apparently an offer has been made to
Merill Streep to portray Alan as in the
Christ figure in the Narnia stories in
an upcoming Chronicles of Narnia movie
and really movies eight movies uh and
there are reports that aan will be a
female character so we'll see how this
unfolds nothing is said in stone as of
my recording of this but this is not
looking good and I think thinking about
this can help us think about our culture
right now so let's do two things in this
video real quick laying out the facts
what do we know at this point and and
second of all why is why would this be a
disastrous idea and why should we care
about this I actually think this is not
a small matter something like this it
reflects something of the times so this
is worth thinking about so what do we
know uh Netflix has acquired the rights
to produce a new Narnia series uh I
think the first movie will come out
around late 2026 sometime in the
Thanksgiving I think Thanksgiving
weekend in the theaters it's kind of an
interesting release because it'll be a
kind of a streaming theatrical hybrid
I'm not aware that there's been a movie
quite like this where you have four
weeks in the theaters only in IMAX and
then it'll come to Netflix uh sometime
in December um it's a reboot it's not a
sequel to the previous Disney films if
you remember those from 2005 to 2010
first three and they're planning on
doing eight of them the first two of
which will be directed by Greta Gerwig
she's the same person who directed the
Barbie movie uh apparently they're going
to start with the Magician's Nephew
first this is another whole thing you
know do you go with the chronology or
the publication order I'm very partial I
love the Narnia books you'll you'll get
the sense of that uh watching this video
I think they're great stories and I
think it's best to go in the order of
publication starting with the line the
Witch and the Wardrobe but that's kind
of a separate issue that's not as
serious as what we're talking about here
there's also talk of Daniel Craig
playing Uncle Andrew if you remember
that character from the book The
Magician's Nephew this has really got my
wires crossed because when I think of
Daniel Craig I think of him playing
James Bond so these are Uncle Andrew and
James Bond are about as different as you
can imagine uh here's a picture of Uncle
Andrew in one of the books but you know
that's just a challenge for Daniel Craig
I think uh you can go from a young James
Bond type person to an older eccentric
character if you're a good enough actor
so that's not the issue the issue with
this that I am having is the female
asant and I actually think that that's
not a small matter and it invites some
reflection about what is going on in our
culture where this kind of thing can
happen and let me just start by saying
in terms of the concern here it's not
because I'm a snob about books you know
there are some people where you're a fan
of the books and granted I love the
Narnia books but you're a fan of the
books to the point where nothing would
satisfy you no matter any kind of movie
would make you upset that's not really
where I'm coming from to give some
comparison I loved the 2005 movie I
thought it was pretty good that they had
Liam niss do the voice of Alan in that
movie I thought that that was a great
choice and while it's always hard to
make a book into a movie and and to
capture the spirit of it and you can
criticize various things I never got the
impression in that movie that there was
an agenda being forced into the story I
felt the same way about the Peter
Jackson Lord of the Rings trilogy I
thought they did a great job you can
critique various aspects of it you know
you can say they took too much creative
license here and there and that kind of
thing I'm not saying it's perfect but I
didn't get the sense from those movies
that they were there was a kind of
subversive agenda being forced into the
narrative in fact Peter Jackson talked
about this in interviews and he said we
made a promise to ourselves at the
beginning of the process that we weren't
going to put out any of our own politics
our own messages or our own themes into
these movies in a way we were trying to
make these films for him that's tolken
not for ourselves I think that's the
honorable way to treat any sort of C
cultural artifact like uh the Narnia
books or the Lord of the Rings books or
or anything if you have the
responsibility of taking A Book Like The
Chronicles of Narnia books or Lord of
the Rings and putting them into any kind
of production whether it's through film
or anything else that is a sacred
privilege it's kind of a form of
inherited wealth in a way you know
you're getting to benefit from the
incredible genius that went into the
original production and it's very easy
to misuse the power that you've been in
trusted with you know if you're
borrowing your neighbor
Lamborghini um you have a responsibility
to not go out joy riding recklessly
because it's a Lamborghini right well
when we have the sacred privilege of
taking something like the Narnia stories
and turning them into a movie we need to
take that very seriously and a female
Alan is uh a kind of subversive way to
deal with it just think how CS Lewis
would feel about this let's explain a
little bit why and let me say the
concern here is not with Merill stre
herself she's a great actress okay did
you know Merl stre holds the record for
the most nominations for winning an
Oscar she has 21 nominations incredible
acting career she's an amazing actress
so God L her it's not with her that the
concern here it's the concern with
changing the biological sex of aan which
if I understand it from reading a bunch
of websites today that's the plan again
we're very early on we'll see how it
unfolds from here I'm recording this
April 2nd 2025 but it sounds like
they're going to make aan female now one
of the simplest ways to State the
concern is just to say look aan is a
allegorical representation of Jesus
Christ Jesus Christ was a man so don't
