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The memo was written by Hanselman regarding a PBS documentary produced by Carol Hatcher (who, the Times reports, had also negotiated contracts to create an illustrated companion book and teaching video for the Narnia series). "I was appalled," says Hatcher. "I think there are ways to approach C. S. Lewis and Narnia that have nothing to do with religious background. However, it is astounding to minimize that part of this; it's like doing a video biography of Hank Aaron and refusing to acknowledge he was a baseball player."

To be fair, Hanselman was referring to how Narnia should be treated in the documentary—not the new Narnia books—but the strategy seems clear. And it reportedly comes from Simon Adley, managing director of the C.S. Lewis Company. Adley denies it: "It's fatuous to suggest that we're trying to take the Christian out of C. S. Lewis. We wouldn't have made the effort that we have with Mere Christianity if we felt that way. It's just crazy. I suppose you could get a little depressed by this. I'm trying to get more people to read."

HarperCollins also says the strategy is part of broadening Lewis's readership. "One of the issues the correspondence addressed was whether the project would appeal to the secular as well as the evangelical market," spokeswoman Lisa Herling said in a written statement. "The goal of HarperCollins is to publish the works of C. S. Lewis to the broadest possible audience and leave any interpretation of the works to the reader."

We'll keep looking into the story for you, but in the meantime, join the lamenting at the alt.books.cs-lewis newsgroup and MereLewis e-mail list.

Missionaries still held hostage
The Philippine military went in with guns blazing Friday to free 20 hostages—including Martin and Gracia Burnham of New Tribes Mission—but only nine escaped. The bodies of two other hostages were found yesterday, one of them headless. One of the escapees was a Roman Catholic priest, Rene Enriquez, who says a shaking Gracia Burnham, asked him, "Can you pray for us so that we will be saved?" The Burnhams were reportedly seen alive during the melee but were under heavy guard.

Persecution:

• Bomb kills 10 in Bangladesh church | At least 25 wounded in country where Christians are less than one percent of population (Associated Press)
• China's chief Protestant is a survivor | Over the past half-century of Communist rule, Wenzao Han has survived decades of fear and persecution to emerge as a leader of the government-sanctioned Protestant church. And, for that, he is sometimes called a fake Christian, a government lapdog and worse. (The Dallas Morning News)
• Religious belief spreads in face of China sanctions | Freedom greater, but crackdowns continue (The Dallas Morning News)

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June (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45