Shadows of THE wardrobe

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – The tall wardrobe in the office of the Westmont College English department isn't much to look at, but visitors from near and far keep visiting to peek inside.

A previous owner described this piece of oak furniture as a "perfectly ordinary wardrobe," a big one of the "sort that has a looking glass in the door." It was big enough to hold "a second row of coats hanging up behind the first one," yet the threshold was low enough that a small child – perhaps a girl playing hide and seek – could step into it.

It helps to know that this previous owner was a scholar named C.S. Lewis and that he wrote this precise description of this wardrobe, or an imaginary armoire just like it, in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe." This was the first book published in his classic fantasy series "The Chronicles of Narnia."

Naturally, legions of Lewis lovers want to see and touch the wardrobe.

"Day after day you see people coming through to pay homage," said Paul J. Willis, whose office is next to this doorway into the land of Aslan, the Christ figure in Narnia. "There is that part of me that wants to say to each and every one of them, 'Hey! It's just a wardrobe!' ... Yet part of me also thinks that it's funny, and significant, that we are so serious about our literary relics. Why is that?"

There is no sign of declining interest in the life and work of Lewis and this is especially true of the Narnia novels, with more than 100 million copies sold over the past half a century. Meanwhile, the film version of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" grossed $745 million worldwide and the first sequel, "Prince Caspian," is slated for a May 2008 release.

Willis has a unique perspective on this phenomenon and not just because he teaches at Westmont, a liberal arts college on the coast north of Los Angeles. The professor and novelist is also a graduate of Wheaton College in Illinois, which includes the Wade Center, a famous center for Lewis studies. This collection includes his desk, 2,400 books from his personal library, 2,300 of his letters and an ornate, double-door oak wardrobe handmade by Lewis' grandfather in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Wheaton obtained this item in 1973 and researchers stress that, according to the famous author's older brother Warren, this spectacular wardrobe was in their family home during the years that shaped their imaginations and childhood games.

Willis remembers the emotions stirred by the arrival of this wardrobe on campus. Some people seemed to think it was an object worthy of worship, because of its connection to the "unofficial patron saint of Wheaton College." Willis even wrote an editorial in the student newspaper, jokingly suggesting that administrators could cut slivers out of the back and sell them as relics.

It's crucial to remember that the Narnia wardrobe is the "threshold to fantasy," wrote Willis, in a 2005 book of essays entitled "Bright Shoots of Everlastingness." For many readers devoted to the novels, this physical wardrobe had become "a sacrament of the literary imagination. It was the closest thing we had to Narnia."

And then there were two, when Westmont obtained its wardrobe in 1975.

This was the last piece of furniture left in The Kilns, the house near Oxford in which the Lewis brothers lived while the Oxford don wrote his Narnia novels and many other books. This wardrobe was about to be destroyed because it was too big to be removed through a narrow doorway created by renovations Lewis had made to his bedroom.

Thus, Wheaton has a beautiful wardrobe linked to the childhood of Lewis, the time when he began telling his first tales about magic lands full of talking animals.

Westmont, meanwhile, has a Lewis wardrobe that fits the description of the one that the adult writer inserted into his most famous fantasy. It is an ordinary, everyday wardrobe like thousands of others in homes throughout England.

"Lewis, of course, would say that neither of these wardrobes are the real thing," said Willis. "They are merely copies. They are what Lewis would call shadows of the wardrobe. What really matters is the wardrobe in the story, because that is the doorway into the land beyond our own – the true land of Aslan."

Opus Dei presses on after Da Vinci

NEW YORK – At the height of Da Vinci Code mania there was sign at the door of the Murray Hill Conference Center asking visitors if they wanted to learn the truth about the "real Opus Dei."

Visitors received a cheery information pamphlet. Staffers also had answers ready for those asking edgier questions that usually sounded something like this: "Is this the world headquarters of Opus Dei, the place where that albino monk Silas lived who murdered all those people in Dan Brown's book?"

Actually, visitors were told, Opus Dei has no monks and its world headquarters is in Rome. The only local member named Silas is a Nigerian-born stockbroker who lives in Brooklyn – with his wife.

