Devout Students at Hogwarts (WAS: Religion Again...)

[lucky_kari]

No: HPFGUIDX 34318

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "judyserenity" <judyshapiro at e...> wrote:

> Well, maybe Hogwarts would make accomodations if any students need 
> them. But since we haven't seen any special foods, I doubt that any 
> students have asked for them, which makes me suspect that there 
aren't 
> any practicing students of religions with dietary restrictions. Food 
> is one of the best-described elements of the Potterverse, and we 
> haven't seen any special foods.  Like you said, this is something 
the 
> other kids would probably notice. 

JKR said in an interview that Hogwarts would arrange for special foods 
for vegetarian students, so I can't see why the same wouldn't hold for 
students with religious dietary restrictions.

gwendolyngrace wrote:
>I do find it interesting, though, because one of the only other 
>places I've experienced such a rigid resistance to any form of 
>participation is, oddly, among Catholics, who sometimes do notallow 
>non-baptised or unconfirmed people to receive a blessing at Communion 
>(and in some cases, won't even allow baptised Christians who are not 
>official members of the parish to receive Communion).

"Any form of participation" is not the same as "every form of 
participation." Having experienced many Catholic churches across the 
U.S. and Canada, I have yet to find one that denied a blessing to 
non-Catholics and non-Christians at communion. In fact, they usually 
seem indecently anxious to force the non-Catholics and non-Christians 
to come up for a blessing, to show how open-spirited and ecumenical we 
all are. :-) Unless you're dragging people out of the pews who don't 
want a blessing, I think this is a positive example of participation 
among people of different faiths or confessions. 

However, there are some things that are faith-specific. One of these 
is Communion. The Catholic Church teaches that when you take 
communion, you are literally eating the Body and Blood of Jesus. 
Non-Christians, and even baptized non-Catholics do not believe this, 
so it is not appropriate that they should take Communion, even though 
they do not believe it's anything more than bread, because of the 
offence it gives to believing Catholics. It's a matter of reverence 
for God on the Catholic side, and a matter of simple politeness and 
respect for other people's beliefs on the non-Catholic side. 

judyserenity says:
>What I am saying (and maybe Jenny Ravenclaw is saying, too) is that 
>it's really a problem for Jews when Christians expect us to just give 
>up our own heritage and act like we're Christians. And some people 
>here, who have Christianity in their backgrounds, seem to be 
>responding by saying "No, you're wrong. It's not a problem for most 
>Jews to be asked to celebrate Christmas. If it's a problem for you, 
>you must be some sort of extremist with a rigid and restrictive 
>mindset, otherwise you'd be happy to celebrate my holiday." Which I 
>think proves my point better than anything I could ever say. 

I couldn't agree more. There has been a movement in recent years 
saying that we should all mark everyone else's religious feasts in a 
way that's less than religious, because many people celebrate their 
religious feasts in a way that's less than religious. For example, I 
recently read an article about Ramadan in Egypt, where an Islamic 
cleric was complaining that too many people are treating Ramadan as a 
purely secular event, and ignoring its religious roots. People fast 
all day for the fun of having a party all night. So, does that mean 
that I should feel obligated to celebrate Ramadan in a secular 
fashion, because people of an Islamic background do? No. I'm a 
Catholic. That's just not my thing. So, I think I can completely 
understand where you're coming from. 

>I'm just reflecting in general on whether the wizarding world, 
> as emplified by Hogarts, is religious.  From what we've seen, I'd 
have 
> to say, "not very".

I'm rather guessing that the answer is that JKR has, as much as 
possible, excised religion from her tale, for the simple reason that 
any way you go, you'll have problems in such a setting. Little 
remnants from her cultural background still exist: like Draco's 
"invocations" of God, the monk ghost, the saint names, the godfather, 
but, on the whole, it's not there. I don't know if we can deduce the 
relative piety or not of Hogwarts students, wizarding population etc. 
then, because it seems that something that definitely exists in real 
life just doesn't get mentioned or noticed in any way. 

Eileen