Ministry is offering free 'Narnia' tickets

A local evangelical Christian ministry is joining scores of other like-minded Christian groups who are looking to get moviegoers talking about faith during the Christmas season.

Standing Together Ministries will offer a set of two free tickets to "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" to the first 155 residents who log on to the group's Web site beginning at midnight on Nov. 30 and agree to take a friend of a different faith.

Pastor Greg Johnson, president of Standing Together, said the tickets will be given to evangelical Christians who choose to take an LDS friend, or to Latter-day Saints who want to take an evangelical Christian friend. The ministry — known for trying to help bridge the state's religious divide in recent years — hopes to generate religious discussion through the Dec. 9 showing of the film at the Gateway Theaters downtown.

The group bought out one entire showing of the film, and those with tickets will attend that particular screening.

"We believe that both evangelicals and Latter-day Saints revere and enjoy the writings of C.S. Lewis and that 'The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe' is a film that both faith communities could watch with enjoyment and reflection," he said.

Those seeking tickets must be at least 18 years of age, and guests will be given a page of conversation items pertaining to the film "that we hope will allow them to discuss the film following the screening. Additionally, each set of friends will be given a brief survey card to fill out and send back to us describing the value of such an experience that we might determine the worth of the evening," Johnson said.

The giveaway/dialogue is one of several Christian promotions of the film taking place nationwide for a film Disney hopes will rival Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," which was panned early on by religious critics but widely embraced by Christian audiences, particularly evangelicals.

While mainstream studios shunned the film, worried moviegoers wouldn't pay for "proselyting," many Christian churches around the country bought out theaters so their members could see the film, which ultimately grossed hundreds of millions of dollars. Standing Together helped promote that film locally, and several Utah congregations attended screenings en masse.

Disney has reportedly hired several Christian marketing groups to hype the film — a head-turning irony in a world where the secular regularly clashes with the sacred and vice versa. In recent years, evangelical Christians sponsored a full-blown boycott of Disney and its theme parks after the company began making edgy films that many said undercut family values and offering "gay days" at Disneyland and Walt Disney World.