The siege did include moments of humor, said spokesman Brian Finnerty. One visitor pointed at the 17-story Manhattan tower and asked, "Is it true you have a torture chamber up there?" The doorman quipped, "You don't know nothing. The torture chamber's in the basement."

Life goes on at the corner of Lexington Avenue and 34th Street. But for Opus Dei loyalists, life after "The Da Vinci Code" will never be the same and that is probably a good thing, said Monsignor Thomas Bohlin, the group's leader in America.

It's crucial, he said, that Opus Dei members were able to do dozens of media interviews during the uproar surrounding the book and the movie, he said. This gave Opus Dei a chance to open up and respond to its many critics.

"There are people who still say that we are like a fundamentalist sect," said Bohlin. "For some people we're the Masons, we're crypto-Fascists, we're who knows what. ... We know that it's going to take time for people to figure out who we are and what we are and what we can become here in America."

The story of Opus Dei ("Work of God") began in 1928, when a Spanish priest named Josemar

Lutherans in non-Roman Lent

Eric Phillips really likes soup at lunch.

One of his favorites is baked-potato soup, a filling option that, at first glance, appears to be meat-free. That's important because Phillips isn't eating meat during the 40 days of Lent preceding Easter. Alas, baked-potato soup almost always contains chicken fat, as do many vegetable or pasta soups.

"I gave up meat for Lent last year, which was a pain in the neck," said Phillips, who has a Catholic University of America doctorate in Patristics, the study of the early Church Fathers' writings.

"I decided that I didn't want to go through all of that this year, but then I realized this was actually a pretty good reason to try to do it again. ... The whole reason we fast is to do something that gets our attention, something that reminds us that we're sinners in need of redemption."

While all this Lent talk may sound Catholic, Phillips is a convert into the conservative Missouri-Synod Lutheran Church. He grew up "low church" evangelical and is still adapting to a denomination that includes both modern multimedia megachurches and congregations that embrace old hymns, "high church" liturgy and some ancient traditions.

Phillips attends Immanuel Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Alexandria, Va., a small church near Washington, D.C., that includes many who are striving to embrace fasting, almsgiving, Vespers services and other Lenten disciplines. Some are avoiding meat, while others are surrendering one cherished pleasure – such as desserts, soft drinks, pizza or candy. Phillips said a friend is "trying to give up sarcasm for Lent."

But Lutherans are Lutherans and these believers are not following a specific set of Lenten rules. They are not Roman Catholics or Orthodox Christians who, to one degree or another, follow ancient traditions that ask them to fast from meat or even from meat and all dairy products.

For traditional Lutherans the words of Augsburg Confession, article XXVI, are clear: "In former times men taught, preached, and wrote that distinctions among foods and similar traditions which had been instituted by men serve to earn grace and make satisfaction for sin. For this reason new fasts, new ceremonies, new orders, and the like were invented daily, and were ardently and urgently promoted, as if these were a necessary service of God by means of which grace would be earned if they were observed and a great sin committed if they were omitted."

The writings of Martin Luther make it clear that he was rebelling against practices common in the medieval Catholic churches and monasteries of his day, said Immanuel Pastor C.S. Esget.

Thus, it's easy to conclude that Luther rejected fasting and similar disciplines altogether, when what he rejected were mandatory rules. Instead, the Protestant reformer embraced voluntary fasting and almsgiving and argued that these disciplines were like weight lifting and running – part of a spiritual exercise regime.

"The key is that anything that smacks of legalism will raise all kinds of red flags for Lutherans," stressed Esget, who has promoted Lenten disciplines in his own kitchen as well as his pulpit. "We want to be able to say that fasting, for example, is a good thing. But the minute it becomes a requirement, then there's going to be trouble."

For centuries, Lutherans in Europe chose to follow many fasting traditions found in Catholicism and other Western churches, such as the Church of England. But this gradually evolved into a minimalist tradition that Esget said he has never been able to find in Luther or any other church traditions – the popular modern practice of giving up "one thing" during Lent.

"What has happened over the centuries is that many Lutherans – especially after the move to America – have tried to blend in with all of the Protestants that surround us in this culture," he said. "So most of our traditions have faded over time into a kind of vague idea that it's Lent, but we're not really sure what that is supposed to mean."

