Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Spiritual Themes of The Silver Chair

I'm really surprised I never posted this here yet. I should have ages ago.
Some time ago, a younger member of The Lion's Call (for those who don't know what that is, it is a Narnia fan site, more book based, and I am a staff member there) put out the question of what is the Christian spiritual theme of The Silver Chair (book 4 or 6 of The Chronicles of  Narnia). As SC is my favorite of the CoN, and I had in recent years started looking into the themes, myself, I posted the following list in answer. I thought some of you might like to read this, and I would love you hear any comments or any other themes you all may like to add! And, maybe encourage you to find the various themes of the other books as well? ;-)




Christian Themes of The Silver Chair

When you think about it, it's about redemption and the Christian life in general:


  • How the children were calling to Aslan because he was calling to them (we reach out to Christ because He reaches out to us) 
  • The scene at the river being Aslan offers relief to our thirst (Jesus offers us Living Water, also see the story of the woman at the well) 
  • That there is no other stream (Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, there is no other way to the Father) 
  • To lay down selfish pride to live a life of righteousness (Jill apologizing to Aslan for showing off) 
  • To live in the Word (learning and memorizing the signs) 
  • To follow that which God has called us to do (the quest to find Rilian) 
  • To not fall into temptation 
  • To be aware that Satan will try to deceive us (the LotGK) 
  • That grace is offered to us when we fall, and that, as long as we get back up from our fall, we can still accomplish God's plan for our life 
  • To live as like a Christian no matter what the world says (Puddleglum's speech) 
  • That when we walk in the Word out of God's super-abounding grace there is freedom from bondage for us and those we minister to, and that we have power to break any attack of the enemy (breaking Rilian's bonds, destroying the chair, snapping out of the LotGK's spells) 
  • That Christ's blood has defeated death to bring us life eternal in Heaven (Aslan's thorn pierced paw, spilling the blood into the river to bring Caspian to life in Aslan's Country).


Anywho...those are most of the one's I've found...there could still be more.



4 comments:

Ajnos Gamgee said...

We had fun looking at The Silver Chair during the Summer Challenge in July. My posts weren't all that spiritual but some people came up with a lot of good points. (And now I can't go and read up and remind myself of them with the forum down :( ). One thing that struck me (and I did write on) was at the beginning when Aslan is teaching Jill the signs: he tells her that they will be harder to remember as the "air thickens" and that he will not speak to her in Narnia as clearly as he did on the mountain top. It made me think about how we go through times when we can "hear the voice of God" clearly and are sure of our calling ("mountain top experiences"). But often through life, things get in the way and it's harder to be sure of what we knew was true. (This is played out most clearly in LotGK's enchantment scene when she (almost) convinces the heroes that Narnia and Aslan and the sun aren't real). I think it's a good lesson and an encouragement to us. We mustn't become discouraged that we go through "foggy" times - they are normal. But if we take time to continually remind ourselves of God's word and his promises (through reading the bible, prayer etc.) we are less likely to mess up during the foggy periods.

Kendra E. Ardnek said...

Those are all really good points! Another thing that I noticed is that, even though Jill and Eustace (sp?) completely make a mess out of things, Aslan's will still prevails.

BTW, I don't know if you do these or not, but I've awarded you over at my blog: http://knittedbygodsplan.blogspot.com/2012/09/i-have-been-awarded.html

Rhoswen Faerie Wrose said...

Those are both excellent points!
Thank you, Ajjie and Kendra, for bringing them up! :-)

And, yes, Kendra, I do those kind of things, sometimes. ;-)

Unknown said...

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