Edmund Kern, Associate Professor of History at Lawrence University and author of The Wisdom of Harry Potter: What Our Favorite Hero Teaches Us About Moral Choices, is teasing out the ambivalences of the religious meaning in Ms. Rowling’s novels for his class on Harry Potter at Lawrence. I asked for and received his permission to post a recent email he sent after the revelations of the Open Book Tour, that the “religious undertones” of the book were intentional, even “obvious,” and that Ms. Rowling “always thought of Dumbledore as gay.” Prof. Kern is concerned that readers will overstate the specific religious meaning, if there is any, in Deathly Hallows; the spirituality of the books, he argues, is intentionally open-ended, much like the author’s treatment of politics. As he puts it, “the books remain ideologically ‘open,’ and they remain focused on individual responsibility (in the tradition of liberal political theory), rather than offering revolutionary critiques of either politics or religion.” We certainly agree more than we disagree on this, if my interpretation of Ms. Rowling’s “struggle to believe” and understanding Deathly Hallows I think puts me just enough at odds with his religious/spiritual distinction that we can have an interesting discussion. I have promised to send your comments to him about this conversation starter for his response. Your comments and corrections, please!

JKR’s revelation that she’d always thought of Dumbledore as gay has led me back to her treatment of religious imagery. She’s sneakier than even we give her credit for. Here’s my promised, much longer take on recent “revelations.”

As you know, I like your reading of the Potter books, but I still feel more comfortable taking a more cautious approach. “Imagery” (whose presence she’s confirmed) is not the same thing as “message” (whose presence she still hasn’t confirmed). I’m not trying to be cute or coy here, but trying to pay attention to what she actually said.

The spiritual aspects of the books really do become more pronounced in books 6 and 7. The Christ-imagery is there, along with the passages from Matthew and 1 Corinthians. But Rowling also leaves the whole issue of spirituality–let alone religion, as its usually understood–rather ambivalent. [Read more…]