The pastor paused, struggling to define the safe middle ground between laziness and legalism, between apathy and dead ritualism.

"I wouldn't want to see my people doing all of these things during Lent just because I laid down the law," said Esget. "Yet, I have to admit that really wish they would do them. Does that make sense?"

Sinners on the counterattack

The panic may strike in the shelter of a Starbucks, when a customer realizes that a quote from evangelical superstar Rick "The Purpose Driven Life" Warren is printed on some of coffee cups.

This would cause any latte-sipping liberal to mutter "Oh my goddess" and worry about legions of Focus on the Family donors invading Wiccan book clubs in Unitarian sanctuaries from sea to shining sea.

Does thinking about this give you sweaty palms? If so, writer Robert Lanham of New York City believes you may be suffering from "Evangophobia."

"It's a healthy fear. ... The evangelical right isn't the new counterculture. It's the new mainstream culture," notes Lanham, in his book "The Sinner's Guide to the Evangelical Right."

"Worst of all, many evangelicals aren't content watching The 700 Club and attending laser-light projections of the crucifixion at the local megachurch. They want to transform the culture you consume to fit their standards. ... And compounded by the fact that evangelicals often share similar goals with conservative Jews, Catholics and Bill O'Reilly, we may soon witness a ratings' sweeps plotline where Will marries Grace after attending a gay deprogramming class."

Lanham realizes that evangelical politicos haven't won many national victories on the hot-button issues that worry him the most – gay rights and abortion. Nevertheless, he is convinced that alliances between conservative believers and secular conservatives have resulted in "trickle down" policies on taxes, health care, environmental laws and strategies in the Middle East.

"Fundamentalists of every kind," he said, "keep clinging to beliefs that can be very destructive. They are advocating religious teachings that divide people, rather than bind them together. ... They are always on the attack and if we don't buckle down, the next thing you know, they will be running the country – again."

It helps to understand that Lanham grew up in a non-dancing Southern Baptist home in Richmond, Va. Things got even worse, he said, when he was a teen-ager and his parents joined the kind of Pentecostal flock that "used live camels in the Easter pageant."

Virginia Commonwealth University beckoned, where Lanham majored in English and religion and soon discovered that his activities on Fridays and Saturdays were trumping beliefs he had been taught on Sundays. Before long he was writing "The Hipster Handbook" and his fiction trilogy "Pre-Coitus," "Coitus" and "Aftermath."

The new book on evangelicals contains more of what Publisher's Weekly called his unique brand of "caricature assassination." Thus, there are angry mini-profiles of alpha males like Dr. James Dobson ("The Evangelical Pope"), Tim LaHaye ("The Evangelical Stephen King") and the young Joel Osteen ("The Evangelical P. Diddy"). Along the way, he mocks the doctrine of the Trinity, rips into the Gospel of John and, with a note of sadness, confesses that liberal mainline churches have become fading enclaves for

"old people and pansies" who use hymnals.

Lanham stressed that he really doesn't hate evangelicals, conservative Catholics, Orthodox Jews and other traditionalists. He does, however, believe that most evangelicals are guilty of "dumbing down the faith" and consuming shoddy Christian consumer goods that deserve ridicule. Thus, his list of modern evangelical commandments includes statements such as:

* "Thou shalt live in the suburbs, eat at the Olive Garden and wear clothes made from polyblend fabrics."

* "Thou shalt become aware of pop culture trends eight years after the fact and co-opt these trends for Christian culture."

* "Thou shalt own a support the troops car magnet, a fish bumper sticker and/or an embroidered flag sweater."

* "Thou shalt not speak ill of they neighbor, unless thy neighbor is gay. Then it's okay."

The key, said Lanham, is that he – along with many others on the religious left – cannot accept the ancient belief that the Christian Gospel is the unique pathway to salvation. This is the kind of doctrine

that he believes creates fear and division.

Also, in the wake of the Sexual Revolution, there is one issue that towers over all others today.

"It does seem that the evangelical right has set out to repeal the values of the Woodstock generation," he said. "The key issue is gay rights. I decided that I couldn't stand back and let the James Dobsons of this world continue to attack gay people. That's the issue that has made people like me want to take the gloves off and fight back."