Mere Atonement
C. S. Lewis & the Multiple Angles of Redemption
by Ariel James Vanderhorst
When The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe opened in theaters in December 2005, the feature-length film generated cries of wonder, huge box-office takes, skyrocketing Lewis book sales, and considerable gnashing of teeth. Posthumously, C. S. Lewis had gained thousands of new fans—but his critics were all the more vehement. Specifically, they faulted him for the “magical” Atonement represented so vividly in Lewis’s acclaimed children’s book—a gory death on a Narnian stone table—a depiction that some detractors found non-biblical. But while the anti-Lewis voices were insistent, they were generally drowned out by the movie magic.
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Ariel James Vanderhorst , having recently earned his M.Div., lives with his family—wife Lindsay and their two young sons—in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, where they are in the process of planting a gospel-centered, culturally targeted urban church. He also blogs about theology and culture at arieljvan.com.
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more on C. S. Lewis from the online archives
22.5—June 2009
C. S. Lewis on Civilization & the Natural Order by Timothy L. Hall
18.3—April 2005
on Being a Free Narnian & the Joy of Subordination by Donald T. Williams
more from the online archives
19.1—January/February 2006
on Death & Seven of the Last Words of Socrates by Graeme Hunter
22.3—April 2009
Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by J. Daryl Charles
26.1—Jan/Feb 2013
Manly Chastity, Hedonism & the Law of Non-contradiction by Anthony Esolen
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