The exaltation of Mitt Romney

It takes lots of praying, preaching and singing to mourn a president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a man called Prophet, Seer and Revelator by his global flock.

That was certainly true at President Spencer W. Kimball's funeral in 1985. So when one of the church's most powerful women rose to speak, the leader of its vast Relief Society projects, she simply shared a cherished private memory that pointed far beyond the grave.

While visiting Colorado, recalled the late Barbara B. Smith, "I asked President Kimball a searching question. 'When you create a world of your own, what will you have in it?' He looked around those mountains. ... Then he said, 'I'll have everything just like this world because I love this world and everything in it.' "

She also recalled this Kimball quote urging Latter-day Saints to help those in need: "What is our greatest potential? Is it not to achieve godhood ourselves? Perhaps the most essential godlike quality is compassion."

It was already rare, at that time, to hear such an explicit public reference to the faith's doctrine of "exaltation," the belief that through piety and good works truly devout Mormons can rise to godhood and even create new worlds.

While this doctrine has caused tensions with other faiths, it has been a key source for the Mormon emphasis on marriage and family. As a mid-1980s text for converts stated: "Parenthood is ... an apprenticeship for godhood."

Now, church leaders have published an online essay -- "Becoming Like God" -- in which they have attempted to reframe this doctrine, in part by mixing the unique revelations of Mormon founder Joseph Smith with New Testament references and selected quotes from the writings of early-church saints such as Irenaeus, Justin Martyr and Basil the Great.

The essay repeatedly refers to Mormons becoming "like" God, rather than becoming gods and uses the term "godliness" many times, and "godhood" only once.

It also notes that Latter-day saints have endured mass-media efforts to turn this doctrine into a "cartoonish image of people receiving their own planets." After all, the showstopper "I Believe" in the rowdy Broadway musical "The Book of Mormon" proclaims: "I believe; that God has a plan for all of us. I believe; that plan involves me getting my own planet. ... I believe; that God lives on a planet called Kolob. I believe; that Jesus has his own planet as well. ... Oh, I believe!"

Nevertheless, the online essay does note that Smith did tell his followers: "You have to learn how to be a god yourself." It also bluntly asks a question frequently posed by critics of the church: "Does belief in exaltation make Latter-day Saints polytheists?"

The essay responds: "For some observers, the doctrine that humans should strive for godliness may evoke images of ancient pantheons with competing deities. Such images are incompatible with Latter-day Saint doctrine. Latter-day Saints believe that God's children will always worship Him. Our progression will never change His identity as our Father and our God. Indeed, our exalted, eternal relationship with Him will be part of the 'fullness of joy' He desires for us."

The problem, according to poet and blogger Holly Welker, is that this downplays images Mormons have for generations used to describe their faith. She noted, for example, that the essay edited a key passage from Mormon scripture to avoid powerful words linked to these beliefs.

Doctrine and Covenants proclaims: "Then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting, because they continue; then shall they be above all, because all things are subject unto them. Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them."

That doesn't sound like a metaphor, argued the former Mormon, writing at the University of Southern California's "Religion Dispatches" website.

"Having our own planets," she said, is "absolutely a matter-of-fact way Latter-day Saints have discussed this doctrine amongst ourselves, probably because of statements like this one from Brigham Young: 'All those who are counted worthy to be exalted and to become Gods, even the sons of Gods, will go forth and have earths and worlds like those who framed this and millions on millions of others.' ...

"The essay actually deflects rather than answers this question: So, can we get our own planets, or not?"

Romney, JFK and the God question

The atmosphere was tense as the handsome presidential candidate from Massachusetts rose to address an audience packed with Protestant conservatives that he knew had serious doubts about the state of his soul.

We're not talking about Mitt Romney's recent trip to Virginia Beach to deliver the commencement address at Regent University. For political insiders, the only controversy in that speech was when he said, "I want to offer my sincere thanks to Dr. Pat Robertson for extending me the honor of addressing you today."

No, the daring campaign address that politicos are still discussing was the one John F. Kennedy delivered in 1960 to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, the speech in which he erected a high wall of separation between his public political life and his private Catholic faith.

