THE Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe begins with the four Pevensie children being sent away from London “because of the air-raids”. Many of the children who read it upon publication in 1950 would have had their own memories of evacuation — including perhaps some of the thousands sent to East Lancashire.
Among the mill-town destinations was Colne, on the western edge of the Pennine Hills in Lancashire, where last week the parish church was transformed into the wintry land of Narnia for Advent.
Throughout St Bartholomew are wooden panels depicting Lucy, Edmund, Peter, and Susan, and their adventures in a land under the thrall of the White Witch. From the rafters, Edmund can be seen being carried off by the witch’s henchmen. Professor Kirk greets visitors at the door.
Ten months in the making, Finding Jesus in Narnia is the work of Caz Pinder, a lay graduate of the diocese of Blackburn’s M:Power training course for urban contexts. She first read C. S. Lewis’s story at the age of eight, growing up in a family that didn’t go to church.
“That’s where I first recognised Jesus,” she said on Saturday. “I saw Aslan dying on the table in the story and it absolutely broke my heart. Then when I got into the next chapter, he rises, and for some reason I knew it was Jesus but I didn’t understand the significance of it.”
MADELEINE DAVIESMADELEINE DAVIES
The Vicar of St Bartholomew, the Revd Alex Oehring, also loved Narnia as a child. Together, he and Mrs Pinder secured permission from the PCC to create the project. The scenes were cut out of large sheets of plywood by Mrs Pinder, who led a team of women in painting them.
Since the doors opened on 22 November, more than 1000 children have walked through, in addition to 1000 adults. Many had never made the connection between the story and Christianity, Mrs Pinder said. “So many people have said ‘I’m going to read it again; it’s brought my childhood back.’” Mrs Pinder has written a guide to the exhibition and panels explaining both the story and the allegory.
“I often talk about Narnia, and people are often surprised,” Mr Oehring said on Saturday. “Death, the resurrection of Aslan, that’s the hint! I think because our country has lost that basic knowledge of the Christian faith, they wouldn’t recognise it. . .
“The more I see people coming to faith, I think God works with our desire. I think he changes people’s desire. . . I think C. S. Lewis wrote this to work on our desires, and we get changed, which is why I think this is so powerful.”
Since his arrival as Vicar in 2021, the church, which dates back more than 900 years, has grown from a congregation of 58 to more than 200, including the recent addition of a small Assemblies of God congregation, following the ordination in the Church of England of their pastor, who now serves as curate.
Forty-eight people have been confirmed and there are now three youth groups led by Louise Smith, a local worker. A number of home groups are now running and about 20 people have done the M:Power course. Breakfast and lunch clubs during the week have enabled the employment of an Authorised Lay Minister to run a community grocery. The parish is among the six-per-cent most deprived in the country, according to the Church Urban Fund.
Mr Oehring, who served as a captain in the royal engineers for eleven years before ordination, attributes the growth to the power of prayer: every day he joins two “wonderful” laywomen, Nan and Pat, to pray for growth.
Mrs Pinder describes a young girl’s reaction upon stepping through the doors — “Wow, Daddy, it’s Mr Tumnus!” — as making the ten months of work all worthwhile.
Her work as a lay evangelist stands in a family tradition: her great-aunt Elsie was a uniformed Salvation Army officer who used to walk around the pubs of Burnley rattling a tin, selling the War Cry, and singing hymns. “I don’t think people in this world today understand how loved they are and who they are loved by,” Mrs Pinder said on Saturday.
Her next project is a Christmas service later this month telling a “very modern” Nativity in which the Angel Gabriel appears on the top of Burnley Town Hall.
Finding Jesus in Narnia will run until 5 December.
