The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation

Episode 119a - Narnia at 75 - Myth as the isthmus back to reality

• Paul

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A wardrobe opened 75 years ago, and the way we see reality has never been quite the same. We’re pausing our current theology series to celebrate Narnia’s diamond milestone and to ask a bigger question: why does C. S. Lewis’s world still captivate believers, skeptics, and the just-plain-curious? We dig into Lewis’s own view of fairy stories and myth—not as childish diversions but as serious vehicles of truth that awaken sehnsucht, the deep longing for more than the surface of things.

Together we follow the thread from myth to meaning: how Lewis saw myth as an isthmus connecting our narrowed, modern peninsula of thought to the continent of reality we truly belong to. We unpack his bold claim that Christianity is “the myth that became fact,” and how that conviction quietly powers the Chronicles—especially in the figure of Aslan, the lion who is not safe but good. Expect a frank look at moral clarity with human complexity, why redemption matters for characters like Edmund, and how the stories recover our sense of an enchanted world without asking us to park our minds at the door.

We also map the seven-book arc as a pilgrimage: creation and fall, providence in absence, temptation and transformation, courage under pressure, and the hope of judgment and renewal. Whether you first met Narnia on the page, the radio, or the screen, consider this a fresh invitation to read the books as windows into reality, not escape from it—to let your imagination be baptised and your longing reawakened. If this conversation stirs something in you, follow the series, share it with a friend who loves Lewis, and leave a review so more readers can find the wardrobe door too.

The theme music is "Wager with Angels" by Nathan Moore

SPEAKER_00:

Well, welcome to the next episode of the Christ-centered cosmic civilization. And actually, I'm interrupting our series on the immutability of God to mark the 75th anniversary of Narnia. When this series of amazing books by C.S. Lewis began to be published, and the door was open to this other world, and for some people, some it's the best of all the imaginary worlds. Our daughter, Anna, she uh for her, this is the best of all the worlds. We sometimes discuss is it the world of Tolkien or JK Rowling or other ones, and for her, nice Nani is the best, and has a huge map of it, and uh a great box set of them and of the of the stories. And what is it about it that uh is so appealing? 75 years ago, a wardrobe door opened, and uh our world has never been quite the same. Uh and the first book in the series was actually The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, first published in 1950, on uh October the 16th. So we're just about there. 75 years of Narnia. And uh since then, the the Chronicles of Narnia, the full seven books, they've sold over a hundred million copies. Uh I hear that it's in forty different languages, and it's been um there's the original books, but there's been radio uh broadcast editions, there's been TV editions, there's been films, there's been it's been on theatre stage, there's even been a like a comic book style of it, but uh and it and and and games, there's games based on it as well. But why does Narnia still captivate us? Uh and and that it what is it about these stories that resonates not only with Christians, and we're gonna explore a lot about what it is about the Chris uh what's going on in terms of the Christian faith and Narnia. We're gonna get into that in the series, but uh it's not only Christians, but they're all uh readers who have uh no relation to Christianity that or that not that they're aware of. They they think of themselves as atheists or or agnostics or whatever, but there's loads of them that still love Narnia. What is it about this world of C.S. Lewis that feels so compelling, so deep, so enduring, so um well, it's it's almost like a nostalgia. Well, we'll get to that. What is that? Well, in this opening episode, I think what we're gonna do is we'll do one or two episodes now, and then uh maybe maybe up to three, and then we've gotta finish the Immutability of God series, because that's recorded, scheduled, ready to go. But uh in total there'll be nine. We plan nine Narnia episodes, going through each of the books and exploring lots of the uh thoughts and issues and seeing what it is that is going on in in this whole cycle of seven. Uh but today, in this opening episode of our Narnia Anniversary series, we'll explore perhaps three things that um how why did C.S. Lewis write what really are sort of furry stories, and why did he uh deal with mythological creatures and mythological ideas? It's something that we've explored in this podcast uh many times. Uh, but what is it, why did Lewis C. S. Lewis try to do that? Because he was right in the 1950s, that's the time of uh high modernism, where myth and fairy stories are particularly ridiculous to people, surely. So why write them? So that's the first question we'll think about. The second one is why Narnia appeals to Christians and non-Christians, and the third question in this opening episode is um how what is it about this world of Narnia, this imaginative mythological world, fantasy world. Um how does this fit into and prepare us for the the journey through each of the seven books? And it's uh it's an entire journey that he takes us on. Um anyway, we'll get to that. So let's first of all just begin with this idea of C. S. Lewis on fairy stories, um mythology. So when C. S. Lewis writes the the seven books of Narnia, it's not he's not just a storyteller. Uh he's not it's not just that he's got a good idea for a story and then it spins out because I I've read lots of box sets of stories in science fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, and things, and essentially what the author's doing is telling a good story, and they've got an idea. I was listening to an author describing um a series of I think eight books that he'd got, and and then uh the question was asked him, Why should we read this? And he said, Well, it's a great story about two unlikely characters that come from different backgrounds and worlds, and then their lives become intertwined, and they've discover that uh they're actually better working together than they would have been apart, and all and and basically it describes what's a really good story, and that's all it really is. And although there may be things in that eight-book series, I haven't read that one, that um resonate and give us wisdom about life and help us to meditate on life, and all stories, in a way, uh, have a depth to them, but the intention is essentially just to tell a good story, and the the author kind of was telling saying that. But I think C.S. Lewis is not just trying to tell a good story, that just in life he was more than that. He was a literary critic, he was a medievalist, specialist in medieval literature and poetry, he was a philosopher, and a Christian apologist. And uh his views about all these things are very relevant to uh Narnia and his particular particularly his view of myth and fairy story, it's crucial to understanding Narnia. So just for those who and perhaps new to this, the idea of fairy story, so if we let's take to the a contrasting view. I've heard people say something is a silly story, and or if you if if you tell them something that they don't believe in, something involving what they would call supernatural things, they might say that's silly, it's just a fairy story, and that that phrase just a fairy story is very important because in their mind a fairy story uh and and fairy story the I suppose if we take it literally it means um a story that involves the fey world, it's a story that involves the unseen realms of creation that are adjacent to the physical, visible things that we are used to interacting with. So for a person who says it such and such a thing is just a fairy story, in their mind there is nothing other than the superficially uh what is presented immediately to our senses and then what may be extrapolated from that. So they might have a quite a deep view of say physics or something, but it is essentially tied to quite a surface view of physical reality, and so they might say just a fairy story, but that is not at all the way C. S. Lewis thinks of them. In his essay, uh which is called On Stories, C. S. Lewis argued that fairy tales are not childish or a waste of time or diversions that have uh that are are detracting from reality, but rather he says fairy tales are serious vehicles of truth, and they awaken in us what he called Zinzucht, German word, it's a German word, zehnzucht, and it's it means a deep inconsolable longing for something beyond this world, or let's slight change that slightly, it's a deep inconsoluble longing for something beyond the uh the world as it presents on its surface level. Um and he wand and that's important because it's connecting us for what fairy stories do and what mythology does is it connects us to a bigger reality that we can't with this right down in the depths of our being, and we can feel it in our