make the allegorical representation of a
man female and because the masculinity
of Christ is a very serious matter those
of us who are followers of Jesus believe
that the Eternal Son of God chose to be
incarnate in that particular way and we
don't want to mess with that but there's
maybe even a deeper way to put this is
this feeling of the misuse of a
particular cultural item in this case
The Chronicles of Narnia to push an
agenda uh unlike what you what I
mentioned with the earlier Narnia story
at least the original movie and the Lord
of the Rings movies and let me say that
my motive in talking about this is not
just to stir people up into anger and
reactionism um because we get enough of
that but it's just to encourage
reflection about our culture right now
because for those of us who are
followers of Jesus we're often quick to
criticize the surrounding culture but we
have to actually be Discerning to see it
it actually takes a lot of wisdom to
look around and see what is happening
and how eccentric the modern West is
remember that culture is not the
landscape that we see it's the glasses
we see through we often don't notice how
much the culture has gotten into US it
has to do with how we see things less
what we see and what we're consciously
aware of and the fact is that modern
Western culture has become different in
various ways from every other culture in
human history and that those differences
are actually growing and expanding with
time and we need to be aware of this
there are certain things that were sort
of taken for granted everywhere whether
you're in South America or Asia whether
you're in 1000 BC or 1000 ad certain
things that are relatively static and
then the modern West is deviating from
one of them is
secularization there's some materialist
people in the ancient world there's some
people who don't believe in the gods but
societies as a whole were always
religious another difference is the
tendency to reduce morality to harm
Jonathan height talks about this in his
book The Righteous Mind which is an
amazing and helpful book everybody
should read it and he's saying most
cultures have had a bigger set of
intuitions that inform our sense of
morality we've really reduced it down
it's very thin in the modern West and
another is our more fluid and libertine
views about sexuality and gender I'll
just say you know at a basic street
level when I'm trying to disciple young
people just the way this plays out in
pastoral Ministry one of the basic
issues that comes up again and again is
just I I to try to put it at its at its
nerve center we've lost our sense of
sexuality as a sacred and holy gift from
the Creator God that's the simplest way
I can put it so if we were to say as
followers of Jesus we believe in such a
thing called sin so what is sin well one
way to get at the essence of sin is
reversing the categories of Creator and
creat and creature so uh a Christian
world viw says basically there's a
Creator and so he calls the shots you
know he he made us and so he determines
how ought to live and happiness and
flourishing comes when you follow the
way he set things up to go and sin is
saying no we know better than the
Creator now if there is any way where
you see like that just playing out in
such a tangible destructive way uh any
area where you see that playing out it
would be I think in in this area and I
think the tendency to say no we want to
determine what sexuality is rather than
submit to to how the Creator designed it
I think it's actually a huge cause of
some of the issues we have with
depression and anxiety in our culture
and I think if we those of you who pray
with me for the rech christianization of
the West we have to recognize this is an
area where we're going to have to do a
lot of cultural rebuilding just like the
early church did in the in the Roman
Empire sexuality had been cheapened
pornography was everywhere there was
horrific
exploitation uh and Christianity changed
a lot of that for the good even though
it wasn't perfect we can learn a lot
from the early church because we've got
some rebuilding to do in our society in
this area as well so that's kind of the
broader cultural backdrop but on the
specific issue of making Alan female why
is this so problematic the concern here
is that masculinity and femininity have
a robust and particular and definite
meaning and you can't just swap them in
and out for for each other most cultures
throughout all of human history have had
more of a sense of that uh and it's
being increasingly forgotten in the
modern West and this isn't a all matter
so one simple way to point this out and
this will be a short video right on the
nose just to draw attention to this is
to just look at CS Lewis himself you
know let's honor like like Peter Jackson
said they wanted to honor tolken with
their creation I wish we would do that
with with Narnia movies by the standards
of today Lewis would be viewed as an
arch traditionalist on questions of
sexuality and gender and marriage even
of course as some people would view him
as a liberal for other things he
believed in uh I've talked about that
elsewhere but nonetheless you can read
his article priestesses in the church to
see some of his views on the meaning of
masculinity and femininity but I think
one clear way to put it and I want to
read you this amazing quote and it comes
from the ransom Trilogy and this is in
particular from paralandra the middle
book this is this Trilogy of adult
fiction that he wrote uh very different
from Narnia but one of the themes in
them is gender especially in the third
book That Hideous Strength I have an
article written about this where I talk
all about this it's online you can read
it if you want but I want to talk about
paralandra here here's this here's the
quote this is uh just hang with me and
read this quote for the last bit of this
video this it's the quote itself you
know that's the one thing that's hard
about quoting CS Lewis is there's almost
nothing to say because he's so clear
himself this is happening where the main
