The Lion, the Witch and the Fans

Mrs. Dilber is not one of Charles Dickens' most famous characters.

Still, Ebenezer Scrooge's spunky housekeeper became a favorite of director Paul McCusker and his Radio Theatre (www.RadioTheatre.org) team during its production of "A Christmas Carol." As a tribute, characters named Dilber were written into the Father Gilbert Mysteries and "The Legend of Squanto," while a "Dilberius" appeared in a biblical series.

McCusker also decided to continue this inside joke in his first radio script for "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," turning a housekeeper named "Mrs. Macready" into yet another "Mrs. Dilber." Douglas Gresham, the stepson of author C.S. Lewis, jumped on this tiny change as soon as he saw the script.

"His logic was simple," recalled McCusker, laughing. "He said that the diehard fans will know that it's supposed to be Mrs. Macready because millions of them know these books cover to cover. Diehard fans will know we changed it and, for them, that will affect everything. Then they'll start calling and writing, wanting us to change the name back to Mrs. Macready. Why go through that?"

It was nearly a decade ago that McCusker began dramatizing "The Chronicles of Narnia," the Oxford don's fantasy series that has sold nearly 100 million copies in the past 55 years. Thus, McCusker has already worked his way through some of the creative and even theological issues faced by movie director Andrew "Shrek" Adamson and the rest of the team that has turned "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" into a $150 million epic for Walden Media and Walt Disney Studios. Adamson has also worked closely with Gresham, whose mother, American poet Joy Gresham, married Lewis late in life.

Legions of Lewis fans must realize, said McCusker, that turning books into movies requires changes. Today's digital artists can show in mere seconds what, in print, required many paragraphs to explain. Meanwhile, dramatic scenes that Lewis quickly sketched – such as massive battles involving talking beasts and magical creatures – will be expanded because this is what modern audiences want to see fleshed out on screen.

"You have to make choices, but you have to make careful choices. If you take a major scene out, or you make a big change in the plot of a book that is this beloved, you are going to hear about it. Just ask Peter Jackson," said McCusker, referring to the director of "The Lord of the Rings" movies.

Gresham, 60, is serving as co-producer of the Narnia project. He stressed that he has, "for 30-odd years," dedicated himself to finding artists and entrepreneurs who share his commitment to faithfully capturing the themes in his stepfather's books.

"It is my ambition to live long enough to see all seven Narnian Chronicles made into feature films," he said, during a recent visit to Washington, D.C.

Because of recent leaps in technology, insiders realized that "now is the time to make this movie," said Gresham. "If you can imagine it today, then we can film it. ... But I don't want people coming out of 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' saying, 'Wow, what tremendous special effects.' I want people to look at each other, slightly bemused, and say, 'Where did they find a real centaur to play that role?' "

But Gresham knows that many viewers will dissect the movie's theology, even more than its production values. They will be especially tense when the Christ figure in Narnia, the lion Aslan, offers himself as a sacrifice.

In a lengthy speech after his resurrection, Aslan explains that the evil White Witch "knew the Deep Magic. But if she could have looked a little further back ... she would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards."

This is, as Time magazine noted, "Christianity in a kid-lit veil."

"They can change a speech like that a little. They may need to shorten it," stressed McCusker. "If they stay true to the spirit of what was written, people will understand what is happening. ... Lewis has woven the Christian symbolism so tightly into the story that you can't cut it out without changing the story itself. The people who love this book are simply not going to let that happen."

That Salvation Army brand

'Tis the season for Salvation Army bells, which means that Major George Hood's telephone has started ringing and it isn't going to stop until Christmas.

People want to know how many dollars are coming in and where they are going and why. Hood is the man with the numbers, since he is the Salvation Army's community relations officer. In the past year, about 3.5 million Army volunteers and about 70,000 employees have helped more than 34 million needy people.

"If you look at those numbers, we're in good shape and it certainly seems like we're going to keep getting stronger," said Hood, hours before being buried in kick-off events for the 2005 red-kettle campaign. "We're thankful for that."

But there is another side of the equation, admitted Hood. As a charity, the Salvation Army is rolling with the punches – political, cultural and, in recent years, meteorological. But as a church, and as an evangelistic movement, the recent numbers are sobering.

The Army has about 3,500 ordained officers and 113,000 soldiers who have signed the statement of faith called "A Soldier's Covenant," with roughly 35,000 of those being "junior soldiers" under the age of 14.

