Source for that quote

[derannimer]

No: HPFGUIDX 81330

Laura wrote:

> Okay, I'm not Christian, but I thought all of the different 
> denominations agreed on the redemption thing, i.e., that humanity can 
> be redeemed. (I'm a bit fuzzy on the mechanics of this, I admit.) 
> If something has changed, could you all put out a press release or 
> something? :-)

Man, if *that's* changed, we had jolly well better!

Yeah, AFAIK, the "redemption thing" is pretty fairly central and unanimously agreed 
upon, within the Church. Not only that, but, as your message shows, it is also one of 
the things that people who *aren't* Christians tend to know about Christianity. So, 
yeah -- regardless of her denomination, it's a good bet that whatever JKR's referring 
to has something to do with the redemptive concept, given that she seems to think it 
would be easy for people to figure things out. The redemptive concept *would* be 
easy to figure out. (Although obviously not specifically. As witness this conversation.) 
There are obviously other possibilities -- but I suspect that there is some sort of 
redemptive scenario in the works here.

> That seems to be where JKR is going, according to Pip 
> and others, right? It may take an apocalypse but it will happen.

Yeah -- and the idea, I think -- *not* a theologian, so I want to be careful here -- 
isn't just of regeneration, but of regeneration through sacrifice, and especially self-
sacrifice. "Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life. . 
. will gain life everlasting." It's the Phoenix idea, almost -- "rising on stepping-stones 
of its dead self to higher things." You can't have immortality without dying first -- at 
least metaphorically speaking. (Wonder how this ties in, if at all, with Nearly Headless 
Nick's refusal to go on, and subsequent entrapment as a ghost?)

Down deeper and deeper -- and then up again.

Or, in other words, I think that for the story to qualify as having a Christian sort of 
redemptive theme, there may *have* to be an apocalypse.
 



Derannimer, Episcopalian/Presbyterian/Anglican. It's complicated.