Religion in US, UK, Hogwarts Schools

[DANCERWH86 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 128562

Moonmyyst Wrote:
<<<< <snip> But just because JKR is a Christian, it does not mean that HP is a re-telling of the bible and the morals of the bible 
are not exclusive to Christians <snip>. Morals are universal.  The students at Hogwarts are from all different backgrounds.  They are not re-named characters from the bible.  Harry is not Jesus.  Hate 
to tell you folks, but, Harry Potter is just a book.  It is not 
the bible. <snip> >>>>


 I honestly agree that Harry Potter is not Christian on a large scale. I don't mean that it's immoral or anything of that sort, 
but that it is not meant to be a treatise on Christianity and the bible. Comparisons between Harry and Jesus I think are much more rooted in the archetypes of literature (the hero/savior figure). 
The fact that Harry is the savior of the wizarding world and so 
there is a literary connection there, but Luke Skywalker is like 
the savior of the rebels in Star Wars, but he isn't a standard allegorical symbol of Christ. Christianity has had a historically distinct impression on the Western World (a fact I'm fairly certain has been discussed here) so these ideas and archetypes may have initially grown out of this. So I think JKR's perception of a hero may be influenced by these ideas, but it is the same way all western writers are (subconciously). 

In other words, I agree that Harry Potter is not meant to be a complete allegory of the bible, but I do feel it can be interpreted that way by some mainly because a great many stories with the same components can be read that way whether they are meant to be or not. They're things that we see over and over again that are almost not even registered in our minds anymore. I do not think it is meant to convert the masses as you said nor is it suggestign that everyone should be Christian. I think it's more the mythological background 
of the bible not the theological/belief background of it. And I am 
a practicing Catholic so it isn't as though I don't want this to be true because it would upset my love of the books (just to add a bit of perspective). 

I mean the books were up for banning in my fornmer elementary 
school, but it was for the violence factor not the religious one. 
We talked about it a great deal in my religion classes in high 
school and it is not deemed (by my religion teachers anyhow) as a "christian" book. This means that they didn't feel there was anything wrong with it in a literary sense (one of the nuns who taught me religion was also my English teach junior year where I wrote a paper on Harry Potter as a hero compared with Achilles...
she mentioned really liking the HP books as fun literature), but if 
I suggested it was a biblical allegory (we did talk about some 
actual ones) they wouldn't have gone for it. I don't see the direct correlation I suppose that would make Harry = Jesus. Especially 
since I can't see who else would fit into this allegory.
 
Lindsay

 
~~~~~
I once saw a forklift lift a crate of forks. And it was way too literal for me! ~Mitch Hedberg