On a typical Sunday, about 130,000 people attend services in 1316 corps community centers. Three decades ago the Army's four seminaries were full. Today, there are active attempts to find more adults who are willing to serve and the average age of officers – old and new – is rising.

"Those numbers have been flat for a number of years and, frankly, that has people talking about our future," said Hood. "Of course, it's still a mystery to a lot of people that we are a church, so we have to keep reminding people of that. People say, 'I had no idea that you're a church, too.' ...

"Are we a church or are we a charity? People have been asking that for ages. The answer, of course, is that we're both."

Meanwhile, the Salvation Army's status as a church has been linked to some nasty headlines in recent years. According to the conservative National Clergy Council, a boycott of the red kettles by gay-rights groups may have contributed to the decision by Target executives to enforce their ban on solicitations outside their stores. Army leaders have insisted that, as a church, they have a right to let their traditional Christian doctrines on sex and marriage shape some employee policies and benefits.

Of course, it's also newsworthy that those bell-ringing volunteers keep greeting shoppers with the controversial words, "Merry Christmas!"

This year, stressed Hood, the Salvation Army has worked out a compromise with Target in which online customers can make some holiday purchases for the needy. However, a few conservative religious groups are targeting Target by reminding their members that the red kettles are alive and well at many other stores.

Hood confirmed that the two-year controversy has not hurt donations. The kettles took in $93 million in 2003, including $9 million at Target stores. After the 2004 Target ban, the kettles took in $103 million, including $17 million at Wal-Mart and Sam's Club locations.

It does appear, said Hood, that the Salvation Army is maintaining its niche in the American imagination. The public has responded well to its pledge to keep "doing the most good to the most people in the most need." The question is whether people understand why the Salvation Army is doing the work that it does. After all, the word "salvation" is still in the brand name.

Army officers are trying new things. Some are working with Harley-Davidson motorcycle clubs to reach out to bikers. Some corps centers are starting "church on wheels" programs with buses that take worship services directly to needy neighborhoods. Others are trying to make Sunday services "more charismatic and more contemporary."

Can the Salvation Army replace brass bands with rock bands?

"People admire what we do, but they would prefer to worship at a Baptist church or a Presbyterian church or that megachurch that's in their neighborhood," said Hood. "They'll donate money to us and volunteer to help, but they don't want to worship with us on Sunday mornings. ...

"We still have people who think that all of our soldiers are off living in a barracks somewhere. People don't understand who we are."

Division by Communion

One of the symbolic moments in the life of a priest is when he stands at the altar beside his bishop, or even his nation's highest bishop, and celebrates a Mass.

But Father Robert Sanders of Jacksonville recently made a tough decision. He decided that if U.S. Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold came to his parish, he wouldn't allow him to receive Holy Communion, let alone preside at the altar. This decision led logically to another. Sanders decided that he would need to break communion with Bishop John Howard of the Diocese of Florida, because he is in communion with Griswold.

"I didn't make this decision because I was angry," said Sanders. "I chose to break communion because many of our bishops are no longer teaching the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith. ... It took me a long time to be convinced that our situation is as serious as it is. I tried to exhaust all of my options while staying inside the church. I finally ran out of options."

Sanders is one Episcopal priest caught in a puzzle of global proportions, facing hard decisions about his faith and career. But many others are stuck in the same predicament.

In the headlines, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and a large cast of prelates from Africa, Asia, America and elsewhere are involved in high-wire diplomacy while trying to avoid schism among the world's 77 million Anglicans. Meanwhile, legal task forces in the United States are preparing to fight over millions of dollars in pensions, endowments and property – with the Episcopal House of Bishops on the left and the Anglican Communion Network on the right.

These clashes are about marriage, sex, salvation, biblical authority and other ancient issues of faith and practice. But these lofty debates are also affecting the down-to-earth realities of daily life for many Episcopalians, as well the faithful in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the United Methodist Church and other oldline Protestant denominations.

For the 63-year-old Sanders, it meant resigning at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Jacksonville, the third largest parish in the local diocese, and forming the new Christ the King Anglican Fellowship. His small flock meets in the chapel of a Baptist church.

"Everyone thinks we did what we did because of the homosexuality issue," said Sanders, referring to the 2003 consecration of the openly gay Bishop V. Gene Robinson in New Hampshire.

