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What accounts for the vitriolic invective launched against the children's movie The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, and against Christian believers generally? Frank Furedi, self-described secular humanist, ponders what the liberal elite is so worried about. Why are anti-religious crusaders so paranoid about an imagined theocratic menace posed by the religious right? Why do they hold such a patronising view of believers?
The religious right is often said to be mobilising and gaining support around values that appeal to a primitive and simplistic electorate. That is why even a kids' film like The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe can provoke such hostility. The liberal elite's unease with religion is often motivated by the fear that it will become even more isolated from the public unless it can engage with the 'big questions' they are apparently asking. It is also concerned that unless it can project a positive vision on to society, people will become influenced by value-driven 'extremists', by religious and political organisations that are hostile to the status quo. In short, religion is seen as a powerful force that appeals to those apparently simple people whom sophisticated members of the elite cannot reach.
Projecting a need for a simplistic moral code onto the unsophisticated masses avoids facing the fact that, when it comes to morality, the elite has precious little to offer.
This trend for blaming the rise of theocracy on ordinary folks' apparent penchant for simplistic black-and-white solutions shifts the focus from the elite's failure to promote and uphold a positive vision of the future on to the alleged political illiteracy of the masses. That is why discussions of so-called fundamentalist movements often contain an implicit condemnation of the people who support them - and why the alleged creations of fundamentalist culture are implicitly condemned as immoral. It is the insecurity of the Anglo-American cultural elites about their own values and moral vision of the world that encourages their frenzied attacks on religion. There is a powerful element of bad faith here: many leftists and liberals denounce those who appeal to moral values as being inferior, but they are also envious of them.
Mr Furedi believes that is why the sophisticates hate Aslan so much: he embodies positive moral virtues and throws into stark relief their lack of same.
For all its faults, the movie attempts to transmit a powerful sense of belief, bravery and sacrifice. Such sentiments are alien to a cultural elite that regards the expression of any sort of strong belief as another form of that dreaded fundamentalism. Envy, bad faith and instrumentalism: these are the raw materials that fuel today's anti-religious crusade.
See also this spiked column on Richard Dawkins' British TV show. Commentator Neil Davenport says the show gives atheist humanism a bad name.
