Sunday, January 13, 2008

Disappointed

I don't have any friends from work. I'm in a weird position in that almost everyone I work with is either my subordinate or my boss, and socializing outside of the office is potentially fraught with drama and political ramifications.

However, there is one woman who is my peer and totally outside my department. She's really interesting and funny, and I was thinking about inviting her out with my other friends. That is until she told me she refused to watch The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe because it might give her "Christless" thoughts. Sigh.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Duckling,

Maybe we can go to lunch during the work day sometime -- since I'm right downtown, despite my unpredictable schedule. Maybe it would be a little like old times.

As for the churchy co-worker, maybe she's worth another chance - we have a churchy gal like that at my work, she even leaves early on Fridays for the Sabbath - the bitch (nope she's not Jewish - some obscure Christian thing)). However - she's all about talking telling it like it is in terms of our work environment - so although you may not be able to bash the patriarchy with your coworker maybe you two could talk trash about your bosses ... maybe?

Best of luck,

Anonymous said...

Sorry,

I realized my comment had almost nothing to do with your post...argh!

UnrulyDuckling said...

Hi Cate,

I would love to meet for lunch. Maybe next week, though, because this week is pretty hellacious.

And about my churchy co-worker, I really like her and enjoy talking to her at work, but if The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is too hardcore for her, there's no way I'm letting her within 100 yards of my social life or my heathen friends. (Even you, Greeneagles.)

greeneagles said...

I'm really just curious if she knows who wrote The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Or, does she know that it is an ala for the life of Christ. Since Christ himself was fond of parables and stories in his efforts to bring forth his message of salvation, I'm am most certain that he would be fine with both the book and the movie.

As for not wanting to bring her around me, your point is well taken. I'm never afraid to mix it up and play the devil's advocate. But, it could make for an interesting evening or discomfortable dinner with bouts of amazed silence. I vote that you bring her out.

(For Cate Monster: I'm willing to bet that your churchy gal is a Seventh-day Adventist member. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventh-day_Adventist_Church)

UnrulyDuckling said...

I was wondering where she got the idea that The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was bad for her spiritual health, and I found this newsletter.

According to this guy, "The writings of C.S. Lewis are so clearly antichrist that only spiritual blindness could prevent one from seeing it."

And here's the tract he mentions. I didn't have the patience to read the whole thing.

I only mentioned you, Greeneagles, because you're the farthest thing from a heathen friend I've got.

greeneagles said...

Oh, but you should have read it all. After you have finished with that one, I would encourage you to follow up with the Truth About Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ and A Former Witch Looks at The Lord of the Rings. There is some pretty interesting conjecture in all of these pieces. The devil might be in the details, but only if you make him reside there.

I appreciate the desire not to see God's Word profaned; however, I think that some people out there would choose to instantly deny a good work with Christian merit if it does anything to tell a story that is not directly in the Bible. I can understand that this might be easier for people. Nevertheless, Christians are called to be the salt of the earth and, as such, be actively engaged in the world around us.

I feel that neither J.R.R. Tolkien nor C.S. Lewis stepped over the line by becoming of the world. Each work can stand as a parallel to Christ without being a direct retelling. Furthermore, I would argue that these books can be a fantastic entry point to share a personal belief in Christ with another because they offer a wonderful example and are often less intimidating than a book that might wrongly be seen by non-Christians as the book of condemnation rather than the book of salvation.

Lastly, this site had a great chain of responses to this question: http://www.narniafans.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-3530.html.
I think that the use of allegory in my earlier post should be amended to parallel as pointed out in one of the responses.

Thanks for the follow-up post with the information. While I had heard rumblings of this before, the internet always gives everything new life.

P.S. The tract about LOTR offers a wonderful tidbit of information about our current President.

greeneagles said...

For some reason, Blogger hates me. Here is the link that I was attempting to post earlier:

http://www.narniafans.com/forum/
archive/index.php/t-3530.html