HP, LOTR, Lewis, etc.

[David]

Just a few musings.

I think that there are some significant differences between HP and 
the Narnia and Middle Earth books, which make it much harder for 
them to win over the initially suspicious.

The first is the theological backdrop of the stories.  Christian 
opinion-formers will typically not be very impressed with minor 
elements of Christian symbolism or superficial religious trappings.  
Thus, some of the HP things quoted, such as holly wood or the 
phoenix will net a 'big deal, so what' kind of mental response.  
They will be looking for the story to be pervaded by a Christian 
world view  (of course, there is more than one such, but so far 
there has been little sectarian squabbling over HP).  The way 
people's character develops, the ways that good triumphs over evil 
(or fails to triumph), whether it is assumed there is something 
beyond immediate human experience, what is the meaning of events, 
and so on, all give an ideologically or doctrinally-minded Christian 
a warm feeling, or not, when they read a book.

Now, with Lewis, that is *so* pervasive it's in your face.  In fact, 
apart from overall plot framework items, I don't really believe 
Lewis deliberately wrote allegories.  He was so convinced that the 
world works in a Christian way that he couldn't write anything 
else.  *Of course* there is another, nore real world of which this 
is only a copy (The Last Battle), everybody knows that, it's just 
that 90% of modern man has suppressed that instinctive God-given 
consciousness.  And so on.

With Tolkien, it's less evident, but it's still there.  In fact 
(pace Amy), I think the Ainulindale, while at one level giving a 
semi-gnostic account of creation (the world is made by angels doing 
God's bidding - in full gnosticism IIRC the world is a creation of 
the devil to trap human spirits in flesh), at another it IMO betrays 
the essentially Christian influence on Tolkien's thought by 
ultimately ascribing everything, good and evil, back to a single 
creator who reserves the sovereign right to intervene directly 
(think of the Akallabeth, as well as the incident with the tree and 
Aragorn at the end of LOTR, and Gandalf's comments about Frodo being 
*meant* to have the ring).  His tendency to introduce successive 
intermediaries between God and man - the Valar, the Istari, even the 
Eldar in Eressea - while very alien to the Christianity of those who 
most criticise HP, is still a feature of a lot of Christian thinking.

So Christians can 'feel at home' when reading these works.

When it comes to HP, though ironically there is a lot about the 
framework that from a Christian POV compares favourably with most 
modern fantasy (eg Andre Norton's Witch World series, or Terry 
Pratchett), I think those comfort factors *are* less evident.

To some extent we can't know until book 7 is over - e.g. will evil 
either destroy itself from within, or shrivel in the light of true 
goodness and love (both outcomes congenial IMO to Christians), or 
will it need to be overcome by force of violence (less congenial 
IMO)?

However, the cultural mileu of HP is much more that of today's 
Godless UK - England, I should say.  There is no hint of a creator 
or guiding hand in history, e.g. that Harry was 'meant' to get the 
Philosopher's Stone - quite the reverse, in fact, with choice alone 
being the crucial element in events.  E.g Dumbledore's explanation 
to Harry that if Voldemort is resisted in every generation but not 
destroyed that would be good enough will not stack up easily against 
the Christian's stories of evil finally and necessarily being 
destroyed.  It smacks of a secular outlook, IMO, when seen from a 
theistic POV.

There are other aspects that may grate on the sensitive Christian, 
IMO.  Voldemort's 'resurrection' in GOF, if it occurred in a Lewis 
book, would be clearly designated as an imitation designed to 
deceive, or a copy designed to supplant, and all the more evil for 
that.  In HP, it is left hanging: is it an allegory of the 
antichrist, a critique of sects of the Jonestown type, or a 
commentary on the absolutist demands of Jesus himself?  Or is it 
just chance that it has so many elements reminiscent of Christian 
and religious belief?

I won't labour this point further now - I am hoping at a less 
frenetic moment on the main list to enlarge on how I think JKR isn't 
really in the tradition of the Inklings in response to Penny.

None of this, of course, is reason for a Christian not to read the 
books, but IMO it does mean that Christian opinion-formers will be 
less motivated to defend them when they are attacked by the ignorant 
or superstitious.  They have other fish to fry.  This then 
eventually comes out in simplified form as the argument that 'Lewis 
and Tolkien were Christians so what they wrote was OK'.  That JKR 
attends church then comes in too late in the argument, because the 
crucial step, that her thinking should be *theologically* (not just 
morally) informed, is missing.

In fact, I think I have a challenge for HPFGU members here: what is 
the theology of HP?  I think that question is quite hard to answer, 
and, as I say, I think some answers *are* semi-promised now (that 
veil?  that 'room of love'?).

I think it possible that the series as a whole will come out more 
theological than it seems, because of her habit of springing 
surprises.

Finally, I wonder if there are problems particularly for American 
Christians.  The values of Britain and America - particularly Bible 
Belt America - are more divergent than they were 50 years ago, and 
IMO JKR has done a very good job of portraying the attitudes of 
today's British, even within a distinctly old-fashioned setting.  
Recent debates here about reading aloud to children when swearwords 
appear are an illustration of this point IMO.  Again, this has 
nothing to do with witchcraft, but it is another obstacle to those 
who are looking for reasons to feel safe reading the books, or need 
persuading to convince their fellows that they are OK.

So, to summarise, many Christians feel that whether an author is 
truly like-minded is something that shines through their writing, 
and I think they will find that feeling hard to get from HP.  If 
they then also see all of life as a cosmic struggle ('he who is not 
for me is against me' - Dubya wasn't the first to say this), they 
may well be hostile to HP.  Fixing on magic is an easy way to 
articulate this hostility.  The extreme popularity of HP then makes 
the hostility (which in fact is likely to be held against a wide 
array of writing) uniquely visible, and turns the series into a 
cause celebre.

David