Excellent question and something I've wondered about myself as well. Off the top of my head it seems that even though there is no apparent organized religion in Narnia, the Last Battle makes it pretty clear that Aslan is to the Narnians what Tash is to the people of Calormen, who have an organized religion. Worship or service to him, however, doesn't seem to go much beyond being brave and doing the right thing.
I must think more on this....

I would describe the scene on Ramandu's Island, in which they sing a song and hold their hands with the palms down, the one Edmund describes as the most exciting part of their adventure, as a religious ritual.

I'm thinking of Lewis's own well-known comments about how the Narnia stories came to be written the way they were — this is from his article "Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What's to be Said", originally published in The New York Times of November 18, 1956 (emphasis added by me):

I thought I saw how stories of this kind could steal past a certain inhibition which had paralysed much of my own religion in childhood. Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or about the sufferings of Christ? I thought the chief reason was that one was told one ought to. An obligation to feel can freeze feelings. And reverence itself did harm. The whole subject was associated with lowered voices; almost as if it were something medical. But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday school associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency? Could one not thus steal past those watchful dragons? I thought one could.

I would say that's the most likely reason why Lewis never shows the Narnians worshipping Aslan or practising anything like what we would think of as organised religion. He was deliberately staying away from "stained-glass and Sunday school associations" in how he portrayed Christian themes in general and Aslan in particular. To me, one of the reasons the books are so effective in getting those themes across is that Aslan ISN'T portrayed as a figure of worship and ritual — in fact, there are almost no very explicit references to who he really is (the clearest is at the end of Dawn Treader, when we learn he is in our world too under "another name"). If he was venerated in Narnia in the way we might expect a divine being to be venerated, that would make it all too bore obvious, and probably most readers' feelings towards Aslan would be "paralysed" just as Lewis describes. And the Chronicles of Narnia would quickly have been relegated to the niche market of "Christian fantasy" instead of being the much-loved worldwide classics that they are.

I think Courtenay's quote probably explains a good part of it, and gives me an article I need to track down and read! But coming at it from a different angle, one of the things I've always found fascinating about Narnia is the idea that it's not a land for men, but a land to be ruled by a man. I've taken that to mean that Narnia is a land populated mostly by talking beasts and creatures that don't typically need/want a great deal of infrastructure or to be dependent on laws or government.

There are human kings and queens to make the laws and resolve the disputes when necessary, but for the most part, Narnians seem to run their own lives. In a way, for a society like Narnia, it feels right that they seem to use more of an oral tradition and seem to have celebrations more often than actual rituals or an organized church. It does make you wonder if things are different in Archenland, though, since their society does seem to be more "civilized" (strictly meaning that they have a stronger emphasis on creating a civilization).

To add to the list, you could argue that the coronation after defeating the White Witch in LWW and the celebrations after winning the Battle of Beruna in PC and saving Anvard in HaHB are a sort religious celebrations - after all, Aslan is actually there for at least part of all three occasions. Also, we don't really know the purpose of the Great Snow Dance in SC (beyond that it seems to be some kind of yearly tradition).

I agree and as a 3rd grader I remember wondering why The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was in my Sunday School classroom's library because at that point it was to me a story of heroism, adventure, and what we do out of love, not a dogmatic text telling us we have to believe and practice thus and so.

My main reason for posting this is to get us trying to think like Narnians and to imagine what it is that sustains the faith of a creature like Trufflehunter who continues to believe a story about the four kings and queens from 1,300 years ago, apparently through the sheer power of faith and hope. Many of the Narnians do seem to tell each other the stories and talk each other into continued belief and hope, but it's just interesting to think that there doesn't seem to be an organized religion or holy book that records the belief and hope. Perhaps there's a message there about seeing through to the heart of the matter rather than getting lost in the trappings, as is discussed by Jill and Eustace when Jill asks if drawing a circle and making incantations will get Aslan to send them to Narnia and Eustace says it won't and that we can only ask him, we cannot assume that our own actions will tell him what to do and how to do it.

I'm thinking of Lewis's own well-known comments about how the Narnia stories came to be written the way they were — this is from his article "Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What's to be Said", originally published in The New York Times of November 18, 1956 (emphasis added by me):

I thought I saw how stories of this kind could steal past a certain inhibition which had paralysed much of my own religion in childhood. Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or about the sufferings of Christ? I thought the chief reason was that one was told one ought to. An obligation to feel can freeze feelings. And reverence itself did harm. The whole subject was associated with lowered voices; almost as if it were something medical. But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday school associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency? Could one not thus steal past those watchful dragons? I thought one could.

I would say that's the most likely reason why Lewis never shows the Narnians worshipping Aslan or practising anything like what we would think of as organised religion. He was deliberately staying away from "stained-glass and Sunday school associations" in how he portrayed Christian themes in general and Aslan in particular. To me, one of the reasons the books are so effective in getting those themes across is that Aslan ISN'T portrayed as a figure of worship and ritual — in fact, there are almost no very explicit references to who he really is (the clearest is at the end of Dawn Treader, when we learn he is in our world too under "another name"). If he was venerated in Narnia in the way we might expect a divine being to be venerated, that would make it all too bore obvious, and probably most readers' feelings towards Aslan would be "paralysed" just as Lewis describes. And the Chronicles of Narnia would quickly have been relegated to the niche market of "Christian fantasy" instead of being the much-loved worldwide classics that they are.

