They called for Tash: Tash has come.
from The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis
Who is Tash, you ask? Well, let me back up a little bit and ask a different question: Who are you?
You can answer that question easy enough by stating your name. Another question: What are you?
This question is more variable. I am a husband, a dad, a Christian. I am an American, an Alaskan, half-white, half-Mexican. I’m a man. These are mere labels, helpful with categorization, used to fit us into nice little boxes — but none of them get to the core of what actually matters. The world looks at you and wants to focus on the box; it wants to define and explain the box, perhaps even celebrate the box. But God does not concern Himself with the box and neither should we.
God answers the question of what we are in much simpler terms: He calls it our identity, and it’s under attack.
Do you know your identity in Christ? If you’ve believed in your heart that Jesus is Lord and you’ve confessed it with your mouth then you are a new creation. You’ve been adopted into the kingdom of heaven, given a new identity, and no man nor earthly power can ever change that.
You need not hang your head in shame, you need not fear the reproach of men, you need not make agreements with the rulers of this world. And yet, a lot of Christians are doing exactly that. It needs to stop.
Back to my first question: Who is Tash?
Tash is a demon god, worshiped by the Calormene in C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia. They are a warlike people who espouse subjugation by force, who deny natural rights. In book seven, The Last Battle, the Calormene make a secret alliance with Shift, a Narnian usurper who is completely ignorant of their motives. Shift manipulates the donkey Puzzle into taking on a false identity, and Puzzle unwittingly aids in Shift’s plan.
“Now don’t stand arguing, please,” said Shift. “What does an ass like you know about things of that sort? You know you’re no good at thinking, Puzzle, so why don’t you let me do your thinking for you?”
The Last Battle
The Calormene use deception to infiltrate Narnia until a sizable army is embedded within their borders, hidden in plain sight, standing side-by-side with the unsuspecting Narnians. Then they begin demanding that everyone pledge allegiance to Tash.
But many of the Narnians are confused. They are a free people, subjects of Aslan, and they know their true identity.
“Please,” said the Lamb, “I can’t understand. What have we to do with the Calormene? We belong to Aslan. They belong to Tash…They kill Men on his altar. I don’t believe there’s any such person as Tash. But if there was, how could Aslan be friends with him?”
The Last Battle
I’ve seen Christians on social media placing hashtags for organizations or social movements dedicated to dismantling police departments, eliminating the autonomy of parents over their children, and affirming homosexuality.
I’ve seen Christians raising their fists — a symbolic gesture that throughout history has always stood for defiance and anger regardless of who was using it — be they communist, fascists anarchists, or white or black nationalists.
I’ve seen Christians bending a knee to men, begging forgiveness for actions they had no part in. I’ve seen them using racist terms like “white privilege” and “white fragility” to define themselves and an entire race of people whom they don’t speak for, making agreements with lies.
Symbolic gestures matter. They can either create or dismantle strongholds, encourage battle, or infuse energy into a situation. They’re also quite important in the heavenly realm and we don’t fully understand why.
We anoint with oil or take communion. We drop to our knees or raise our hands in worship, and know in our spirit that something happens as a result. What do you think a clenched fist means in the heavenly realms? What kind of authority do we give to the devil when we proclaim ourselves guilty of a sin we had no part in? Do we really want to find out?
We live in a world full of horror, where the enemies of the one true God run rampant and they have clear goals, accomplished with tactics that haven’t changed much over time. The enemies of the one true God feed on shame, they feed on anger, they want us to focus on sins. They want us to let those sins ignite some version of disgust in us, to sway us from our identity and embrace the labels the world places on us — black, white, privileged, or pig. The enemies of the one true God want us confused, because when God’s people are confused about what they are, they quickly become confused about what they should do about it.
Cities burn, some Christians lend an understanding ear, become apologists for the rioters, and Tash smiles.
A man proclaiming the name of Jesus is accosted by an angry mob, assaulted, robbed, and forced to flee for his life. In response, some Christians say he should have known better than to provoke them, and Tash dances in the fires of the bloodlust.
An urban neighborhood is transformed into an apocalyptic wasteland where terror screams fill the night. Rapes, robberies, and extortion have become an acceptable fact of life. The police are barred from responding to 911 calls, murder is swept aside, and some Christians who for weeks have been proclaiming #ImListening are suddenly silent, and Tash takes ownership of his new dominion.
This is real. This is happening in the world we see and in the heavenly realms. What are we to do?
“But now, as Tirian looked round in the miserable faces of the Narnians, and saw how they would all believe that Aslan and Tash were one and the same, he could bear it no longer.”
The Last Battle
There is a time for reflective listening and research, for contemplation in prayer. There is also a time for action, for taking the message He’s communicated and delivering it amidst the darkness while there’s still time. Soon the unchecked violence will create the very silence it used to denounce. In fact, it already has.
But before he could say another word, two Calormenes struck him in the mouth with all their force, and a third, from behind, kicked his feet from under him…
“Take him away. Take him away. Take him where he cannot hear us, nor we hear him. There tie him to a tree. I will – I mean, Aslan will – do justice on him later.”
The Last Battle
The enemies of the one true God are always at work. Their names are as varied as their tactics, but their goals are always the same: to take our eyes off Jesus. They want us to focus on the mirror, to see ourselves they way they do.
The enemies of the one true God want to set the agenda and see us submit to it by swearing allegiance to Tash without asking too many questions. They want us to share the world’s goals, to believe that Tash and Aslan share them.
But when the Lord looks at us, He doesn’t see what the world sees.
And the very first person whom Aslan called to him was Puzzle the Donkey. You never saw a donkey look feebler and sillier than Puzzle did as he walked up to Aslan, and he looked, beside Aslan, as small as a kitten looks beside a St Bernard. The Lion bowed down his head and whispered something to Puzzle at which his long ears went down, but then he said something else at which the ears perked up again.
The Last Battle
What are you?
Are you a privileged member of an emotionally fragile race, complicit in sins far and wide by virtue of your skin color? Or, are you rooted in God’s love and filled with power to understand His love, His strength, and how to act in new situations?
Are you a social justice warrior filled with righteous anger, and ready to support the disassembly of the family, the police, liberty, and freedom?
“Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.
The Last Battle
“Then he breathed upon me and took away the trembling from my limbs and caused me to stand upon my feet.”
Tash has been unleashed.
We can spend our days as Tash would have us, prostrate before the mirror asking, “What am I?” Or, we can stand up, strap on our armor, and start asking a better question: What does Aslan want us to do about it?