body, in our soul, in our spirit, our heart and mind, has this awareness that reality is much, much bigger and deeper and more wonderful and magical than is presented to us by the world. If we think of the world, the flesh, and the devil as this unholy trinity that is constantly attempting to confine us into a tiny box or or a very superficial way of living and thinking, and there's that within us that that knows that is not real. And so what fairy stories do, mythology does, well, fairies there's the two things are slightly different. Fairy stories are kind of stories that are designed to put us in touch with this the true nature of reality, and so it awakens this zenzuck to deep inconsolable longing for what is beyond the superficial view of this world. So C.S. Lewis once wrote, myth is the isthmus. Isthmus is like a tiny strip of land, it's like that where you've got something that seems to be almost an island, but then there's a tiny strip of land that connects to the mainland. So it's not, it's something it prevents an eye something from being an island. It can it's a tight it's a thin strip of land that connects something that's almost an island to the mainland. So myth is the isthmus which connects the peninsular world of thought with that vast continent we really belong to. So that's brilliant, isn't it? It's as if what's happened to us, the world, the flesh, and the devil, and then particularly in the modern age, the modern age is the triumph of fleshly thinking in a way, and it's it's it's it's it's kind of herded us onto what appears to be an island, and that there is no reality outside of this island, and we've been herded onto it, and then we're our our entire experience and vision and imagination has been confined to what appears to be an island. But what myth is, and fairy stories is a kind of myth, is where we discover, oh hang on, there's there's there's uh this is there's we're connected to something. This isn't this is not an island, this is not the only land mass there is, and then we can via a myth or the or a good fairy story or a deep therap fairy story, we're able to kind of travel out and discover, whoa, there's this huge continent. We thought we were living on a little island that's like a hundred meters in uh diameter, and it turns out there's this vast continent of Africa, kind of that's that's there, that's thousands of miles across, uh, and that there's a vast, vast world full of creatures and reality and heights and depths and wonders and sights and smells and sounds that we could not have imagined. So, do you see that then? Uh myth is the isthmus, which connects the peninsula world of thought with that vast continent we really belong to. And that's important there. It's not just the way we think, it's what we are. So, in other words, myths and fairy stories are bridges, they connect our rational minds, the way we think, with the deeper truths of existence. Uh, so see as C. S. Lewis's great insight, and it's been often explored, is that Christianity is the true myth. So it's mythological in that it can Christianity and the truths of the Bible connect us to the vast continent we really belong to. But he says it's a true mythology because mythologies don't necessarily have to be historically true or something, they can be a story that isn't historically true, but it's a story that, because of the power of its storytelling, connects us to that vast continent. But in the case of the Christian story of the Bible, centered on Jesus, the great hero of this mythology, it's a it's a story that connects us to the vast continent we really belong to. But it's all true, historically, um, factually, physically true. Or he puts it like this uh Christianity is the myth that became fact. So in in that idea that um I think it was in his is he he wrote an essay called Myth Became Fact. Myth Became Fact, and there C. S. Lewis explains that all the dying and rising gods of pagan stories were echo, shadows, memories, kind of uh anticipations or longing for uh what they knew they kind of knew that there was a reality, and that in the pagan myths they're they're reaching for something that they knew had to be true, but in the Lord Jesus Christ, the myth, the the the truth, it's as if he the the the this living god from the continent crosses the isthmus, comes onto the island, and does do the dying and rising that all the myths dreamed about, and it turns out the myth of a of a god who dies and by his death accomplishes this wonderful transformation of reality and rises again to bring a new life, a new day, a new season, a new age. All of that. It turns out all of that was true. There really was such a God, and it's actually just happened, and it was the birth, life, death, resurrection, ascension of Lord Jesus Christ. So in Christ, the myth entered history, the story became flesh. So, from this perspective, C.S. Lewis would say, argues, and he's not alone in this, this is a long tradition in Christian thought. Fairy stories are not escapism, there's nothing childish about them, they're a deadly serious in that sense. And actually, when you read the Nani series, that is obvious. That is obvious. There's they they can be understood by a child, but really there's nothing at all childish about them, they are intensely profound. Um so that but they're not escapism, better to they are described as recovery. Fairy stories are a therapy for us, therapy. They help us see the world in a fresh way, they strip away that deadening blindness uh that has settled upon us, partly because of the modernist age, but in a deeper sense, it's the world, the flesh, and the devil. The the world, the flesh, and the devil are not just to do with the modern materialistic age, they have been had this deadening, confining, crushing, blinding effect upon humanity for countless ages all over the world, for thousands of years all over the world. And that in the Bible, that's the Bible addresses people as if they have this blindness, deafness, deadness, inability to appreciate the glory of God that fills the entire creation, the wonders of it all. So, what fairy stories are away is a kind of therapy, a recovery, helping us to strip away or break through this deadening layer and remind us that the world is enchanted, charged with meaning. And that's why C.S. Lewis wrote Narnia. He wanted to baptize the imagination. He wanted children and adults to feel the gospel, actually, to feel it, to experience the gospel before they analyzed it almost. It's giving a person an opportunity of feeling what it's like to live in the Christian world before a person maybe is ever in the Christian world. It's it's almost like a virtual experience of living in a Christian world. Um it's in a way we could say um I often say entering Narnia in the stories is what it feels like to go to to to join church. When you join church, and when we gather as church, we're church all the time, 24-7, but then we gather as church, and that's really like entering Narnia, and it's when we are kind of gather together as church, and through word and sacrament, we ex we we are kind of tuned into or experienced or brought into an experience of the world as it really is, um, and so that's what C.S. Lewis does with these books. He gives people an experience of uh the Christian the well the the the real