"I believe in an America," said Kennedy, "that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish -- where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source -- where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials -- and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

"For, while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew -- or a Quaker -- or a Unitarian -- or a Baptist."

Or a Mormon? That's the question facing legions of evangelicals as they gird their loins for battle in the Bible Belt political primaries. They are waiting to see if Romney will publicly address their concerns about his deep Mormon faith.

That didn't happen at Regent, where the candidate stuck to marriage, parenting, public service and positive thinking. There was one clear religious reference, when he referred to the April 16 shootings at Virginia Tech.

"We're shocked by the evil of the Virginia Tech shooting," said Romney. "I opened my Bible shortly after I heard of the tragedy. Only a few verses, it seems, after the Fall, we read that Adam and Eve's oldest son killed his younger brother. From the beginning, there has been evil in the world."

Regent was a signpost in Romney's quest to calm evangelical fears, in part because the campus contains the headquarters of Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network -- which addresses Mormonism in its "How Do I Recognize a Cult?" website page. It states, for example, that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a "prosperous, growing organization that has produced many people of exemplary character. But when it comes to spiritual matters, the Mormons are far from the truth."

That passage is mild compared to the incendiary language common among many Christian conservatives. Bill Keller of LivePrayer.com, for example, bluntly states that the teachings of the "Mormon cult are doctrinally and theologically in complete opposition to the Absolute Truth of God's Word. There is no common ground. If Mormonism is true, then the Christian faith is a complete lie."

Mormons do believe that the Old and New Testaments -- as read by traditional Christians -- are packed with errors and that Mormonism is the one true faith. Mormons believe that their president is a living prophet and that faithful mortals, in the next life, can achieve godhood. Thus, Mormons reject or redefine the Trinity, teaching that this world's Father God has both a literal body and a literal wife.

These are not the issues that obsess typical voters, but they are important to many Christian leaders who wield great influence in the public square. The Vatican, for example, refuses to recognize the validity of Mormon baptisms.

"There are valid questions that Romney will have to answer," said veteran religion writer Richard Ostling, co-author of "Mormon America: The Power and the Promise."

"People need to know, 'Is this man going to take orders from Salt Lake City? Are there elements of Mormon theology that will affect public policy?' ... But before he gets to those questions, Romney may have to say, 'We have different doctrines. We have different scriptures. ... We even have different concepts of God.' He has to know that he can't just say, 'We all have the same faith.' That is not going to work."

Episcopal chair fights

True connoisseurs of ecclesiastical humor can answer this question: "How many Episcopalians does it take to change a light bulb?"

The most popular answers sound something like this: "Ten. One to change the bulb and nine to start a newsletter about the irreplaceability of the original bulb."

Episcopalians do love their traditions, a trait that they share with everyone else in the Anglican Communion. Nevertheless, the reason the world's 77 million Anglicans fight so much is that many cherish some traditions more than others or sincerely believe that, in changing times, some traditions trump others.

Consider, for example, the recent letter from Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori to Nigerian Archbishop Peter J. Akinola, urging him not to visit the United States to lead rites installing a bishop here to minister to those who believe the Episcopal Church has veered into heresy.

Memory eternal, Robert E. Webber

During one of his early visits to London, Billy Graham was confronted by an Anglican leader who causally dismissed the entire crusade effort.

"Young man," said the priest, "I do not approve of your style of evangelism."

"I'm sure that what I'm doing isn't perfect," replied Graham. "But I like the evangelism that I'm doing better than the evangelism that you're not doing."

Robert E. Webber knew that collision of styles inside out.

The theologian spent most of his career working with people on both sides of the cultural divide captured in that familiar anecdote about the world's most famous evangelist. It helped that Webber -- who died April 27, after an eight-month struggle with cancer -- had lived and worshipped in both camps.

As a graduate of the proudly fundamentalist Bob Jones University, Webber knew all about the style of evangelism that many believers can condense into a single blunt question: "If you died tonight, do you know where you would spend eternity?" Yet, as a convert to the Episcopal Church, he also knew how to talk to those who are offended by any discussion of evangelism or, as unsophisticated folks call it, "saving souls."

