Polly Toynbee, the Guardian columnist, hates Narnia. Philip Pullman, Whitbread prize-winner and author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, hates Narnia, too, writes Breda O'Brien
He believes CS Lewis's books are "propaganda in the service of a life-hating ideology". Toynbee approves fully of Pullman, and his "marvellously secular" trilogy. Oh, and Pullman hates Tolkien's writings, too.
Here's some background, or if you prefer, a plot-spoiler. Belfast-born Lewis was a steadfast atheist. In part due to his friend Tolkien's influence, he became a Christian.
After conversion, Lewis wrote immensely popular theological works, followed by children's books, including the Chronicles of Narnia. The best known, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, concerns the adventures of four evacuees from wartime London, the Pevensie children.
Lucy, the youngest, discovers that the back of a wardrobe allows her to enter the frozen world of Narnia, where for a century, the vicious White Witch has ensured that it is "always Winter, and never Christmas".
One of her brothers, Edmund, a nasty, selfish piece of work, is willing to betray his siblings to the White Witch, partly to indulge his greed for Turkish Delight. The other Pevensies become aware that a great and noble lion, Aslan, "is on the move" to liberate Narnia. Edmund is freed from the clutches of the White Witch, but she triumphantly reminds Aslan that, under the law, Edmund must be returned to her to die. Aslan volunteers to be executed in Edmund's place and for a while, everything looks utterly bleak.
To Toynbee, this is utterly repulsive: "Of all the elements of Christianity, the most repugnant is the notion of the Christ who took our sins upon himself and sacrificed his body in agony to save our souls. Did we ask him to? Poor child Edmund, to blame for everything, must bear the full weight of a guilt only Christians know how to inflict, with a twisted knife to the heart." Worse still, in Toynbee's view, Aslan returns from the dead. How are we supposed to explain that senseless occurrence to children, Toynbee rages.
Perhaps Toynbee needs to read the books again. In Christian belief, Christ may have died for the sins of humanity. Aslan, the lion, does not die for Edmund's sins. He dies to save the boy's life. He allows himself to be taken, shaved of his magnificent mane, tied up and stabbed. Presumably she would have preferred if Edmund had been stabbed instead? She even manages to link the Anglican Lewis to Jeb Bush, just in case any right-thinking reader has not realised how dodgy and dangerous Narnia is.
Jeb Bush timed a literacy scheme which features The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to coincide with the release of the movie. The backer of the film, Philip Anschutz, is a major Republican donor.
Apparently, trying to encourage children to read by promoting a book that has sold 85 million copies since the 1940s can only be understood as a Republican conspiracy. Lest we still do not get the message, Toynbee continues: "Why? Because here in Narnia is the perfect Republican, muscular Christianity for America - that warped, distorted neo-fascist strain that thinks might is proof of right."
Now, I can understand Toynbee's concern that an epic battle is a central part of the film, and I can understand why she is not crazy about something of which Jeb Bush approves.
But characterising Lewis as an "Armalite in one hand and a bible in the other" Christian is just wrong. She may hate that Aslan dies for someone, but it is hardly "muscular Christianity". In fact, it is as if George Bush presented himself to Osama bin Laden to be decapitated, in exchange for protecting the world from further acts of terrorism.
The author that Toynbee so admires, Philip Pullman, has been open about wishing to cause children to question everything about religion, with the aim of undermining their faith. He considers Narnia to be "one of the most ugly, poisonous things I have ever read".
Having read Milton's Paradise Lost at an impressionable age, he decided that the rebel angels were in fact the goodies, and that anyone who wished to keep humans from knowledge of good and evil must be the baddie. Far from the fall of humans being a moral tragedy, for Pullman it represents human emancipation. He creates an elaborate mythology in his trilogy.
The first conscious being to come into existence deliberately cons those who follow into believing that he is their creator. This con is perpetuated by a savagely inquisitional church. The books end with the institution of a celestial but atheistic "republic of heaven".
Pullman is a talented writer, but it is rather rich of him to condemn "religious propaganda". If Toynbee is worried about agenda-ridden writing, why not include the "marvellously secular"? Or is it only Christianity that can be singled out for a good shin-kicking?
There are all sorts of books and programmes aimed at children that draw on other religious motifs. Maybe I missed it, but I don't recall her writing a ringing condemnation of say, Yu-gi-oh, where the protagonist fuses with the spirit of an ancient pharaoh, and where Egyptian gods play a central role.
Condemning that kind of material, or spotting Wiccan references in Harry Potter, is usually the territory of the fundamentalist American Christians she most despises.
Toynbee is in danger of joining the growing ranks of secular fundamentalists, ferreting out and condemning anything that promotes Christianity. In so doing, she aligns herself with the merely daft, such as Lambeth Council in South London, which had initially renamed its Christmas lights "winter" and "celebrity" lights.
Children do not love Aslan and the world of Narnia because it is a Christian allegory. Indeed, given the pitiful state of knowledge of the roots of their own culture, many may not even recognise the Christian story.
Despite being childless, Lewis knew what enchanted a child's heart. In Aslan, he manages a difficult, almost impossible feat.
He makes goodness both authoritative and attractive. Polly may fume, and Philip may plot, but generations to come will continue to read Lewis, not least because of the skilful film adaptation. Finally, with tongue only slightly in cheek, may I wish readers a holy and blessed Christmas.