Welcome to week one of the Religion + Fiction Book Club! We’re exploring chapters 1–4 this week in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I won’t rehash here what I’ve explored in the video above, but here is a bit about what we’ll cover, and some questions to consider for the book club:

A Book for Kiddos and Kiddos-at-Heart

It’s fitting that we’re doing this club with Lewis’s book because it’s the 70th anniversary of the beloved story. I first discovered the book and series in 4th grade.

What’s your relationship with this series? When and how did you discover it?

I shared that I think I most relate to Edmund—what about you? Who do you most identify with in the story?

“Once there were four Children…”

It’s no small surprise that the main protagonists and heroes in the story are children. In fact, the youngest, Lucy, is the one who discovers the adjacent world.

Why do you suppose that is, that children are at the center of this Good v. Evil fantasy—as well as other beloved ones, like the Harry Potter series?

I make the point I can’t help but recall Jesus’ teachings on the value of children in the Gospel of Luke. How might Lucy reception of Narnia inform how we ourselves should receive the “adjacent world” in our own—what the Gospels call the Kingdom of Heaven?

Into the Wardrobe we go

First that there is a whole world adjacent to our own, which taps into our own longing for a reality beyond our own—doesn’t it?

In what way does this adjacent world speak to our own longings for a world beyond our own?

“Always winter and never Christmas…”

This refrain is echoed throughout these first chapters from various characters and anchors the story in important wasy.

What do you suppose this means? What does it mean to you—how have you yourself experienced the truth of this revelation?

Daughters of Eve, Sons of Adam

One of the last things Lucy discovers in this chapter, as well as Edmund and the other children, is their idenity—who they are seems to be bigger and grander and more spectacular than they had imagined.

In what way is this true of ourselve? What does the biblical storyline teach us about our own identities?

Would love to hear your perspective on these questions and anything else in the first virtual lesson.

Use the comment field down below to respond to the questions and my session, and feel free to add anything else I missed.

Next week, we will dive into 5–7. Hope to see you again next week, and feel free to pass this along to anyone else you know.

Grace and peace,