Christianity and HP

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 112276

Having read this thread, I would like to add a few thoughts of my own 
drawn from various of the replies.

Let me say to start with that, as regular members of the group may 
well know [to their cost :-)], I am a practising evangelical 
Christian.

Regarding the Christian reaction to Harry Potter, I have said 
previously that I was silly enough at the beginning to allow myself 
to be influenced by some members of my church who raised their hands 
in horror and proclaimed "Harry Potter is a bad thing". I then saw 
the second film to start with and having read all the books and seen 
all the films, I am a convinced HP fan and have discovered many other 
folk in my church who share my views - so not all real Christians are 
anti-Potter. I have found many of the themes useful with the young 
people's group within my church to point up certain facets of 
Christ's teaching.

Jo Rowling worships at a Church of Scotland church and is on record 
as saying she is a Christian so this is going have some influence on 
her approach. However, like Tolkien, who was also a Christian, her 
world is not overtly Christian but is you look around you, there are 
evidences of subliminal Christian influence. Both she and Tolkien 
have written books in which Christian values and ideals can be seen 
if you look for them in contrast to C.S.Lewis whose "The Lion, The 
Witch and the Wardrobe" is openly intended to introduce children to 
the ideas of Christianity. Various books have been mentioned. May I 
add to the list "The Gospel according to Harry Potter: Spirituality 
in the stories of the world's favourite Seeker" by Connie Neal. A 
very interesting read. We can see how many of the driving themes of 
the books such as "choices" can be linked to Christian teaching.

Someone raised the point that festivals such as Christmas were taken 
over from other groups. Remember that in the early church, Christians 
could not take time out to hold special services ad lib - especially 
if they were slaves - and had to hold them at the times of the Romans 
festivals so that the dates of these celebrations came to coincide 
with non-Christian dates. It wasn't a Christian hi-jack, it was the 
only way to get time together.

Just a few (probably disjointed) thoughts.

Geoff
See my views of Exmoor and the 
heritage West Somerset Railway at:
http://www.aspectsofexmoor.com