Guest Post: An Evangelist at the ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ Movie Premiere in NYC

And she was dressed as Dolores Umbridge! Enjoy her full story with tract after the jump —

“Mudbloods and the Dangers They Pose to a Peaceful Pureblood Society”—the tract!

By Melanie N. Lee, November 28, 2010

I slowly got into the Harry Potter movies over the past few years, and then devoured the books in the Summer of 2009.  That Halloween I dressed as Dolores Umbridge, and this year, 2010, in honor of the Deathly Hallows movie release, repeated the costume, albeit in a new pink suit.  I also thought, how cool would it be to hand out copies of Dolores Umbridge’s pamphlet “Mudbloods and the Dangers They Pose to a Peaceful Pureblood Society”—only as a Christian evangelical tract?  Especially in the light of recent events like the tough new Arizona immigration law, the controversy over the proposed “Ground Zero Mosque”, and increased attacks upon Muslims, Hispanics, and gays, such a tract about intergroup tolerance may be needed.

Professor John Granger, in an email, pointed me to the pages in Deathly Hallows with anti-“Mudblood” propaganda.  I lifted the Daily Prophet article from page 209 (fair use, right?), then wrote the tract:

Mudbloods!

Muggle-born Register: The Ministry of Magic is undertaking a survey of so-called “Muggle-borns,” the better to understand how they came to possess magical secrets.  Recent research undertaken by the Department of Mysteries reveals that magic can only be passed from person to person when Wizards reproduce.  Where no proven Wizarding ancestry exists, therefore, the so-called Muggle-born is likely to have obtained magical power by theft or force.

The Ministry is determined to root out such usurpers of magical power, and to this end has issued an invitation to every so-called Muggle-born to present themselves for interview by the newly-appointed Muggle-born Registration Commission.

Merlin’s beard! Why did we even tolerate these impure imposters, these pretenders to the noble name of Witch and Wizard, for so long?  Any straight-thinking pureblood wizard must realize that these Mudbloods have no place in our world!

Hang on…what is a mudblood?

In the Harry Potter novels and movies, a Muggle is a non-magical human being—like you or me.  Witches and wizards in the Potter stories are born with powers that they later develop at wizarding schools like Hogwarts.  Some wizards are pureblood—descended from a long line of magical people.  Some are half-blood, born of a wizard or witch and a Muggle.  Others are Muggle-born, born to nonmagical people.  Some pureblood wizards think of Muggle-borns as “Mudbloods” (meaning “dirty blood”), unworthy to study magic.  Imagine a pureblood shouting at you, “You filthy Mudblood!” It’s like the wizarding world’s equivalent of the N-word.

Who are your “mudbloods”?

Do you consider some people inferior to you, or even less than human?  Are you automatically suspicious of some folks?  Today’s “Mudbloods” might be gays, Muslims, or illegal immigrants.  More traditional “Mudbloods” include Blacks, Jews, Hispanics, Native Americans, or the poor.  To some people, White Anglo-Saxon Protestants are “Mudbloods”!

Is it right to treat certain people with automatic contempt?

Our law declares a person innocent until proven guilty.  The Bible, even in the Old Testament, tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves.  In the New Testament, Jesus tells us even to love our enemies, and to pray for those who persecute us.

Now we human beings are proud, selfish, and fearful.  While you’re hating and fearing someone who’s different from you, someone else is hating and fearing you for the same reason!  Face it: you’re somebody’s Mudblood!

Actually, we’re all mudbloods.

No one is pure; no one is perfect—except one.  Everyone has sinned or done evil in Heaven’s sight—except one.  The only real Pureblood who ever lived is Jesus of Nazareth.  I don’t mean he was “racially” pure: although a Jew, he had Canaanites, a Moabite, and perhaps a Hittite in his ancestry.  I mean that he lived a life without sin, fear, or hatred of other people.

Unlike Lord Voldemort or the Death Eaters or Undersecretary Dolores Umbridge, this Pureblood wasn’t too proud to associate with us Muggles.  He was born among us, lived among us, loved us, taught us, and healed us.  On the cross he shed his Pure Blood to save us Mudbloods from sin and death.  And he rose again from the dead.  (Watch for something like that in Deathly Hallows!)

Unlike the Dark Lord, Jesus did not come to hunt us down or to condemn us, but to find us and to save us.  He asks us to be full of God’s love, to love God with all we are and have, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.  We can only do this if we ask him to wash away our sins with his Pure Blood, ask him to come into our lives as our Lord and Savior, and let his Spirit of Love, his Holy Spirit, fill us with his love.  Without him, the true Chosen One, we stand no chance against the real Dark Lord.

With God’s love inside you, no one will ever be a “Mudblood” in your eyes.  We will never be perfect in this world, but the Love of God will help us overcome a lot of evil.  Please allow the Author of Life to become the Director of your life story!

—Melanie N. Lee, November 2010

So Thursday evening after work–which let out at 8pm–I headed from Bayside, Queens, for Times Square, dressed in my Dolores Umbridge best.  I expected to see long lines of HP fans dressed in costume as I had at the opening of The Half-Blood Prince.  I had with me about 100 packets, in Ziploc bags, containing the Mudblood tracts, pink-wrapped candy, cookies, and individual bags of tea in pink or red wrapping.  At Times Square some people were giving out Kettle popcorn.  But when I got to the movie theater, no one was on line!  They had let people in, and it wasn’t even 10pm yet!  So I went inside and asked if there were tickets available; they cost $13!  I asked if I could give out my packages that contained religious tracts, and they said yes.

I gave out some to employees and patrons, including one customer dressed as Harry Potter’s stag Patronus, all dressed in white with antlers.  Inside my theater–Theater 18 in a multiplex–I gave out my packages.  Many people said, “Oh, cool!” or “That’s so cool!”  I think some people even read them.

After the movie–which was very good, BTW–I stayed to see all the credits and I was the last patron remaining.  As I got up, I saw that quite a few of the packages were left on the floor–maybe a quarter to a third of them.  Most of the cookies and candy were eaten, but the tea and the tracts were left behind in the bags!  A couple of bags were even intact, cookies and all.  I gathered a few, and said to the worker cleaning up the rest that she and the other employees could keep them, to please not throw them out, and they could keep the tea–“and the pamphlets,” I added.