OneNewsNow reports that the Alliance Defense Fund, whose defense of bigotry and discrimination has suffered serious setbacks in recent years, is hoping to win some new support by adopting a new name. And in the best conservative Christian tradition, they’ve decided to pick a name that completely misrepresents what it is that they actually do.

The new name is Alliance Defending Freedom — but president and CEO Alan Sears tells OneNewsNow the group’s purpose remains the same.

“Defending religious liberty, the sanctity of life, and marriage and family. Only the name has changed,” says Sears.

“The change is to help more people easily understand the work that we do and why it matters…”

You know, that kind of reminds me of another C. S. Lewis quote.

In the last book of The Chronicles of Narnia, Lewis writes about an old ape who notices that everybody in Narnia obeys whatever the lion Aslan says, even though Aslan himself never actually shows up. So, with the help of a stupid donkey dressed in an old lion skin, the ape starts telling everybody what it is that Aslan wants. By curious coincidence, Aslan seems to want lots of bananas and oranges and other treats for an old ape. He also wants some fine clothes and jewels so that the ape can dress up and pretend to be just a very very old (and wise) man or perhaps even the rightful King. And all kinds of luxuries. Just whatever you’ve got that’s nice, bring it to the ape.

Eventually the other animals protest at the amount of hard work and sacrifice he is imposing on them, and they remind him that in the old stories, Aslan didn’t come to enslave the animals, but to set them free. The ape mocks them and insults them: do they think they’re as smart as Aslan? Do they know more than Aslan himself? Well, no, they admit, hanging their heads, they don’t. And then the ape tells them, “True freedom doesn’t mean doing what you like, true freedom means doing what I tell you!” And he sends them off to look for more oranges and bananas.

It’s amazing how well Lewis could describe his own church when he wasn’t trying to. He thought he was describing the Antichrist from the book of Revelation, re-framed as a children’s story. But instead, he ended up describing people like Alan Sears, who “defend freedom” by telling gays they’re not allowed to pick their own spouse and by telling women they have to bring a pregnancy to full term give birth whether they want to or not. True freedom doesn’t mean doing what you like, it means doing what Alan Sears tells you to. Because he’s appointed himself as the spokes-ape, er, spokesman for Aslan or God or something.