"The problem with evangelism is that churches either do it or they don't," Webber told me, before a Denver speaking engagement in the mid-1980s. This was about the time that he began to emerge as an influence on progressive evangelicals, in large part because of his strategic years teaching at Wheaton College, home of the Billy Graham Center.

"I think every church that is alive has within it people who are gifted at evangelism," he added. "If a church doesn't have these people, then there are some tough questions that have to be asked. ... You may be dealing with a dead church."

Media tributes to Webber this past week have focused on his trailblazing work encouraging evangelicals -- through his writings, both popular and academic -- to begin weaving strands of ancient rites and prayers into the fabric of contemporary Protestant worship. An ecumenical document rooted in his work, entitled "A Call to An Ancient Evangelical Future" (aefcall.org), challenged its readers to "strengthen their witness through a recovery of the faith articulated by the consensus of the ancient Church and its guardians in the traditions of Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, the Protestant Reformation and the Evangelical awakenings."

Webber's convictions can also be seen in the titles of his books, such as "Worship Is a Verb," "Ancient-Future Faith," "Worship Old and New" and the once-scandalous " Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail." In 1998, he founded the Institute for Worship Studies (now known as the Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies), a high-tech global graduate school based at Grace Episcopal Church of Orange Park, Fla.

This liturgical approach was a hard sell, especially in the age of media-driven megachurches offering services tuned to fit the fast-paced lifestyles of suburbia.

"The truth is that we Americans are a-historical," wrote Webber, in "The New Worship Awakening," a book rereleased several times during the past dozen years. "Most of us know very little about history and probably care even less. What we are interested in is the now, the moment, the existential experience. Unfortunately, most churches in this country have the same mentality."

However, there was a flip side to his tough message targeting evangelicals.

Webber was convinced that far too many liturgical Christians -- Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans and the Orthodox -- have abandoned the task of evangelizing nonbelievers and those estranged from the faith. In their rush to reject what Webber called a "Lone Ranger," "hit-and-run" style of evangelism, the leaders of these flocks have veered into apathy and silence.

There is also a chance that many of them no longer want to discuss sin, evil, repentance, grace, death and, horror of horrors, heaven and hell. These eternal concerns are not going to fade away, said Webber.

"What lies behind the views of people who see these doctrines as negative, as subjects to be avoided, is probably an embarrassment about the historic Christian faith," he explained. "Until a church is ready to reckon with historic Christianity, it is not going to be interested in evangelism. ... So I am probably not even talking to what you could call the average, mainline, liberal church."

Hot 50 American rabbis

For those marking their calendars far in advance, the next celebration of Passover will begin at sundown on April 19, 2008.

This means well-connected American Jews have almost a full year to lobby for their favorite rabbi to make the unofficial, but totally buzz-worthy, list of the nation's 50 top rabbis. The pre-Passover list in Newsweek was such a hit that the film-industry players who created it are already gearing up for the sequel.

The goal was to jump start discussions about what it means to be an "influential" rabbi today, said Jay Sanderson, head of the Jewish TV Network and producer of the PBS series "The Jewish Americans." But it's hard to talk about shepherds without discussing their flocks. That was the point.

"The whole concept of what it means to be an effective leader is changing so fast and this is certainly true for the Jews," he said. "So some people are talking about the fact that we didn't ask, 'Who is the most learned rabbi?' or 'Who has the most powerful pulpit? Instead, we specifically asked, 'Who is the most influential rabbi and what does that mean, today?'...

"Some of our rabbis are preaching in what can only be called 'virtual pulpits.' "

When it comes to buzz, it didn't hurt that the list was created by Sanderson and two other top mass-media executives -- Gary Ginsberg of News Corp. and Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton -- rather than by panels of community leaders and scholars.

The result was an earthquake in the Jewish blogosphere and wide coverage in the mainstream press.

It also didn't hurt that three of the top five picks were from Los Angeles, while the rabbi of the largest congregation in Washington, D.C., was ranked No. 10 and the leader of New York City's largest congregation fell all the way to No. 23. The top pick was Orthodox Rabbi Marvin Hier of Los Angeles, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Museum of Tolerance and Moriah Films. The Top 50 list stressed that he is "one phone call away from almost every world leader, journalist and Hollywood studio head."

