“(i.e., that we are to Ms. Rowling what he is to the author of The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren)”

I found this comment quite intrigued me. I take it Mr Albanes is a lover of the work of Rick Warren? As if the daring to criticise a series without reading all of it isn’t enough!!

Rowling has done a wonderful job of ’smuggling the Gospel’ into a popular literary work.

I have to say that all Mr Warren has done is ’smuggle the Law’ into a supposedly Christian work. Seriously .. by a third of the way through it’s ALL about what WE should be doing as Christians and very little about what GOD has done for us!!

I never finished it. My husband gamely struggling on leading a study series based on the book – however by the latter chapters the discussions was all about how wrong it all was.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/JerryBowyer/2007/08/21/harry_potter_and_the_great_relearning

As far as JKR using the “dying-rising, savior-deliverer myth motif” inherant in a lot of pre-Christian cultures, that does not matter. JKR has said that her Christian faith is the key to unlocking the ending of the series. She did not say that her belief in Mithras or Osirus is the key to what’s coming in the books. Abanes is just grasping at straws here. JKR statements are what counts. Abanes believes this but he falls into the same “twisting” of JKR’s words that he accuses the Harry Potter supporters of doing. What about JKR’s interview with Evan Solomon with CBC NewsWorld in July 2000? Solomon asks her if she believes in magic and she says that she does not believe in magic in the sense that it happens in the books. Abanes has argued in Harry Potter and the Bible that this quote potentially implies that perhaps JKR believes in magic in a different sense, namely that of the occult. This flies in the face of all the statements that JKR said that she is not a witch (Rogers, Shelagh. “INTERVIEW: J.K. Rowling,” Canadian Broadcasting Co., October 23, 2000) and that she is not a champion for Wicca (Hattenstone, Simon. “Harry, Jessica and me,” The Guardian, July 8, 2000). This is but another example of Abanes misrepresenting JKR in his arguments. Abanes did it then and is continuing to do it now (confusion over Abanes revised Potter views in his three books is a topic for another day). No wonder JKR told Solomon, “This is so frustrating. Again, there is so much I would like to say, and come back when I’ve written book seven. But then maybe you won’t need to even say it ’cause you’ll have found it out anyway. You’ll have read it.”

Well we have read it. Abanes hasn’t. Therefore he’s in no position to comment otherwise.

Harry Potter has that oft-confusing, postmodern eclectic blend of form and genre. Is it “occultic” or just a parody of magic? Is it secular or Christian in its themes? Is it just a “fantasy story” or an attempt to glamorize the occult? One possible answer is that Harry Potter presents traditional Christian themes in a contemporary secular context, but one that is expressed as an eclectic fantasy world not realistically. Since young people are fascinated with the fantastical worlds of medieval romances why not use that form of story telling to get the ideas across? I have no problem with that, at all. Harry Potter is not an explicitly Christian novel, but it does embody ideals that are clearly Christian. It is an entertaining story, but is also a moral tale. For those who still have a problem with the form of the writing, consider this: Would Rowling’s story have been as well received and widely read had it been yet another pedantic, didactic “Christian” novel? I doubt it. As C. S. Lewis realized, “any amount of theology can now be smuggled into people’s minds under cover of romance without their knowing it.”
Lewis’s statement was a sarcastic response to the failure of critics to see the implied Christian themes in Out of the Silent Planet, but it turns out to be a bit of prognostication as well. We have reached a strange point in Western History. Although Christianity has been the foundation of Western Civilization for 1700 years, today Christianity is identified in the minds of many people with a certain religious observance only. If you don’t look like a Christian, then you must not be one is the attitude of far too many people. Likewise, many will not listen to a Christian teacher because they think of Christianity as a religious form and tradition only. If you strip the religiosity away they cannot recognize the doctrines as Christian. That’s what we have in the Harry Potter debate. Non-Christians think it is just a fantasy story, while conservative evangelicals think it is a wicked attempt to influence young minds towards the occult. In both cases, however, the opinions are based only on the outward appearance and not the imbedded theology of the book. It’s the same frustrating problem C. S. Lewis complained about.
It is also the ultimate irony. Because the outward form does not appear to represent traditional religion, non-Christian readers will accept, and even embrace the Christian ideas in Harry Potter, even to the point of being upset if you point out to them that the book expresses a Christian world view. The Christian anti-Potter critics reject the clearly Christian nature of the books because the Christian ideas do not have the “proper” outward appearance.
Religion, especially Christianity, Judaism and Islam, seen as something that demands conformity of action and appearance to a traditional norm, is considered by many to be at odds with the postmodern world view. Many people today, especially young people, accept Christianity as a one possible private religion, but do not see its doctrines as an all-encompassing explanation for life. Consequently, in public affairs, Christianity is pushed aside, often treated as the crazy old Aunt in the basement that should not be spoken of publicly, much less taken seriously (e.g. The Humanist Manifesto). In other words, a Christian world-view is no longer allowed to act as a foundation for morality or public policy. When evangelicals screech and yell and condemn all non-conformed behavior, their words are ignored as out-of-date, reactionary fundamentalism. This presents a real problem for Christian teachers. How can we get across the “fundamentals” of Christianity to a world that no longer thinks there are universal fundamentals? Answer: we smuggle it in.
What I find most remarkable and exciting about Harry Potter is that it truly vindicates the Christian world view. Readers of all ages have accepted, even embraced, Harry Potter as a “good” book without even realizing the philosophical and theological foundation for the moral themes expressed in the books. In other words, they accept the ideal that voluntary self-sacrificing love provides protection from evil. They find that embracing death to overcome death based on the hope of a future after-life is the only solution to the paradox of life and death. They likewise recognize the character of evil as something parasitic, prideful and destructive, not a dualistic, opposite but necessary, of the good. Harry Potter may not look like traditional Christianity, but its moral themes are about as Christian as you can get. Thus the irony: when stripped of religiosity, the world-view and a priori premises of Christianity are readily accepted and embraced even by a postmodern society. And, that is vindication, not denial, of the universal, timeless nature of the Christian message.