character named Ransom sees two uh
Angels basically one of them is the
angel of Mars the other is the angel of
Venus and he notices that one is
masculine and one is feminine now right
there the thought of a masculine Ang or
a feminine angel that already gets you
thinking that already makes you wonder
well what does that mean exactly you
know here's what he writes what Ransom
saw at that moment was the real meaning
of gender everyone must sometimes have
wondered why in nearly all tongues
certain inanimate objects are masculine
and others feminine what is masculine
about a mountain or feminine about
certain trees Ransom has cured me of
believing that this is a purely
morphological phenomenon depending on
the form of the word still less is
gender an imaginative extension of sex
our ancestors did not make mountains
masculine because they projected male
characteristics into them the real
process is the reverse gender is a
reality a more fundamental reality than
sex sex is in fact merely the organic
adaptation to organic life of a
fundamental polarity which divides all
created things female sex is simply one
of the things that have feminine gender
there are many others and masculine and
feminine meet us on planes of reality
where male and female would be simply
meaningless masculine is not attenuated
male nor feminine attenuated female on
the contrary the male and female of
organic creatures are rather faint and
blurred reflections of masculine and
feminine their reproductive functions
their differences in strength and size
partly exhibit but partly also confuse
and misrepresent the real polarity this
this is something that without
commenting on at Great length I would
just love to encourage people to think
about this is one of those things you
know reading the past even going back
now 75 years it's been 75 years since
the first Narnia book was published if
you can believe that 75 years but even
just going back you know to a couple
Generations ago to CS Lewis it it gives
us perspective on the current moment uh
so that we can understand a little bit
of just how eccentric some things are
going and Lewis's basic Point here is
that masculine and feminine are greater
categories that lie at the heart of
reality itself and their reflection in
biology is just one instantiation of
that deeper reality now for a fuller
picture of that read That Hideous
Strength where that's actually a motif
of the whole book people often accuse
Lewis of being a sexist for his views on
these things here's a funny anecdote
about that to finish off one of the
early reviewers of his book till we have
faces another one of my favorites of his
it's the red book right over there right
there if you can see that red book um
the reviewer didn't yet know who the
author was now this reviewer had
previously criticized CS Lewis of male
chauvinism and yet he didn't know that
Lewis wrote this book this book is
written from the point of view of a
woman and so the reviewer insisted the
author of this book must be a woman
because no male author could ever have
possibly understood the world from a
woman's point of view so well it's kind
of funny to think that uh if only he had
know and that was actually CS Lewis we
should have some humility in seeing what
we can learn from someone like CS Lewis
on these matters and pre-modern voices
as well we've got a lot of cultural
rebuilding to do uh one of the things
that we need is cultural humility the
insights of the modern West that can
feel so natural to us we have to have
some mechanism of getting perspective on
them and reading church history reading
other broader history even reading
people from 100 years ago even reading
people like C Le us from a few
Generations ago can give a lot of
perspective as we're doing the work of
cultural rebuilding I would say there
are two things we can say the first is
we need to tell people how much Jesus
loves them that he will forgive them
what for everything they've ever done
they need to feel the love of Christ
from us but secondly and with that we
need to teach them what it means to be a
human being and then if people come to
know Jesus what it means to be a
Christian and that means teaching in
this area about gender and sexuality and
we're going to have to have courage to
stand against the pressures um even as
we do so without anger and ranker but
nonetheless steadfastly stand against
the pressures and hold out a Christian
Vision which is what leads to
flourishing and joy forever more uh if
you're interested in a good study study
point a good starting point to study I
would say just start with Ephesians 5
and just give some consideration read
some church history voices on that text
and and give some consideration to why
it is that marriage portrays the gospel
the relationship between marriage
between one man and one woman and the
gospel the love of Jesus for his bride
study that that's a great starting point
all right one final thing this is kind
of selfish to mention but I have built
speaking of Narnia things and trying to
Steward it well I have built a card game
based upon the Narnia Universe I know
you thought I was a nerd
already now you see just how much of a
nerd I am uh it's a customizable card
game uh so they have these for like Star
Wars and Lord of the Rings and other
universes like like this I built one for
Narnia but I I've been sitting on it for
like 12 years I have no idea what to do
with it I does anybody out there know a
gaming company or what would be the next
point of contact for if I wanted to try
to share this with others I have no idea
what to do with it I built it and I
don't know what to do so I thought I
mentioned that leave me a a comment if
you have any suggestions on that and in
all these other things uh let's be
mindful of the world around us and not
angry not reactionary but nonetheless
Discerning and then we want to bring
Jesus and hope to people in the midst of
it thanks for watching everybody
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