The 2007 edition began with a 100-candidate shortlist and its creators plan to cast their nets wider next year. Feminists were upset that only five women made the cut.

The project's guiding principles can be seen in the 100-point system used to rank the rabbis. First they asked if the rabbis were known around the world, as well as in America. (20 points) The other questions: Do they have media presence? (10 points) Are they leaders in their own cities? (10 points) Are they leaders within their branches of Judaism? (10 points) How many Jews, in one way or another, follow them? (10 points) Do they have political and social clout? (20 points) Have their careers had a major impact on Judaism (10 points) and the wider culture? (10 points)

In the first list, 18 of the top 50 were listed as Reform, 17 as Orthodox, 10 as Conservative, three as Reconstructionist and two as "Jewish Renewal" rabbis. Next time, said Sanderson, the team will make a stronger effort to identify rabbis with the various movements within that complex Orthodox camp.

After all, the Orthodox rabbi whose selection drew the most flack was Rabbi Yehuda Berg at No. 4, founder of the Kabbalah Center in Los Angeles. He has become a cultural phenomenon by preaching red-string power to Madonna, Britney Spears and many other trendsetters. Some Jewish leaders content that Berg is not really a rabbi.

"Any list that has Yehuda Berg on it is a list that I do not want to be on," said an anonymous rabbi who made the list, but vented to the Jerusalem Post. "I think his name up there on the top tells you all you need to know about the Jewish sophistication of these folks."

Sanderson welcomes the ongoing debate. The key, he said, is that rabbis have to take their various takes on the ancient faith directly to modern Jews -- where they are.

"Picture a young Jewish woman on her treadmill watching the Today Show," he said. "How do you talk to her about Judaism? The answer is that you have to go on the Today Show, because she isn't going to be sitting in your congregation during the High Holy Days. That's the reality, right there."

Waiting for the WHY shoe to drop

You're waiting for the other shoe to drop.

You know the shoe I'm talking about -- the religion shoe. When the Virginia Tech University story broke, you began clicking from website to website, channel to channel, seeking information and, then, something more.

You've seen photos of mourners in pews, offering comfort and seeking solace. You know that believers will pray and that journalists will keep aiming cameras at them, because, that?s what Bible Belt people do. People in southwest Virginia put scriptures on big road signs and build huge crosses next to Interstate highways. They pray. It's a good photo, but it's just prayer. Right?

No, you're waiting for a real religion angle to surface, a crazy one linked to violence and power. After all, religion surfaces in so many bloody stories these days.

Plus, you know there are politicos here inside the Beltway who are sitting, TV remotes in their hands, waiting to grade the candidates. Will Barack Obama get the tone right, with the right mixture of scripture and concern? Will Hillary Clinton look chilly? Will anyone in the GOP herd look both presidential and pastoral?

You know the pope will say something and that -- no matter what he says about the mysteries of life and death, good and evil -- it will appear in news reports as a naive cry for peace and for an end to violence.

Then again, journalists know that the Jerry Falwell's Liberty University is up I-81 from Blacksburg. So maybe he'll come to Virginia Tech and talk about jealousy, broken hearts and the sexual revolution. Or maybe Pat Robertson will say -- something, anything. Then, on the other side, perhaps the atheist version of Robertson could call a press conference and say this tragedy is more evidence that life is random and without purpose. That would work.

You're waiting to find out what video game the shooter played all hours of the day and night. Did he go to see the movie "300" one too many times? Was he driven by Satan or too many "Left Behind" novels? People on both sides of the sacred vs. secular divide need to know.

You're waiting to see if he killed more women than men. You want to know if the big massacre started in the classroom of an evangelical professor who once witnessed to the shooter and made him mad. You heard reporters say the shooter was Asian and you immediately thought: Asia? What part of Asia? What religion was he?

You're waiting for something that points toward the source of this evil. Am I right? And if you remember the Columbine High School massacre, you may be thinking of that column that journalist Peggy Noonan -- a traditional Catholic -- wrote about the "culture of death" hours after that hellish day.

