Freeform Friday 20 - Preaching Lions

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader releases to movie theaters today as Hollywood continues to cash in on the popularity of fantasy epics created by The Lord of the Rings. I haven’t seen the movie yet but I probably will. I most recently read The Voyage of the Dawn Treader on our honeymoon and it was one of my favorite books when I was younger. I replicated and enlarged the cover of the book onto a sandwich board to wear in our school’s book parade. I felt pretty classy having a classic on my board while all my classmates had those flash-in-the-pan Goosebumps books on theirs.

I remember reading a review for the last Narnia movie, Prince Caspian; it said that the movie was all right but that it was a little too “preachy” at certain points. I assume the reviewer meant that the parts about Lucy needing to believe in Aslan even when no one else would were too preachy. It makes sense, though, that a movie heavily marketed to Christians would be a little preachy; Christians like preachy.

Most every week Christians go to church, gather together, sing some songs and listen to a preacher. Christians get preached at all the time.

I go to church and listen to the sermon every week.

I listen to myself give a talk every Tuesday night.

I got to conferences and listen to people give messages.

Sometimes I even download sermons and listen to them throughout my day.

Christians like being preached to, even if it’s coming from an anthropomorphized lion who is analogous to God. I don’t know if The Voyage of the Dawn Treader will be any good, but I am sure that it will have some preachiness to it; and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Maybe someone will see The Voyage of the Dawn Treader just to be entertained, end up being intrigued by the story of a lion who can renew and recreate, and then perhaps that intrigue will push them to want to hear some more preaching in a church on Sunday.