With The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe coming out in theaters tomorrow, the fiction of C.S. Lewis will draw massive amounts of media attention. But what about Lewis's non-fiction? Narnia's Lion is a Christ-like figure, but Lewis's non-fiction deals with Christ in a manner less open to interpretation.

In his essay "Miracles" in God in the Dock (buy it here), Lewis grapples with the anti-Christian fixation on the virgin birth. He asks, "is it that they see in this miracle a slur upon sexual intercourse which is rapidly becoming the one thing venerated in a world without veneration?" Lewis's explanation of the virgin birth demonstrates, despite what you may see on the silver-screen this weekend, the superiority of his non-fiction over his fiction. Lewis's take on this subject is especially relevant for the Christmas season. Lewis, in 1942, preached from St. Jude on the Hill Church, London:

"There is a vulgar anti-God paper which some anonymous donor sends me every week. In it recently I saw the taunt that we Christians believe in a God who committed adultery with the wife of a Jewish carpenter. The answer to that is that if you describe the action of God in fertilizing Mary as 'adultery' then, in that sense, God would have committed adultery with every woman who ever had a baby. For what He did once without a human father, He does always even when He uses a human father as His instrument. For the human father in ordinary generation is only a carrier, sometimes an unwilling carrier, always the last in a long line of carriers, of life that comes from the supreme life. Thus the filth that our poor, muddled, sincere, resentful enemies fling at the Holy One, either does not stick, or, sticking, turns into glory."

Bravo, Dan. I've drawn a lot of comfort and inspiration from Lewis' non-fiction writings. Powerful, powerful stuff. There's a new (at least I think it's new) Lewis anthology in stores called "The Business of Heaven." It's basically a collection of his essays from other books, and is well worth picking up.

This film is the product of Walden Media (and Friend of FLynn Files Mike Flaherty, an Arlington native)a production company with a misson of creating uplifting flilms with a moral message. We should all support this effort. It is a viable alternative to, say, Brokeback Mountain.

I think very highly of Lewis as a writer, but this is not his finest work. Filth sticking to God and becoming glory? What an aweful metaphor.

I for one kind of liked the metaphor, Ralph. It reminded me of Augustine's emphasis on God's power to take incredible injustice and evil and turn it toward the good (e.g. the crucifixion). "For the Almighty God, who, as even the heathen acknowledge, has supreme power over all things, being Himself supremely good, would never permit the existence of anything evil among His works, if He were not so omnipotent and good that He can bring good even out of evil." (Enchiridion, chapter 11).

see "What, no fatwa?" about Arabic editions of Narnia at: http://www.sondrak.com/