Baptism/Christianity in HP: was Looking for God in Harry Potter

[leslie41]

No: HPFGUIDX 153621

 
> > Leslie41:
> > Your description of what Christ's sacrifice was about.  I would 
> > say it is short sighted because it's not comprehensive enough. 
> 
> Magpie:
> It seems like you're just saying Christ made a sacrifice so any 
> sacrifice is Christlike, which is so general I'm not sure what 
> it's saying about the text.   

Leslie41:
No.  What I'm saying is that saying that all Christ was about was 
the crucifixion and the redemption of mankind is reductive.  Christ 
gave us a paradigm for how to live a perfect life, for example.  And 
simplifying to just that is reductive too.  
 
> > Leslie41:
> > Again, too limiting.  Because of the mystery of the trinity and 
> > Christ's triune nature, Christ is all-in-one.  Parent and child 
> > and the holy spirit as well.  And many more things of which our 
> > limited imaginations cannot even conceive.
> 
> Magpie:
> The fact that Christ and God are the same make Lily's protection 
> of Harry less like Christ's sacrifice, not more.  One's a mortal 
> mother throwing herself in front of her child and dying herself so 
> that he will live.  The other is a god incarnating himself into 
> human form and sacrificing himself to death while still being 
> immortal and thereby repaying a debt of sin to himself that frees 
> mankind from sin.  However beyond the imagination that sacrifice 
> is, Lily's standing in front of her baby is not. 

Leslie41:
Christ's sacrifice is more comprehensive.  That, however, does not 
preclude Lily's sacrifice from being Christlike, especially when we 
consider the other aspects at play at Godric's Hollow.  It's not 
either/or.  And as Tonks has pointed out, the name "Lily" (the plant 
associated with Easter) is significant as well.  And I would point 
out that the name James can be tied to the Apostle James, who 
preached on the importance of doing good works. Then, of course, 
there's the scar.
> 
> > Leslie41:
> > 
> > I don't think it's ever immodest to compare acts of love where 
> > we sacrifice ourselves for others to Christ's sacrifice. As 
> > Christians that is precisely the type of love to which we are to 
> > aspire.  When people ask "what would Jesus do?" that's 
> > essentially what they're attempting--to be Christlike.  
> > Lily's sacrifice was more feral, of course, because of her 
> > mothering instinct.  But again, a Christian would interpret that 
> > instinct as a gift from God, and God's love would be interwound 
> > with a mother's love for her child.
> 
> Magpie:
> Yes, and that brings meaning to someone who's Christian and 
> therefore connects any good act with being Christ-like, but I 
> don't see how it brings meaning to what happened in the story.  
> Lily's sacrifice, in that way, would be Christlike whether Harry 
> had been baptised or not.  

Leslie41:
Sure it would!  But when we take together the other stuff that's 
going on--the scar, her name, James' name, etc., a pattern begins to 
appear.