Well, if Lewis wanted all of us to cleave closely to the idea that Aslan is Jesus he should have called him Jesus and, most importantly, he shouldn't have made him a lion. I'm not much of a Bible reader, but I recall Jesus being a man and not a lion.

You folks DO understand that we are talking about an imaginary world full of fantastical talking creatures. Why is there suddenly no room for the idea that Aslan is female? Honestly, the biggest issue I see with a female Aslan is how importantly the shearing of Aslan's mane features in his humiliation before his murder at the Stone Table. Female lions don't have a mane. That, I feel, is the bigger problem with an adaptation that makes Aslan female. In the meantime, all we really know is that Meryl Streep will provide the voice of Aslan, which does not necessarily automatically equate to Aslan being female. I'm a pagan atheist, so I've always had to enjoy the pagan elements Lewis used to dress up the Christ story while largely side-stepping the underlying Christian subject matter.