Christians in HP - in a purely historical way(was:Re: Christianity in HP)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 128490

> Geoff:
> If a British person, not used to going to church or Christmas
services,  wanted to sing a carol or something "Christmassy", 
I don't think "God  rest you merry, gentlemen" would be in the 
top ten.

Pippin:

Sirius's knowledge of carols needn't come from family or chapel:

"...the suits of armour had all been bewitched to sing carols
whenever anyone passed them. It was quite something to hear 
'Oh Come, All Ye Faithful' sung by an empty helmet that only knew 
half the words.

Several times, Filch the caretaker had to extract Peeves from inside
the armour, where he had taken to hiding, filling the gaps in the
songs with lyrics of his own invention, all of which were very rude." 
--GoF ch 22

It could be that the hippogriffs version is the only one Sirius
knows<g>.

It seems like someone enchanted those helmets to sing, but now nobody 
knows or cares enough to renew the spell.  This, I'm sure, is meant
to echo the situation in RL Britain. 

It's probably difficult for Americans who haven't been to Britain to
imagine how much Britain's religious past physically dominates its 
present. The biggest buildings in older American towns are usually 
banks or courthouses. 

Imagine every town square dominated by its large (and largely empty) 
parish church instead. A churchgoing Briton (like JKR) can't help 
but  be aware that Christianity used to be far more important to her
countrymen than it is now.

Just IMO, I think JKR is addressing herself to readers who are
nominally Christian but ethically humanist, trying to show that 
a problem with humanism is that it's too narrow -- because the 
concept of 'human' inevitably devolves to "people like us."  

Pippin