UPDATE: "Prince Caspian" Shocker!

Could it be? Some are suggesting that the movie, "Prince Caspian," is actually BETTER than the book! GASP!


Fredrica Mathews Green writes an interesting piece in NRO. Her discussion ranges wide, touching other movies that were better than the books that inspired them. [BTW, she includes in that list _Lord of The Rings_, which will infuriate some philo-Tolkien-ists, but...I actually agree.]


Having reread the book so close to seeing the movie, I can see why she says Prince Caspian the movie is better than Prince Caspian the book. After finishing PC, I told my wife, "This is not the best of the Chronicles of Narnia." Green makes some of the same points I was thinking about. There actually isn't a whole lot of action in the book (one battle scene), whereas the movie has three major battles. It seems most of the book is taken up with the Pevensie children traveling to get to Prince Caspian, whereas the movie covers that journey pretty quickly.


John Mark Reynolds writes a positive review as well. He doesn't discuss how the movie trumps the film as much as Green does; rather, his is a reflection on how good the film was. I agree. My kids loved it, and I want to go see it again.

"Malcolm Quotes" #2

Here's another installment. Lewis writes to "Malcolm":

Broaden your mind, Malcolm, broaden your mind! It takes all sorts to make a world; or a church. This may be even truer of a church. If grace perfects nature it must expand all our natures into the full richness of the diversity which God intended when He made them, and heaven will display far more variety than hell. (Letter II)

I'll never forget the "cognitive dissonance" I experienced when I first arrived in England for a year of Bible training. I immediately mixed it up with all sorts of European Christians, some of whom even (gasp!) baptized babies! Having been raised in a "believer only" baptismal tradition, it was difficult to accept when I found out that these people were clearly brothers and sisters in the faith. "The church must be bigger than I thought," I said to myself. I learned to hang out with Christians who had a pint of beer with their lunch, or smoked cigars, or...baptized babies!

I wonder if I have completely learned this lesson. Of course, there are theological convictions that I will never, NEVER jettison, but sometimes I wonder if our denominational differences are rooted more in tempermental differences than theological. In other words, I wonder if our denominational differences (dare I say, our "denominational richness"?) are almost necessary to display the full panoply of God's richness.

Now calm down, my baptist brethren. I'm not at all suggesting a doctrinal relativism; I'm suggesting a packaging relativism. Is the ONLY way to do a God-glorifying worship service to have three hymns (or choruses), an offering, and a sermon? Is it really wrong to repeat the Lord's Prayer every Sunday, along with the Apostle's Creed, or Nicene Creed?

I'm very comfortable in my Southern Baptist situation (though that is not the tradition in which I was raised); I'm just trying to be a "Christian," in the fullest historical sense of that word, or as F.F. Bruce once said, "I want to be an un-hyphenated Christian," as opposed to "Baptist Christian," or "Lutheran Christian," etc.

"Malcolm Quotes" #1

I'm going to record a bunch of quotes from C.S. Lewis's Prayer: Letters to Malcolm (I bought my copy in England; in the US, I think it was published under the title, Letters to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer) that I've been reading. I'll write the quote, then make some comments on it. Here's the first one.

Speaking about the liturgy of the Church of England, Lewis writes:

And it [the liturgy] enables us to do these things best -- if you like, it 'works' best -- when, through long familiarity, we don't have to think about it. As long as you notice, and have to count, the steps, you are not yet dancing but only learning to dance. A good shoe is a shoe you don't notice. Good reading becomes possible when you need not consciously think about eyes, or light, or print, or spelling. The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God. (Letter I)

This introduced me to the idea of a church service as a means to an end, not an end in itself. Our worship services should be just that: worship services, not concerts, performances or club meetings. The problem is that very few churches, it seems to me, make a conscious effort to do this. We are very - sometimes VERY - focused on keeping people entertained, keeping them coming back, keeping them happy, or whatever. In this sense, I'm afraid many of our worship services are functionally atheistic; if God wasn't there, I'm terrified to admit that many of us wouldn't notice. He simply isn't the focus.

[I should be careful to explain that when I say "our worship services," I'm not necessarily referring to the church where my family happens to be attending right now in our lives. In fact, our worship pastor works hard at getting people in touch with God, at making people aware that we are to be encountering God during these services.]

I've internalized Lewis's idea here and applied it to worship leaders and so-called "worship bands." I think very few people who are "worship leaders" are really gifted at it; they too often need to be the center of attention. "Worship bands" too often try to dominate the worship. More often than not, "less is more." Recently at the school where I teach, we had a break from the usual rock group worship band, and instead, a small ensemble of singers stood on risers and sung some accapella numbers. I was surprised at my response; I got all teared up. In thinking about it later, I realized that what moved me was the beauty of the music. Rock bands are rarely beautiful, though they are often loud.

I've also started to think that worship leading is a spiritual gift. Perhaps we should work harder at identifying people who have this gift, instead of anointing anybody who has a "worship band" as a "worship leader."

Here's my personal dilemma: I am from a "low church" worship tradition, but that tradition doesn't seem to be giving me the intellectual / spiritual food to sustain my worship of God on Sundays. I find myself thinking about many things other than God. The service is "predictable," as Lewis wants, but the forms of worship that sustain the intellect don't seem to be present. On the other hand, the "high church worship" churches I know of are usually theologically liberal, so I can't very comfortably change churches.

As a compromise, I've been attending a local episcopal church on Sunday mornings, one that has a service late enough that I can still teach SS at my church and attend most of the worship service; I slip out of our service early and drive quickly to this other church where there is very traditional Anglican worship. I'm not quite comfortable enough with the liturgy to "not notice it," but I'm getting there. Besides that, the beauty of the worship is very compelling.

In any case, Lewis, many years ago, introduced me to the idea that our worship services are not only (though they are partly) for preaching, but also for worship, and they do that best when we aren'y always wondering what is coming next. But, for my part, I also need some intellectual fodder (which the BCP provides) and beauty.