Christianity and HP

[mizstorge]

No: HPFGUIDX 112509

> Snippet
> Geoff:
> Possibly because you're not actively looking for them.... I see 
many 
> themes in the books which are Christian. As I have often said, it 
> doesn't have to be Bible bashing. Tolkien's books are also written 
>by a Christian and the ideas are there to be found although the 
>books are set in a pre-Christian age. > Geoff

Read LoTR lots of times. Found Beowulf, found the historic landscape 
of Great Britain, found Anglo-Saxon ideas of Kingship, found Jacobite 
Rebellions, but NEVER found Christianity per se there. 

When I read The Chronicles of Narnia for the first time, I thought 
C.S. Lewis was being heavy-handed with the Christian symbolism. As I 
began to study religion and mythology, I realized that much of the 
symbolism in Narnia (and in Christianity and other faiths) comes out 
of the collective unconscious. Later, when I learned Lewis admitted 
praying to Apollo at Delphi, I realized how Aslan was much more like 
Sol Invictus or Mithras than Jesus.

Now, Christians (or believers in other faiths) can counter that the 
collective unconscious is inspired by their deity. I'm Asatru, and I 
would say it springs from the Well of Wyrd when I'm of a poetic frame 
of mind. From my particular religious view, I can even see reference 
Odin's self-sacrifice in Rowlings books. 

It is diplomatic to conclude that J.K.Rowling's imagination is a 
joint product of the collective unconscious, her culture, and her 
accumulated personal experiences. I am of the school of thought that 
things can be found in artistic works which the author didn't 
actually realize she/he was intentionally putting in at the time. If 
you want validation for your religious beliefs from her books, I 
don't think she minds as long as your beliefs run in the general vein 
of: love your fellow beings as yourself.