's day. The old truths are out of favor, discouraged, and sometimes even forbidden. The new order of the day is to live by the rules of a pleasure-saturated, materialistic, self-pleasing culture according to whatever standards seem to work for you. As we will see in the next chapter, this approach didn't work very well in Narnia, and I'm afraid it won't work very well for us today.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from FOLLOWING PRINCE CASPIAN by THOMAS WILLIAMS Copyright © 2008 by Thomas Williams. Excerpted by permission.
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