She wrote: "Your child is an intelligent little fish. He swims in deep water. Waves of sound and sight, of thought and fact, come invisibly through that water, like radar; they go through him again and again, from this direction and that. The sound from the television is a wave, and the sound from the radio. ... The waves contain words like this, which I'll limit to only one source, the news:

"... took the stand to say the killer was smiling the day the show aired ... said the procedure is, in fact, legal infanticide ... is thought to be connected to earlier sexual activity among teens ... court battle over who owns the frozen sperm ... contains songs that call for dominating and even imprisoning women ... died of lethal injection ... had threatened to kill her children. ... had asked Kevorkian for help in killing himself ... protested the game, which they said has gone beyond violence to sadism ... showed no remorse ... which is about a wager over whether he could sleep with another student ... which is about her attempts to balance three lovers and a watchful fiance...

"This is the ocean in which our children swim. This is the sound of our culture. It comes from all parts of our culture and reaches all parts of our culture, and all the people in it, which is everybody."

You're waiting for the other shoe to drop. You want to know the eternal "why" in "who, what, when, where, why and how."

I know that I do.

Nervous believers in Year 18

Religious folks sure get nervous when public officials talk about "fundamentalist" gunmen invading a school.

Consider what happened recently after a staged emergency at Burlington Township High School in New Jersey. The police script for the drill called for armed men to crash the front doors, shoot several students and barricade themselves in the library with hostages. This document, according to the Burlington County Times, described the intruders as part of "a right-wing fundamentalist group called the 'New Crusaders' who do not believe in the separation of church and state." The two gunmen attacked because a child had been expelled for praying.

For some reason, evangelical pastors became alarmed. Thus, local officials and educators released a statement saying they regretted "any insensitivity that might have been inferred" by this scenario, including any offense taken by those who "inferred" that the mock terrorists were Christians.

I have no idea why pastors "inferred" that organizers of this tax-funded drill had in any way suggested that "right-wing" fundamentalists in a "New Crusaders" army opposed to the "separation of church and state" and angry about a "school prayer" dispute might be conservative Christians.

No way. Why would anyone "infer" something like that?

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Boredom is rarely a problem for journalists on the religion beat. That's why I mark this column's anniversary every year -- this is No. 18 -- by offering a grab-bag collection of strange stories that I didn't have the chutzpah or the time to cover during the previous 12 months. So hang on.

* During holiday seasons, I get all kinds of email and often it's hard to tell when people are joking. For example, I received an copy of "The Two-Minute Haggadah: A Passover service for the impatient." It condensed the rite's pivotal four questions to this:

(1) "What's up with the matzoh?" (2) "What's the deal with horseradish?" (3) "What's with the dipping of the herbs?" (4) "What's this whole slouching at the table business?" The answers? "(1) "When we left Egypt, we were in a hurry. There was no time for making decent bread." (2) "Life was bitter, like horseradish." (3) "It's called symbolism." (4) "Free people get to slouch."

* No joke. The KFC restaurant chain did ask Pope Benedict XVI to bless its new "Fish Snacker" product, which the company said would be "ideal for American Catholics who want to observe Lenten season traditions while still leading their busy, modern lifestyles." Apparently, the pope declined.

* Try to imagine the media response if President George W. Bush ended a United Nations address with a call for the second coming of his Messiah and pledged to help this apocalypse happen sooner rather than later.

Would this make headlines? Thus, I was surprised when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad drew little fire when he ended his fall U.N. speech by saying:

"I emphatically declare that today's world ... above all longs for the perfect righteous human being and the real savior who has been promised to all peoples and who will establish justice, peace and brotherhood on the planet. O, Almighty God, all men and women are your creatures and you have ordained their guidance and salvation. Bestow upon humanity that thirsts for justice, the perfect human being promised to all by you, and make us among his followers and among those who strive for his return."

* Candid religion quote of the year? Asked by Vanity Fair if she is a Christian, columnist Ann Coulter replied: "Yes, sort of a mean Christian."