I think Courtenay's quote probably explains a good part of it, and gives me an article I need to track down and read!

Here's where I found it (I think there are several transcriptions online).

But coming at it from a different angle, one of the things I've always found fascinating about Narnia is the idea that it's not a land for men, but a land to be ruled by a man. I've taken that to mean that Narnia is a land populated mostly by talking beasts and creatures that don't typically need/want a great deal of infrastructure or to be dependent on laws or government.

There are human kings and queens to make the laws and resolve the disputes when necessary, but for the most part, Narnians seem to run their own lives. In a way, for a society like Narnia, it feels right that they seem to use more of an oral tradition and seem to have celebrations more often than actual rituals or an organized church.

My main reason for posting this is to get us trying to think like Narnians and to imagine what it is that sustains the faith of a creature like Trufflehunter who continues to believe a story about the four kings and queens from 1,300 years ago, apparently through the sheer power of faith and hope. Many of the Narnians do seem to tell each other the stories and talk each other into continued belief and hope, but it's just interesting to think that there doesn't seem to be an organized religion or holy book that records the belief and hope. Perhaps there's a message there about seeing through to the heart of the matter rather than getting lost in the trappings, as is discussed by Jill and Eustace when Jill asks if drawing a circle and making incantations will get Aslan to send them to Narnia and Eustace says it won't and that we can only ask him, we cannot assume that our own actions will tell him what to do and how to do it.

Good points. I was thinking of quoting that bit from the start of The Silver Chair, actually, as I was reading it just this morning!

To add to this list, Rillian's instruction that all present kiss the image of Aslan which has appeared on his shield and shake hands, symbolizing that whatever happens Aslan will be with them, is very much a veneration of a sacred object or symbol that one might see in a church on Earth. As we've discussed earlier on this thread, the difference is that Narnians seem to keep up their faith in Aslan because it is a built in part of who they are and the expressions of veneration come out of specific situations like that one in The Silver Chair rather than some authority on high saying you must revere and worship this and that way. There's no mention of anyone making a holiday called Aslan Shield Day and making an annual command to venerate the object and commemorate the event which is what would likely happen in our world, while in Narnia events are passed on through oral tradition and the belief of the characters who do believe seems to be strong enough to be sustained without the external trappings of a church.

The Narnians as a whole seem better, less sinful, than the humans of our world. They aren't perfect, but they seem more innocent. There are some crimes that happen in our world that I don't think would ever happen in Narnia, at least among the good creatures (as opposed to minotaurs, hags, efreets etc.). You could argue that part of that is simply because Lewis is writing for children, but I think he may have been using that constraint as an actual feature of his world.

So, if the Narnians are more innocent, you could argue that they are closer to God (the Emperor Beyond the Sea). Our religious rituals are things that can draw us closer to God, but maybe the Narnians don't have the same distance from Him that we do.

Interestingly, incarnation also works differently in Narnia. In our world the Second Person of the Trinity became incarnated as man once and is said to return again and set things right. In Narnia, Aslan appears as a lion in Narnia multiple times. Even though generations can go by without him appearing, the fact that he has multiple appearances might make him seem nearer to the Narnians because they might know someone who has seen him - or at least know someone who knows someone who has.

This is an interesting one. There's not a temple or a church in Narnia. Some have argued it has religious rituals, but they do have references to gods and goddesses from mythology, like Pomona and Bacchus. Pomona was a Romans goddess associated with an apple tree (the Romans had a practice of bobbin for apples for match making to honor Pomona). Bacchus was the Roman god of wine.

In Calormen, they practiced human sacrifices to Tash. CS Lewis may have known about the ancient religions that practice human sacrifices, like the Aztecs, the Canaanites, the Assyrians. The ancient Canaanites had a god called Moloch, and one of the rituals was child sacrifice. Not saying that child sacrifice was practiced to Tash in Calormen, but anything is possible.

So CS Lewis never specified a church or temple in Narnia. There's also no detail about a religious ritual in Archenland, but same could be practice as Narnia.

Posted by: @courtenay

I'm thinking of Lewis's own well-known comments about how the Narnia stories came to be written the way they were — this is from his article "Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What's to be Said", originally published in The New York Times of November 18, 1956 (emphasis added by me):

I thought I saw how stories of this kind could steal past a certain inhibition which had paralyzed much of my own religion in childhood. Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or about the sufferings of Christ? I thought the chief reason was that one was told one ought to. An obligation to feel can freeze feelings. And reverence itself did harm. The whole subject was associated with lowered voices; almost as if it were something medical. But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday school associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency? Could one not thus steal past those watchful dragons? I thought one could.

One of the things I remember reading about Lewis was that his version of Christianity (while influenced by his Anglican upbringing) was much more stripped down and basic.  Meaning that he felt you didn't need the trappings of any denomination to be connected to God and that all of them had some tenets that were basically the same.  Therefore, It's not surprising to me that this is how he would write his tales.  

@cyberlucy he described himself as a typical Anglican, not too High nor too Low. 

Posted by: @coracle

@cyberlucy he described himself as a typical Anglican, not too High nor too Low. 

Yes as I said it was influenced by his Anglican upbringing.  In fact, I remember someone criticized him as being too much of an Ulster Anglican.   However, his writings have been relatable to a wider audience then just Anglicans.   It suggests to me that he wanted to connect on a basic level of what it means to be Christian.

One commentator has suggested that since the church is absent from LWW - that the entire book is actually about the Church - I believe this to be true -