The Rev. Danielle Tumminio, author of God and Harry Potter at Yale, was interviewed by CNN Religion blog reporter Eric Marrapodi for an article published today with the provocative title ‘Was Harry Potter a Good Christian?‘ The article contrasts the Rev. Tumminio’s perspective with Lauvre Steenhaussen at Georgetown who argues that Harry’s leading a moral life and “seeking” does not make him a Christian. Most interesting to me has been the volume and intensity of the response: almost a hundred comments before noon on a holiday recovery Tuesday. Folks are still wound up about Harry’s religious content — especially when reading articles headed by a picture of Daniel Radcliffe with a nimbus (halo) like the 2009 piece at your left.

See the HogPro interview with Rev. Tumminio here for for more on her class at Yale, how it came about, and what her students learned from and taught her about Harry and Christian faith. H/T to Eric in Houston!

Susan Bowyer, who rocked my world in late 2008 with her discovery that the House of Gaunt and the Dark Mark were direct borrowings from Thackeray’s Vanity Fair: A Novel Without a Hero, wrote to me earlier this month with another Vanity-Potter link:

John, do you think it’s possible that Dobby’s name comes from William Dobbin in Vanity Fair? He’s a faithful, heroic, slavishly devoted and selfless character. And we have already discussed the likelihood that Vanity Fair contributed other ideas (the Gaunt name and the ‘dark mark.’)

A fascinating possibility, which I’ll discuss below the jump.

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I had a short conversation earlier this week with the Rev. Danielle Elizabeth Tumminio, the author of God and Harry Potter at Yale, about her experience teaching Christian theology at Yale University through the lens of the Hogwarts Saga. I think you’ll find it informative — and I hope that you’ll join in the conversation with your own questions about the controversial course, its content, and her reasons for the choices she made.

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