* Church PR efforts are getting edgier. An Episcopal parish in New Jersey issued a "Message to Disaffected Roman Catholics" proclaiming that many "whose spiritual lives are grounded in the Mass and in the sacraments are, nevertheless, unable to concur with the Vatican's position on issues such as the role of women in the church, contraception, remarriage of divorced person, homosexual relationships, or abortion. ... If you are among them, you may find a comfortable spiritual home at Grace Church in Newark."

* In a list of 100 men and women who are "transforming our world," Time editors included 27 "artists and entertainers," 16 "scientists and thinkers" and many other powerful people. However, the list included only three religious leaders. This is the planet earth we are talking about, right?

One man comes home to Orthodoxy

When Peter Maris' father arrived from Greece the U.S. immigration officer couldn't understand his last name and "Margaris" became "Maris."

When his mother's Jewish parents arrived from Poland they added "ski" to their name because they thought "Rafalski" sounded Catholic and, thus, would be safer.

And when Kathleen Rafalski married Dennis Maris, she immediately joined the St. Demetrios Orthodox Church in Hammond, Ind.

"They were married in the Greek church," said Peter Maris, 42. "She learned to speak Greek. She learned to cook Greek. She did everything she could to show her commitment to the faith."

Then came the parish Christmas party when his mother brought a plate of Polish cookies. His father didn't tell this story often, because it was too painful.

"Some of the women got upset," said Peter Maris. "They told my mother, 'What are you doing, bringing those in here? We don't need you and we don't need your Polish cookies. We are Greek.' "

The family walked out and never returned.

Now, nearly four decades later, Maris has come home to Eastern Orthodoxy -- just in time for "Pascha" (Easter in the West).

This is one man's story, but it contains elements of stories told by thousands of converts in an era when this old-world faith is growing in a land already packed with Protestant and Catholic churches. In most communities, Orthodox parishes are known as the "Greek church" or the "Russian church" or carry some other ethnic label.

This is one man's story and it happens to be a story that I first overheard in the fellowship hall of my own Orthodox parish. What is different about this minister named Maris is that his story combines both the joy and pain experienced by "converts" and "cradles" -- those born into Orthodoxy -- who are learning to live and worship together in an ancient church that is quietly sinking its roots into modern America.

Maris has tasted the bitter and the sweet.

There are an estimated 250 million Orthodox believers worldwide -- the second largest Christian flock -- but only 1.2 million in the 22 ethnic jurisdictions in North America. While a few leaders have raised eyebrows by claiming a 6 percent annual growth rate, an accurate count would have to account for ethnic members who are drifting out of Orthodoxy as well as converts who are joining.

It's safer to count U.S. parishes and watch clergy trends. The convert-friendly Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese has, for example, grown from 66 parishes to 250 parishes and missions in four decades. Also, a recent survey found that 43 percent of today's seminarians are converts, a percentage that must be higher among the Antiochians and in the Orthodox Church in America, which sprang from Russian roots.

Maris is unusual, since he was baptized Orthodox before finding his way into evangelicalism. He met his Baptist wife at Chicago's Moody Bible Institute, did graduate degrees at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, and worked in Korean Presbyterian and Chinese Christian churches before being ordained as a priest in the Charismatic Episcopal Church.

"For the longest time, I could only see Orthodoxy through the eyes of my childhood," he said. "For me, Orthodoxy was an ethnic ghetto. ... In many ways, I came back to the church kicking and screaming. But in the end I knew this was where I was supposed to be. There was no place else I could go."

Maris can still speak some Greek and he has been experiencing flashbacks to early memories of the taste of Communion wine, the smell of incense, echoes of Byzantine hymns and glimpses of an icon of Jesus, high in a sanctuary dome.

However, he also remembers his parents' conflicting emotions as their new American dreams clashed with old ethnic traditions. He witnessed similar dramas in Korean and Chinese churches.

"You want to keep the language and you want to keep the food and all of that, somehow, gets mixed in with the traditions of the church," he said. "Then the parents discover that they just can't communicate with their kids and the kids just can't appreciate what is happening in church because that's all wound up with the ethnicity thing. ...

"At some point you have to claim the faith as your own -- you can't inherit it. In the end, you have to believe."

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."