Last week, the movie Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe opened to critical acclaim. Needless to say, though, not every critic loved the film. At least one was, let's just say, less than enthusiastic about it: "Narnia represents everything that is most hateful about religion," ran the headline of an article in the British newspaper The Guardian.

The author, Polly Toynbee, warns her readers that "adults who wince at the worst elements of Christian belief may need a sickbag handy for the most religiose scenes." She goes on to complain that "Holiness drenches the Chronicles." Toynbee, an atheist, believes we are alone in the universe; the world is our problem and, for her, that's a good thing.

This notion that we could want or need divine help is treated by Toynbee as a huge insult. Perhaps surprisingly, I think she understands a truth that eludes most Christians: the Christian Gospel is, in fact, the Great Insult. Our human spirits loath the Christian message because it offends our pride by demanding that before accepting Christ, we accept that we are spiritually and morally corrupt and impoverished.

Before I go on, for those poor souls (I mean that literally) who have not yet read or watched The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, let me fill in a few details.

Lewis's story tells of how the four Pevensie children, sent from London to a country house during the World War II bombings, find their way into a kind of parallel universe called Narnia. In Narnia it's always winter, but never Christmas because the land is in the icy grip of the evil White Witch (who styles herself the Queen of Narnia). But with the coming of the four human children (the subject of a prophecy) the witch fears that her reign may be cut short.

Aslan is on the move. Aslan, a figure of Christ, is central to everything that happens in each story of Narnia (Lewis wrote seven). In Narnia, a land of sentient beasts, the children are told by a talking beaver, "He is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-beyond-the-Sea.... Aslan is a lion — the Lion, the great Lion."

The children are then brought to meet this Aslan. Or, I should say, three out of four of them are. One — Edmund — temporarily sides with the Witch. As a result, he's condemned a traitor by the witch, who rightly asserts, "I have a right to a kill." For it's a long-known fact that traitors must die.

The climax of the story follows as Aslan takes Edmund's place under the witch's knife, dies for Edmund's treachery, and rises again (Lewis was a Christian remember).

Okay, so much for the spoiler.

Aslan, his death, and his resurrection are precisely what Toynbee hates most about the story. The acknowledged atheist writes, "Of all the elements of Christianity, the most repugnant is the notion of the Christ who took our sins upon himself and sacrificed his body in agony to save our souls. Did we ask him to?"

That question is critical.

Then she concludes, "Children are supposed to fall in love with the hypnotic Aslan, though he is not a character: he is pure, raw, awesome power. He is an emblem for everything an atheist objects to in religion. His divine presence is a way to avoid humans taking responsibility for everything here and now on earth, where no one is watching, no one is guiding, no one is judging and there is no other place yet to come. Without an Aslan, there is no one here but ourselves to suffer for our sins, no one to redeem us but ourselves...."

To think otherwise, from Toynbee's point of view, is offensive, an insult.

Of all the verses in the Bible, the one that strikes me as the most offensive — and frightening — is Isaiah 64:6, which reads, in part, "All our righteous acts are like filthy rags." The offense begins with the language. "Filthy rags" is an English euphemism for used menstrual cloths. Notice that it isn't our sinful acts that are like filthy rags, but our "righteous" acts, the good things we do, what we accomplish when we're doing our best to obey God. The best we've ever done is irremediably tainted with sin and of no value whatsoever except to make us unclean and to condemn us. It's an insult.

The Great Insult gets worse, in that the solution to our predicament is Christ crucified. While most Christians will admit, "Jesus took my place on the cross," we tend not to parse out what that statement means. "Jesus took my place on the cross," means that my place is the place of abandonment, agony, ridicule, shame, and curse. And not even my righteous deeds save me from my rightful place.

No wonder Toynbee is offended. I'm offended too. I'd prefer to think of myself as talented, capable, and at least a decent person, if not actually good. I want to accomplish what I can and receive the credit before God and other people. I suspect that you're that way too.

The story goes of a pastor who years ago was teaching a yearlong Sunday school class on Paul's letter to the Romans. After months, he was through the first eight chapters, having exhaustively stressed justification by faith: our standing with God is not a function of what we do since we can do nothing to earn favor with God. Our standing is based entirely on the merit of Christ crucified and risen. Christianity is all about God's grace for the undeserving.

That seemed to him a good time for a reality check, so he asked every class member, "If you were to die tonight, go to the gates of Heaven, and God asked you why he should let you in, what would you say?" Out of 200 students, only 30 gave the correct answer: "Not because of any merit of my own, but only because of the merit of Jesus who died for me." Everyone else had some variation on "because I've been good ... or, at least, good enough." They refused to receive the Great Insult.

Of course, C.S. Lewis understood better. In The Great Divorce, Lewis tells of people who travel by bus from Hell to Heaven. Any who wish to stay in Heaven may do so; to encourage visitors to stay, each has an old acquaintance waiting to welcome him or her.

One visitor, a British workingman, insists to his host, "I'm asking for nothing but my rights.... I always done my best and I never done nothing wrong.... I only want my rights. I'm not asking for anyone's bleeding charity."

"Then do. At once," his host replies. "Ask for the Bleeding Charity."

But he won't. His human pride will not receive the Great Insult, and so he can't receive the Bleeding Charity either. He would rather ride the bus back to Hell than "go sniveling along on charity." The Great Insult was too great an obstacle.

The same can be seen in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Edmund was cranky, selfish, and unpleasant, but could have made a plausible argument that under the circumstances, not knowing Narnian politics, he just made a mistake. He didn't mean to be a traitor (rather a strong word to describe an indiscretion) and, after all, "to err is human...." Instead, to our shock and dismay, his crime is so great that there must be blood — Edmund's or Aslan's. And if this is true for Edmund, Lewis implies, it must be true for me as well.

So kudos to C.S. Lewis for creating a story and a character that so faithfully portrays the truth of the Christian Gospel.

As for Polly Toynbee and the rest of us, cheer up! For just like Edmund, we are all far worse than we think: traitors, and justly condemned. And that is precisely what makes the other side of the Great Insult all the more wonderful: in Christ we are more loved and cherished than we ever dreamed. "Everything that is most hateful about religion" unlocks the very things that are most glorious.