nature of the universe, and they they kind of can feel what it feels like to be a Christian just by reading Narnia stories. Someone put it like this they can encounter Aslan before they encounter theology. So a person might feel, oh, it's amazing to meet Aslan, and they've not yet met Jesus, but they may have experienced in their heart and minds something of what it is like to meet the real Aslan, the real the Lord Jesus Christ. And C.S. Lewis enables that because of the way he writes these stories. So I like it. He just says he said one time, I wrote the books I would have like I should have liked to read. So he's um he did that, and he gives us a myth that still speaks to us, to Christians and non-Christians. Well, let's go to the second question: why Narnia appeals to Christians and non-Christians. It's uh what why does this happen? I think it's because um well there's three let me give three reasons that appeal. I've I've already given some there, but here's another thing. That there's moral, the first thing I would say that is appealing is there's moral clarity with complexity. So there's an absolute good and evil in Narnia. It's a world where those things are are real, good and evil are real and absolute. Um, so the white witch, for example, it's not that she is uh misunderstood, or we're invited to see things from her perspective and realize maybe she's actually good or she's trying, you know, or anything like that. No, no, no, she is wicked, and Aslan also is not a um a dark hero, like a c like someone who is a helpful mentor, but is filled with ambiguities or anything. No, Aslan is actually, if you read the whole series, he's the source of life and goodness and light, and yet so there's absolute clarity, good and evil, absolutely differentiated, and there's very clear demarcation line between good and evil, and yet within that total clarity, the characters wrestle with temptation, pride, betrayal, redemption. Uh Edmund, you know, he's not a cardboard cutout villain. Edmund is a boy who makes mistakes, he uh betrays, he but he's forgiven. And and that sense of having a morally complex journey in which there is the possibility of redemption. So many stories in our family we become so frustrated because there are great stories and in particular like box sets and all sorts of things, but there is no redemption, there is not even the possibility of redemption in lots of things. There's a kind of people, there's um there's um moral ambiguity, but so uh, and sometimes there a yearning for moral clarity and things like that, but no redemption. But you get that in Narnia and the complexity that of the absolute good and evil with sending people into confrontations of all of temptation, pride, betrayal, all these things, but also with the possibility of redemption that is compelling. Uh, another reason people like it is that the world of Narnia is both strange and familiar. So there's that which is very strange, particularly if you're not used to Faye, the Faye world of uh the Bible and uh Christian history and so on and reality, where you've got talking animals and fawns and dryads and you know all these kinds of creatures. That's so that's a fey world, so that may seem strange to a person who isn't used to that, but it also feels very like our own world and the struggles of um love and trust and loyalty and fear and courage and all those issues, and the even the basic structure of life in Narnia is very familiar. So Narnia is not escaping into an impossibly strange world, it's it's reality seen through a different lens. There's a strangeness and a familiarity about it. So people actually find it fairly easy to understand Narnia. And then the third thing is Aslan as this archetype. Even for those who don't recognize him as the Lord Jesus Christ, Aslan embodies sacrificial love and courage and kingship and hope, and he's and this way in which he's like a superhero. He's the lion who lays down his life, the king who serves, the presence who is both terrifying and tender. There's something about him that this tremendous strength and power, together with this wonderful loving wisdom and intimacy. Uh, and as he has as he writes in one of the books, you know, Aslan is not safe, but he is good. And that paradox has a sort of universal resonance, this I idea of a of a of a wonderfully good hero hero who isn't two-dimensional, but is is is has got this kind of fearfulness also about him, and and and that and Nani has a massive appeal. So it's not just Christian propaganda. I've heard someone recently just said, oh, it's all just Christian propaganda. You're like, nah, that's that's lazy, that's too you can't do that. It's not just that, it's it's myth that speaks to uh all humanity and people of all ages and backgrounds and beliefs find a joy and a wonder uh and and this kind of the themes of justice, love, redemption, where do we really belong? Where's our true identity? All of this is there. And then finally, as we just tie this up, there's a uh this the the world of Narnia, uh each of the stories is taking us on a journey. We we the books together, it's not just a children's series, but it's the the series of seven books, it's a cosmic vision of Christ-centered civilization. It's what this podcast is all about, in a way. The journey is reminding us that the gospel of the Lord Jesus it isn't just kind of dry doctrine, it's story, it's myth that becomes fact. It's the roar of a lion who is not safe but good. And that sacrifice is a deeper this deep loving sacrifice is really. Written into a deep magic. It's from a deep magic that's older and deeper than all the other ways. That there's a wisdom that seems foolish, but it's actually best, and all these things. Um, and we're gonna go on this journey from the the the line The Witch in the Wardrobe was the first published one, but we might begin with the magician's nephew. I'm still because that's you know in a way that is the the start of the of the uh although it was the sixth book written by C. S. Lewis, it's actually the book that deals with creation, the creation of Narnia, fall, and the fall of it, and then in the seventh book, it's the end of the world, judgment, the hope of a new creation, and all that. But uh, each of the books is taking us into deep themes, and it really does. The whole set takes us on a journey from creation, the fall, the journey of pilgrimage, what do we do? Like the in Prince Caspian, when God seems absent, how do we keep going, and Providence holding fast to the truth when our own nature's against us, kind of, and where the deep internal battle that comes out in the silver chair, all of this we're gonna explore. So here's the challenge, the invitation as we celebrate 75 years of Narnia. Uh, dig 'em out, buy 'em if you've never got them. But don't read them just as kind of children's tales, and certainly don't dismiss them as just fairy tales. Read them as windows into reality, like the isthmus that connects to this great vast continent of reality. That where you really belong. Let these stories awaken your imagination and stir your heart and mind. And yeah, let them point you to the true country, the true king, the true myth that became fact. May your imagination be baptized and your longing stirred in your heart. May your heart be ready to hear the roar of the lion.