The Last Battle, the final instalment of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia Chronicles, is an unusual children’s book. The plot involves all the main characters being killed, some in a train crash and the others in battle, and the whole ‘world’ of Narnia coming to an end. It is literally apocalyptic.
And at the centre of the fall of Narnia is the diabolical character of Shift, a talking ape. The story opens with Shift content to just control and coerce his ‘friend’ Puzzle, a naïve and easily manipulated donkey. But a chance discovery of a lion skin gives Shift an enterprising idea: to dress Puzzle up as a lion and present him to fellow Narnians as the return of the Great Lion, Aslan. Puzzle hates the idea but Shift convinces him:
“Think of the good we could do!” said Shift. “You’d have me to advise you, you know. I’d think of sensible orders for you to give. And everyone would have to obey us, even the King himself. We would set everything right in Narnia.”
Treacherous alliance
But rather than ‘set everything right’, Shift does the utter opposite. He presents his false Aslan to the Narnians as both angry and greedy and demands an endless stream of their resources in tribute.
Worse, Shift goes into a treacherous commercial alliance with the foreign Calormen empire. Their soldiers cut down and sell the holy Narnian trees, enslave the Narnians and begin an invasion of their country.
Shift has little physical strength or bravery, but seizes power through opportunism, cunning and lying. He creates and controls a narrative and has a brazen ability to argue that white is black, and the next day argue that its white again.
“And now there’s another thing you got to learn,” said the Ape. “I hear some of you are saying I’m an Ape. Well, I’m not. I’m a Man. If I look like an Ape, that’s because I’m so very old: hundreds and hundreds of years old. And it’s because I’m so old that I’m so wise.“
Spiritual manipulation
And he uses the Narnian’s hopes in Aslan as levers of manipulation, invoking divine authority to consolidate personal power:
“And it’s because I’m so wise that I’m the only one Aslan is ever going to speak to. He can’t be bothered talking to a lot of stupid animals. He’ll tell me what you’ve got to do, and I’ll tell the rest of you. And take my advice, and see you do it in double quick time, for he doesn’t mean to stand any nonsense.”
And though Shift is clever, he is also full of vanity and delusion. In dealing with the Calormens he over-reaches himself and rapidly loses control of the situation, and just becomes a pathetic pawn in their imperialistic plans.
A picture of Trump
So why I am recounting this plot from a 1950s children’s book?
Well, it’s because Shift’s lies, greed and corruption and the disaster he brings to both his country and the whole world, is a picture of what Donald Trump is doing to America and the world today.
Trump’s malignant influence goes way beyond politics. He represents a key moment in the death of public truth which places the whole world at risk. Trump has been a master of controlling a narrative so strong that his continual lies do not rebound on him as with other politicians. Statements that would once have been disqualifying for Presidents are reframed as strength. Criticism is recast as ‘derangement’. Loyalty is elevated far above integrity. Rudeness is celebrated.
But what concerns me most is not Trump’s behaviour, as the complicity of those within the Republican Party who allow it and within the church who justify it.
Complicity
In The Last Battle many Narnians go along with Shift’s deception. This continues even when Shift proclaims that the Calormen god Tash (to whom child sacrifices are made) and Aslan, are one and the same and should be called Tashlan.
And even when the embattled true King Tirian exposes Shift’s fake Aslan and calls the Narnian animals to join him in fighting back, the response is dismal:
But Tirian gazed round and saw how very few of the animals had moved.
“To me! to me!” he called. “Have you all turned cowards since I was your King?”
“We daren’t,” whimpered dozens of voices. “Tashlan would be angry. Shield us from Tashlan.”
Great evil lies in this complicity. Instead of speaking up for truth they weakly accept something which contradicts everything they claimed to believe.
And we see something similar in much American Christian culture which has been seduced by a desire for certainty and strength over than faithful integrity. The complicity is seen in those who go along with the pantomime of Trump holding up Bibles and being prayed in the Oval office. The name of God and Jesus are invoked, but to justify what is clearly out of step with the character of Christ.
A gospel of greed
Above all else, Donald Trump stands for greed. He has made his own name around the art of the deal. He cares more about the price of oil and gas than the lives of the innocent and this is why the financial impact of his reckless bombing of Iran is causing him such a problem.
Jesus placed a clear emphasis on the dangers of greed and deceitfulness of wealth. ‘You cannot serve both God and money.” (Matthew 6:24)
And just as Shift developed a blasphemous synthesis of ‘Tashlan’, Trump represents more than anyone the blatant syncretism between Christianity and greed. Trump seems the very epitome of John’s description of the sickness of the world:
‘The cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does.’ (1 John 2:16)
The last battle
I will not go for any ‘End Times’ speculations but its fair to say that no one knows where the chaos unleashed by the bombing of Iran will lead. Perhaps our world will last another thousand years or perhaps the end will come sooner. We cannot know.
Either way, we can have faith in the Jesus revealed in the Bible. The Christ who serves with compassion and self-sacrifice, whose power heals and restores. The lamb who was slain has won the last battle. He is our true King, his cross is our guide and salvation.
Trump and his followers may claim Jesus but his boastful blasphemies are as fake as Shift’s donkey dressed in a lion skin.
Re-creating Narnia: an open letter to Netflix
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