Blessings and a purr from Rumbleroar

Now college kept me too busy studying theology, history, Hebrew, and Greek to pursue a study the structure of alchemical literature and Christian symbolism. Please, if you could point me in the right direction so I can set out on that same journey without wasting time on fruitless searching? I would appreciate it tremendously.

I would also, however, like to extend some sympathy to Meredith and affirm some of the views she expressed. Celebrating HP as a Christian series is certainly something we Christians can enjoy. That fact in itself, however, does not make the HP books “good” in either a literary sense or even necessarily a moral one (heaven knows that plenty of bad things have been done in the name of our faith).

I have seen too often how disrespectful we Christians can be – whether intentionally or not – toward those of different beliefs. While it is right that we feel strongly about our faith, that strength of feeling can often lead to arrogance if we aren’t careful. For Christians, arrogance is a sin (see Matthew 5:22). Rowling even wrote about this issue when she created a people called “purebloods” who imagined themselves superior to all others.

Of deepest concern to Christians should be the fact that our actions might unwittingly repel those whom Christ has called us to embrace.

I don’t think for a minute that the participants on this website have any intention of being arrogant or believing themselves superior. I was just sad that no one else had spoken up for Meredith, so I thought I would.

I just wanted to say that I’ve read Looking for God in Harry Potter (plan on getting the rest soon) and have been trying to use the HP series to reach folks for Christ for 3 years now with my website (of which I have linked your wonderful site and essays because I think you’re a brilliant analyst, if that’s alright).

I, too, hope the Christian community of Harry Haters awake to the fact that this story is affecting billions of people all over the world and is pointing people to Jesus, whether they realize it at first or not. To dismiss HP and not Lord of the Rings or Narnia or even the old beloved film and story of The Wizard of Oz has always been perplexing to me, since they all have elements of magic and witches and wizards in them just as much as Harry’s does.

I felt, as you did (and many others, probably) that she might make Harry a Christ-figure (I just KNEW that she wouldn’t kill him) and am glad to see that she has.
It just reiterates to me that before you blast something, you should know what it’s about first.

Thank you for all the work you do within the Harry Potter fandom with your books and editorials, but more importantly, for the way you point people to the Lord and help them see that Harry’s story comes from HIS story.

- Rebecca

Pat

http://commongroundsonline.typepad.com/common_grounds_online/2007/07/thank-god-for-h.html

“The reduction of literary works to pious epigrams is a jolly parlor game,” said writer Annie Dillard, “little more.” In her excellent book Living by Fiction, Dillard argues that “from any work of fiction we may derive an interpretive view of the world,” but “the novel, even the unabashed novel of ideas, is not a tract.” Now, here’s the quote that will likely get me into trouble. She went on to say that, “unless we are Marxists or fundamentalists, we do not judge a literary work according to whether or not we agree with its world view.” (Or the author’s, I would add.)

I don’t know what J.K. Rowling believes, but here’s what I believe. Harry Potter is a tremendous character, Rowling is a master storyteller, and Harry’s story is as redemptive and rich as they come. And that redemptive richness – its tensions between darkness and light, good and evil, love and jealousy, and its honestly-constructed characters who never, ever hit a false note – resonate with the Great Story, the Gospel Story. Because all the best stories do, whether they mean to, or not.”