‘Narnia’ inspires pastor

AT Laguna Presbyterian Church, senior pastor Dr. Jerry Tankersley’s bookshelf-lined office is a peaceful sanctuary, with a wood-beamed ceiling, thick rugs and stained-glass panes.

Hanging prominently over the fireplace is a replica of Rembrandt’s “The Return of the Prodigal Son,” which represents the foundational Presbyterian belief that salvation is not conditional on good works but by grace.

This theme is also present when Tankersley describes the subject of decades of scholarship he has done: author C.S. Lewis.

On first impression, Lewis was hardly a pillar of Christian values. He allegedly smoked at least 60 cigarettes a day (when not smoking a pipe); was best friends with a gay man; lived with a woman he wasn’t married to; and would never have attended Oxford if his math entrance exam wasn’t conveniently omitted.

Tankersley’s passion is Lewis’s “Chronicles of Narnia,” his seven-book children’s fantasy series.

“He’s a masterful storyteller,” Tankersley said. “When my son was in grade school, we read them together.”

His son is 36 now, but he and his father still engage in a “constant dialogue” about Lewis’ life and theology.

Tankersley has held a series of discussions on the “Chronicles” at his church.

“Each month we worked through another book or biography,” he said. “It was really fun to talk through them.”

The group will work on the series’ penultimate “The Horse and His Boy” next, followed by “The Last Battle.”

“A couple weeks ago, he was doing ‘The Silver Chair,’ and we were so taken with it,” said Linda Roberson, a church member who has attended the Narnia series. “By the time we finished, we felt like little kids with our bedtime story, and my husband asked if we could do it every night.”

Tankersley will also host a 13-day trip called “The C.S. Lewis Experience” in July and August, which will journey through Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and England.

“The whole thing has been leading up to this trip,” he said. “It’s a very good way to do Christian education.”

About 20 travelers will visit sites such as Lewis’ childhood home in Belfast; Dunlace Castle, which some consider to be the inspiration for Cair Paravel in the Narnia books; and the Kilns, Lewis’s home in Oxford.

While at the Kilns, which was refurbished several years ago by the C.S. Lewis Foundation, special recognition will be paid to Tankersley.

“I have a theory that natural geography and environment can change a writer’s worldview,” Tankersley said. “The power of imagination and fantasy is what was so compelling, I think, in Lewis’s life.”

Linda and her husband, Dave Roberson, have been involved with the C.S. Lewis Foundation since the late 1980s, but haven’t seen the Kilns in its restored state.

“I’ve read ‘Surprised by Joy’ (Lewis’s autobiography) in the last couple months, so I’m really attached to his life story; I’m looking forward to tracing it,” Dave Roberson said.

Tankersley attended a similar trip several years ago, along with Douglas Gresham, Lewis’s stepson. The trip’s theme was “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,” the title of one of the Narnia books. Tankersley recalls that Gresham read a chapter or two of the book each night to the group.

He also went on a trip to Kenya in 1994, where a pair of lions ran alongside the group’s bus. One of them reminded him of Aslan, the lion in the Narnia books, so Tankersley took a picture of it, which today hangs in his office. He also keeps several Aslan replicas there, gifts from co-workers and friends.

“I’ve been reading the Chronicles for over 20 years now,” Tankersley said.

He reviewed them most recently in preparation for his discussions and tour.

“I got so much more out of it each time,” he said. “Great literature is always that way.”

Tankersley first became familiar with Lewis’s works in seminary, while studying systematic theology.

“A lot of what he wrote has strong implications for Christian theology,” Tankersley said, adding that Americans in particular are devoted to his works. “I believe this is due to the vitality of the American church.

“I would say that in the American theological scene, for lots of ministers, the books have really shaped their worldviews.”

Some Christian critics assert that the Narnia series, which features fabled creatures from Celtic and Norse mythology, is too “pagan” to be read by Christians. Critics of other beliefs claim that the books harbor hidden Christian “propaganda.”

Tankersley believes that Lewis’s worldview directly influenced the tales he wrote, but that his beliefs weren’t overtly employed in creating them.

“His mind had been shaped by his faith,” Tankersley said. “I think you just have to look at these books as stories.”

Tankersley often uses Lewis’s body of work at the church for sermons and studies.

“It’s too good to miss,” he said. “I’ve had to discipline myself not to overuse it.

“We did our whole Advent season around ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,’” he said. “It was really a lively time.”

Tankersley is enthusiastic about the recent film adaptation of “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.”

“I thought it was great; very faithful to the story,” he said, adding that he’s seen more books on Lewis since the movie debuted than ever in the past.

Raised as a Protestant, Lewis became an atheist in school, but then converted to theism and then Christianity while teaching at Oxford.

His mother had died of cancer while he was a child, and he had a strained relationship with his father, although Lewis revered his ability to tell a story.

He was sent from school to school, one of which he referred to as “Belsen,” for several miserable years before studying privately to attend Oxford.

“He was a brilliant, brilliant little boy who needed special attention,” Tankersley said.

World War I prevented Lewis from entering university immediately. During the war, he had made an agreement with a friend that if the friend died, Lewis would take care of their mother and sister.

He lived with them for the next 30 years, and when the mother went to a nursing home in her old age, he visited her daily until her death.

Most biographers believe that Lewis had a crush on the woman, more than 25 years his senior, but few assert that their relationship was romantic.

When Lewis was ready to attend Oxford after the war, he failed his math exam twice. The university then made a decision to waive the exam for returning soldiers.

While at Oxford, he joined the Inklings, a literary group of whom his brother Warren was a member, as was writer J.R.R. Tolkien.

He graduated with honors in Greek and Latin classics, English literature and philosophy. Afterward, he taught at Oxford and Cambridge, where he wrote more than 50 books.

“He was a humble man, a shy man, a gracious man,” Tankersley said. But Lewis’s “checkered” reputation, as Tankersley calls it, may make him more accessible to people today than any perfect example of the “proper Christian life.”

“He is not saved because he does works of love; he does works of love because he is saved,” Lewis famously wrote.

Space is still available on “The C.S. Lewis Experience: A Journey to the Heartland of C.S. Lewis” tour, which begins July 30 and ends Aug. 11. For more information, contact the church at (949) 494-7555.

Tankersley will also show the biographical film “Shadowlands,” starring Sir Anthony Hopkins as Lewis, 7 p.m. Sunday night at the church, which is located at 415 Forest Ave. cpt.02-narnia-CPhotoInfoBE1RHTTG20060602j05u1dncDON LEACH / COASTLINE PILOT(LA)Rev. Jerry Tankersley with one of his favorite C.S. Lewis books in his office at Laguna Presbyterian Church. Tankersley and other church members will travel to Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and England and tour sites related to the famous author.