"It's shameful to say it, but there are plenty of people who could look the other way when we had heretics denying the lordship of Jesus Christ, the resurrection, the virgin birth and all kinds of things. But now they're ready to take a stand, because they just don't like gay people. It's a dismal commentary on the state of the church that sexuality had to be the dividing line. It should have never come to this."

For Sanders, the problem was knowing when and where to draw the line. After all, Episcopalians are – following early-church traditions – supposed to find doctrinal unity through their bishops.

But today, there are conservative bishops who have broken communion with the progressive leadership of the U.S. Episcopal Church and others who have not. Should a conservative priest break communion with a conservative bishop because he has refused to break communion with a liberal bishop?

There are conservative bishops who do not support the ordination of women and other conservatives who do. There are liberal bishops who support the ordination of noncelibate gays and lesbians. There are bishops who say they believe it is acceptable to worship gods other than the God of the Bible.

What are local priests supposed to do in this maze? To whom, asked Sanders, are they supposed to turn for guidance? Many priests feel stranded.

"The bishops are supposed to be the people who are helping us defend the faith, but right now I feel like they are the source of most of the confusion," he said.

"Priests aren't supposed to have to make all of these decisions. I know that, but I reached the point where I felt that I had to act. I decided that didn't have to know all of the truth in order to decide to defend the truth that I do know, the basic truths that the church has handed down from generation to generation."

Voice for Orthodox unity – from Brooklyn

The rites were quiet, yet elaborate, and drew small clusters of dedicated worshippers out of their homes on a Saturday morning and into Byzantine sanctuaries across the nation.

Somewhere in each church stood an icon of a dignified Arab wearing the rich liturgical vestments of an Eastern Orthodox bishop. The worshippers took turns kissing the icon and chanters gave thanks to God for the work of the new saint whose name still causes smiles – St. Raphael of Brooklyn.

"It isn't every day that you hear the word 'Brooklyn' used in a Divine Liturgy," said Father Gregory Mathewes-Green, the priest in my own parish near Baltimore. "St. Raphael is important not only because he lived a remarkable life, but because of where he came from and who he was. He is a wonderful symbol for Orthodox unity in America. ...

"Our church was unified in his day and we pray it can be unified again."

Father Raphael Hawaweeny came to the United States in 1895 and became the first Eastern Orthodox bishop consecrated in this land. He was known as the "Good Shepherd of the Lost Sheep in America."

St. Raphael was canonized in 2000 by the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), which has Russian roots, in cooperation with the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America, with its ancient ties to the Middle East. The OCA celebrates St. Raphael's feast day on Feb. 27, the date of his death.

This monk, priest, diplomat, scholar, missionary and bishop traveled a risky and complicated road on the way to Brooklyn, a fact noted by chanters during the rites last weekend. One of the prayers said: "Arab by birth, Greek by education, American by residence, Russian at heart and Slav in soul, thou didst minister to all, teaching the Orthodox in the New World to proclaim with one voice: Alleluia."

In other words, each Orthodox flock can lay some claim to this particular saint. There are about 5 million Eastern Orthodox Christians in the United States and 250 million worldwide. While the church has grown in America, primarily through converts from evangelical and mainline Protestant pews, the Orthodox map here remains a crazy quilt of overlapping ethnic jurisdictions.

But there are signs of unity in combined programs for foreign missions, relief efforts and education. And last month, Father Thomas Hopko, one of America's most respected Orthodox scholars, dared to produce a rough-draft of a plan for unity. While Hopko is an OCA priest, his essay was published by the Antiochian archdiocese.

Both of these churches now worship in English and include large numbers of converts at their altars and in their sanctuaries. Their most vital parishes are becoming more and more alike, he noted.

"The seven Antiochian bishops include three born in America, one of whom is a convert to Orthodoxy," wrote Hopko, dean emeritus of St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary in Crestwood, N.Y. The OCA offers "nine bishops born in the USA, one born in Canada, one in Mexico, one in Bulgaria and one in Romania. Eight of the 13 OCA bishops are converts to Orthodoxy. ...

"What an impressive synod these bishops could form to govern a unified Orthodox Church in North America!"

Any attempt to accomplish this would lead to an outbreak of Byzantine politics, especially in Greece, Turkey and Syria. Hopko admitted that it would take years to handle issues of assets, property, diocesan borders and lines of authority.

