Christianity and HP

[hp_lexicon]

No: HPFGUIDX 112588

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "mizstorge" <lszydlowski at h...> 
wrote:> 
    
> 
> Agape, loving one's deity and duty to one's neighbor are concepts 
not 
> limited to Christianity or new teachings originated by Jesus or 
Paul, 
> but are facets of many religions from the Greek and Roman 
Mysteries 
> to Buddhism, Confucianism, Wicca and beyond. I agree, agape can be 
> found in HP and LoTR but IMO aren't enough to label the 
> works 'Christian'.


You are absolutely correct, these concepts are not unique to 
Christianity. The point is not that the ideas are uniquely 
Christian, but that the author, as a Christian, is writing from that 
world view. Therefore, although the ideas are not unique to 
Christianity, we can trace the fact that they are present in Harry 
Potter to the author's own faith. 

This is definitely not the same thing as, say, Lewis's intentional 
allegories (e.g. Aslan = Christ). However, when we read Potter with 
a Christian sense, we are in some ways reading it the way the author 
is writing it. 

Knowing that doesn't mean that you can't read the book from a 
different faith's world view and see the same ideas. So pointing out 
that Rowling's faith affects her writing doesn't have to affect your 
reading. She has made it clear that she's not trying to preach to 
anyone, at least not about religious things (About intolerance? Oh 
yes...). But if you want to understand the books from the point of 
view of what the author is doing, you simply have to take her faith 
into account. It does affect what's on the page and it will affect 
how the plot unfolds, as she has stated. (The interview is with the 
Vancouver Sun, actually. I have a copy). Understanding and 
appreciating her world view is a valid way to think about the books, 
even though it isn't necessary to understand them. The same would be 
true if she were Muslim. In that case it would be instructive to 
identify the places where her faith affected her writing, not to 
turn it into a Muslim book, but to better understand the characters 
and the plot.

By the way, a book which has Jesus pop out from behind the veil at 
the end wouldn't appeal to a lot of Christians any more than it 
would appeal to anyone else. Jo isn't writing that kind 
of "Christian book," thank God. However, there is a clear sense of, 
for example, an afterlife in the books, and certainly Rowling's 
faith affects her views on that. She's carefully non-specific, which 
is much to her credit. 

I personally see Luna as the "person of faith" in the books, not for 
her rather silly creature beliefs but for her sense of serenity and 
peace which comes from a faith. This is strikingly similar to a 
religious point of view ("It's not like I'll never see her 
again...") and Harry only gains true peace when he is given a 
measure of it from Luna. We see Rowling's Christian world view 
peeking out when she writes that Harry can't find peace in the kind 
of "I can help myself" methods of dealing with death, the kind 
of "fairy tale" or "seance" stuff he tries (the Mirror, talking to 
the ghost). Then he encounters Luna and true peace begins to come 
from her steady faith in the life to come.

Do you have to be a Christian to appreciate that? Not at all. But if 
someone thinks that Rowling wrote the chapter without her own 
Christian world view affecting it, I think they might be trying too 
hard to cut Christianity OUT of the books.

On a related note, I am one of those who have to contend personally 
with the right-wingers who give Christianity a bad name and who want 
to ban Potter. I can't tell you how grateful I am when I see 
Rowling's Christian faith shine out of the text. It makes it so much 
easier for me to explain to those whose minds are closed up tight 
that they are missing the whole point.

I swear, some of them would only be happy if Jesus DID jump out at 
the end. *sigh*

Steve
The Lexicon