God in the WW? In JKR's words? / +ADMIN NOTE

[dtbonett]

No: HPFGUIDX 132270

Geoff:
> The Wizarding World, like the others mentioned, is not overtly 
> Christian but, as Jim says, what keeps the story on track is the 
> core theme of love. This is not unique to our faith but the 
> two "great commandments" as emphasised by Christ are the driving 
> force behind the actions of Christian believers.
> 
> If I may pick up on one small point, Lewis was /not/ a Catholic. 

Dorothy:
I also agree with both of you.  The theme of sacrificial love is very
strong in all the Potter books.  I look forward to seeing how it will
play out in the next one.  I do really enjoy the books for this reason
; books that promote these kinds of values--sacrifice, heroism,
loyalty to friends, love for family-- seem to me to be becoming rare.

But, picking up on the point about C.S. Lewis' religion--he was
neither a Catholic nor an evangelical Protestant.  He was Church of
England (Anglican), which is a form of Protestant.  It is true that he
has been very embraced by evangelicals, of whom I am one--and also by
Catholics. I think what he was trying to present in many books (not
just the Narnia ones) was what he called "Mere Christianity" (title of
one of his books which is very interesting)--the core of the Christian
faith that devout believers in Christ, no matter what their
denomination, have in common. He was obviously successful in that,
(and successful in reaching non-Christians too)since he remains such a
hugely popular and best-selling author, more than 50 years after his
death. 

I wouldn't be surprised if Rowling were to last as well: academic
critics may trash her (as they did Lewis, and as they definitely
continue to trash Tolkien) but I think she will outlast them, not only
because the values are satisfying, but boy, can she tell a story and
suck you into the characters, which I think counts more than literary
theories and fashionable cynicism.


logic_alley wrote:
> It's interesting that there aren't any non-Christian/Muggle 
> holidays in the books <snip> They ought to have special Wizard 
> holidays because almost every population develops it's own 
> holidays, and they probably shouldn't celebrate Christmas and 
> Easter. 


Dorothy: 
They do make a very big thing out of Halloween.

I think Rowling did the right thing to leave Christmas and Easter in;
I always get tired in books where everything is completely new, 
nothing familiar; don't like much straight science fiction for this
reason. Rowling does a great job of building a parallel world which
is still tied to the 'normal' one and not completely different. 
Leaving in familiar holidays helps with that; mentioning Christmas and
Easter also helps with a feeling of the time passing and the seasons.

Tolkien is the exception, an author I like to read even though he
invented everything new. But do you know, although he didn't mention
it explicity in the book, his calendar for LOTR was tied to the church
year--for instance, from what I remember, the day that Frodo throws
the ring into Mount Doom is Good Friday.

dorothy


ADMIN NOTE:  The elves have noted that some of the posts in this thread are beginning to veer OT.  We would like to remind posters that every post to HPfGU needs to discuss the *canon works of JK Rowling.*  If you are contemplating a post which discusses only personal views on religion or information about J.R.R.Tolkien, for instance, then you should either bring the discussion back around to its relationship to canon, or you should post your thoughts at our sister list, Off-Topic Chatter [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/ ].

Many thanks!  Shorty Elf, for the HPfGU Admin Team