What would the Greeks do? Who would make the first move? How would a united synod select a patriarch? On this question, Hopko suggested that each church select one candidate and the primate would be "chosen by lot," with a senior priest picking "his name from a chalice after an All-night Vigil, Divine Liturgy and Service of Prayer."

The key is to regain the vision briefly seen in the work of the first Orthodox missionaries to North America – like St. Raphael.

"All Orthodox churches in the United States, Canada and Mexico would be invited to join in the common work of the new church," wrote Hopko. "No Orthodox would be excluded. All Orthodox would be welcome.

This could take place by 2008, according to Hopko.

It would take sacrifice and cooperation and a shepherd who can command the trust of the Arabs, Greeks, Russians, Slavs and the Americans.

Witches leaving broom closets

The witches ball included the midnight spinning of the "Wheel of the Year" and a chance to gaze into the "Fire of Transformation" before the faithful were guided into the "Underworld and our Ritual Space."

The Samhain celebration last weekend in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., also included deejay music, dancing, door prizes and fun for the children.

"No photos at rituals! Some of us are still closeted," said the online invitation from the MoonPath Chapter of the Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans. "Perhaps it's time to come out of the broom closet?"

There were plenty of signs this Halloween that more witches and wizards are doing precisely that.

Are there SpiralScouts circles in your area offering pagan parents an alternative to the rigid morality of the Boy Scouts? Have teen-agers formed reading clubs at school to dig into popular books like "Wild Girls: The Path of the Young Goddess" and "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Wicca and Witchcraft"?

Many parents and mainstream religious leaders are afraid to ask these kinds of questions, said Catherine Edwards Sanders, author of a new work of Christian apologetics entitled "Wicca's Charm." Instead of freaking out, they need to pay attention to the changing religious marketplace.

"Wicca is here and we need to face that," said Sanders, a speechwriter for the U.S. Department of Justice. "We can be threatened by these trends or we can see all of this as a sign that people are hunting for something that is greater than themselves, yearning for spiritual experiences they can call their own. They want to rebel against the secular culture and find a way to get back to nature."

Sanders is convinced, based on her interviews with modern pagans, that most are fleeing from two types of organized religion – cold, rational liberalism that shuns the supernatural or suburban brands of conservatism that substitute rigid rules for the mysteries of ancient rites, art and traditions.

"Our culture has tilled the soil, making it fertile enough for the seeds of Wicca to grow," writes Sanders. "This may be of concern to some, and for others, cause to celebrate. But to dismiss this spirituality as fringe or something practiced by an insignificant minority group would be to miss the point of what is really happening."

Conservative Christians who read this book may be offended.

Pagans who do so are more likely to be amused, according to writer Jason Pitzl-Waters. Sanders made a good-faith effort at fairness, but the lens of her Christian faith warped everything, he said.

"It is somewhat sad to see so earnest an author come so close to understanding our culture and ideas, but missing the mark," said Pitzl-Waters, at his Wildhunt.org website. The result "makes me wonder if a full and rich dialogue about each other's faith can ever be engaged between a modern Pagan and a Christian."

Modern paganism includes Wicca and other forms of earth-based spiritualities rooted in the worship of ancient gods and goddesses. Court cases rooted in what could be called the separation of coven and state now pop up on a regular basis, from family-law courts to military bases to public-school classrooms. In 1986, a federal court declared Wicca a constitutionally protected form of faith.

The key, said Sanders, is that it's impossible to lock pagans inside one doctrinal box. A witch is not a druid. A "Gardnerian" witch dedicated to the teachings of British writer Gerald Gardner, with his emphasis on nudism, scourging and the rites of high witchcraft, may rarely agree with feminist witches who worship the goddess Diana, alone. Some pagans believe drugs are a crucial part of worship. Others totally disagree.

Modern pagans are the freest of free-market believers, said Sanders. Many are striving – quite literally – to honor the priesthood of every believer. They may worship alone at secret altars, linked to believers near and far by the Internet and networks of witchcraft supply companies.

"This is especially true with the thousands of young girls who are experimenting with Wicca," she said. "They see something in a movie or on TV and then they hit the Web and, with a few clicks of a mouse, they're ready to try it out. ...

"This trend is so American. It's so individualistic. The neo-pagans don't want to sit in pews anymore and follow anybody else's rules."