The Last Battle

I just re-read the C.S. Lewis novel for my class.  I find the book difficult to read, in the sense that it is really painful to see the build-up to disaster when you know what is coming.  The schemes of the Ape and his manipulation of Puzzle, and all of Tirian's mistakes - they're just so horrible, and so heart-wrenching.

There are also several scenes I can't read without crying, such as the encounter between Emeth and Aslan. In some places, I think it is probably for largely the same reason that I often tear up when I read about people who have risked death for their faith.  It's so moving to see people who are so sure of what they believe that they are willing to stake everything on it, literally everything.  There are aspects of Lewis's theology that I want so very much to be true - and I just don't know for sure. I hope, but I do not know.  And I don't know that I would stand true in a pinch the way that Lewis's characters do; one never does know that sort of thing, unless one is put to the test (and one of course hopes to be spared that particular test).

Of course, in the era of suicide bombers, I immediately feel the need to clarify - risking death for your faith is entirely different from killing yourself and/or a bunch of other folks to somehow "please" God.  And actually, Lewis addresses this point at least obliquely in The Last Battle.  Aslan says:  "[I]f any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted."