Kingdom Harbor

Keri and I have spent some time this summer watching some movie series.  We started the summer with the X-Men movies and are now working our way through the Harry Potter movie series. NPR’s All Things Considered recently ran a story that caught my attention.  The piece focused on the mixed receptivity of Harry Potter by the Christian community. The main point of this report is that

“When the Harry Potter books were first released, the conservative Christian community condemned them for glorifying witchcraft, spells and potions. Now that the series is completed, some religious scholars argue that the books actually follow the plot of the Gospel and use Christian imagery.”

I never understood parents who protested Harry Potter one moment and encouraged the Chronicles of Narnia the next.  Yes, I know C.S. Lewis was a Christian author weaving overt biblical themes into his books and J.K. Rowling’s religious beliefs are far less pronounced and known among conservative Christians. According to Wikipedia,

She once said, “I believe in God, not magic.” Early on she felt that if readers knew of her Christian beliefs, they would be able to “guess what is coming in the books.” Rowling has stated that she struggles with her own beliefs. In an interview with the Today Show in July 2007, she said, “… until we reached Book Seven, views of what happens after death and so on … would give away a lot of what was coming. So … yes, my belief and my struggling with religious belief and so on I think is quite apparent in this book.”

Still, the main factor influencing parents’ decision as to what literature their children should be allowed to read should not be the author’s religious persuasion but rather the content and message in their books.  When we hold the Harry Potter books up next to the Chronicles of Narnia we find both authors creating fantasy worlds filled with magic and wonder.  Both worlds include dark magic and good magic.  Both worlds represent the battle between good and evil forces. I truly do not understand why we would deprive our children of reading books of pre-adolescent wizards in training, learning to wield their special powers in ways that do good rather than harm and learning many moral lessons along the way.

Of course, this also provides a wonderful opportunity for parents to talk about the Bible’s view of magic and supernatural powers, angels and demons, good and evil and the true source of our power and gifts.

Now, back to All Things Considered with Guy Raz.  He begins his report saying,

“Have you ever wondered what would Harry Potter do? Well, it turns out dozens of religious scholars are asking that very question. After years of being pilloried by the Vatican and conservative Christian groups for, among other things, promoting Satanism, the boy wizard is getting a second look by those very groups. And academic journals are teeming with new interpretations of J. K. Rowling’s series as Christian allegories.”

Now, each interpretation must be taken with a grain of salt. Some read more Christian themes into the book than Rowling intended.  Some Christians will object to some of the supposed Chrsitian allegory.  Yet, I believe this is a better approach for Christians to take in evaluating any work of art: Let’s filter its message and meaning through our biblically informed, Jesus-colored, Kingdom-centered lenses and learn from it what lessons we can while rejecting what we must.

The NPR story finishes with comments from two scholars finding strong Christian themes within the Harry Potter plot:

“The line of the plot definitely follows the Gospel. She has two Christ figures, Dumbledore and Harry, each of whom die a kind of death experience, a kind of rebirth, and she has two Judases, Snape and Malfoy. The wand seems to me to represent God, the Father. The stone which confers resurrection represents the Son. And the cloak of invisibility clearly stands for the Holy Ghost.”

-Professor Oona Eisenstadt

“One theme that’s very present in Christian theology, that all of us are fallen. And so there’s this scene where the Sorting Hat is put on Harry’s head, and he whispers to it. And the Sorting Hat tries to convince Harry, says, you could be great in Slytherin. You could become this – a great evil wizard. Harry chose not to take that path.

…You’re on a quest to find your identity but also to combat evil. You’re called to something greater. You find out that you have powers that you did not know that you had.”

-Professor Russell Dalton

So, what do you think of the Harry Potter series?  Did you read the books or see the movies?  Are they dangerous books “glorifying witchcraft, spells and potions”?  Or, are these books filled with Christian allegories ripe for the picking?  Should Christian parents encourage or discourage their children from reading Harry Potter?

See also Boston Globe online article “How the Boy Wizard Won Over Religious Critics–And the Deeper Meaning Theologians Now See in His Tale” by Michael Paulson