Mark: Agree wholeheartedly with your comments. Don't forget those who pushed the totally unscriptual and perhaps blasphemous "Jesus" film and now Nadia belong to a religious movement not to Christianity.
These same people probably see Christ as a long haired effeminate wispy bearded twit when He was/is the very Son of the Almighty God.
So He is depicted as a Lamb, this same Lamb is going to put down all rebellion and rule with a rod of iron.
It is a crying shame what those who claim to be His are doing to Him.
numbat

Thanks Mark,

A nice twist from the Lion to the Lamb…

It is a pity how the world today has no inclination to discover who Jesus is. They use His name in vain but have not a clue what or who He represents. Nothing less than God, one with God, deserving our worship and all the glory.

I was reflecting over the weekend on how our non-Christian friends must feel and live outside Jesus’ family; putting myself in their moccasins for a minute… one long minute… I was horrified.

Having no assurance of salvation and no real hope is terrifying stuff.

An eternity away from God? it's hell - even without the fire.

I wept.

I thank God for what He has done for me. He died for “me", He took away my sin for ever, He died "my" death, He offered Himself as a living sacrifice for "me" - all for "me" an undeserving person and all I had to do is say thank you Lord… I was blind and now I see … for now on I live my life under your Lordship and not for my selfishness.

No wonder the Gospel is called the “good news”

I couldn't agree more, Mark. I like the Narnia stories, but they are not the gospel. CS Lewis was writing fiction and exploring ideas about God and about redemption, and that it what the reader will find in Narnia: not the Jesus of the Bible.

As you say, Jesus does not 'win' by violence, as Aslan does. Jesus' presence is not so capricious as that of Aslan, Jesus is not a supporter of empire, as Aslan ends up being.

And we should be reminding fellow-believers not to read the wrong gospel, as you have done.

I didn't intend the ambiguity 'as you have done'! It gives my comment an unintended nasty twist. Please read it as, "remind our fellow-believers to read the right gospel, as you have reminded them." (Oh the power of English!)

I haven't seen the Narnia movie myself ,and as a practising Christian,I decided not to go to it. My Christian wife and son,& grandaughter loved it believe that it is a type of Christian story.

I read a review,of it by C S Lewis's step son in the West Australian newspaper,and he says that it is NOT a Christian story, even though he is a Christian himself.
Churches are raving about it ,and it is wrong, as Christ didn't use violence to win He went as a lamb.

As well,The Passion was a good movie with lots of blood ,etc ,was a bit off,although it was a box office winner,it did not change Americans as far as church going or decisions for Christ.

coach, any thoughts on the content of Mark's article?
I liked it but suspect the message it tells would be quite unwelcome (if understood) in much of the contemporary church.

Mark talks about a much better Jesus than the modern church generally talks about, if I heard about his Jesus and did not know about that Jesus aceptance of his fathers violent past and the poor job that Jesus does running his church I could almost like him.

My experience moving from a belief in Jesus, his dad, the spook etc to a belief that they do not exist as taught by the christain church has been one of relief. Coming to grips with my mortality was not fun, my life will come to an end one day and that is something that I'm not thrilled about. Moving on from a belief in a god who sets the rules and stacks the deck against the other players was good (for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God etc).

Moving on from following a head who cannot or will not manage his own church was good - if an all knowing all powerfull being is unable to stop those employed in his name from abusing large numbers of children over a sustained period or to help large numbers of his preachers from giving the church office secretary some extra duties (or any one of a host of other issues) then I didn't want him deciding how my life should be lived.

If my chances of being one of the saved were largely a product of being born in a culture where belief in that particular God was widespread while people raised in a culture which believed in a different God (or lack thereof) stood almost no chance then I was happy to leave that false "salvation" behind.

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R0bert