Is Harry Potter the Son of God?

[or.phan_ann]

No: HPFGUIDX 171077

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "abbey" <abbey at ...> wrote:

> The article, "Is Harry Potter the Son of God?" <snip> presents     
  > persuasive evidence from the books and from interviews with
Rowling   > that the Harry Potter story is, in fact, an intentional
Gospel        > allegory written with evangelistic intention, and that
this will      > become abundantly clear in the final book. 

Ann:
I'm afraid I'm not convinced. The article says that Harry's surname
connotes Christ via a quotation from Isaiah. But any number of
surnames would suggest Christ more readily (off the top of my head,
Carpenter, Fisher, Lyon, Lamb) and Isaiah is in the Old Testament, so
the line can only be addressing God the Father, Who is *not* the same
as the Son. Blood symbolism is pretty widespread. Jesus came as a
friend to sinners, but to suggest that Luna's a sinner because she's
odd or Hagrid is because he's half-giant is at best ill-considered. I
could go on. Also, the article only discusses whether Harry can be
seen as a Christ figure, not whether the series is intentionally
evangelistic.

On the other hand, I do think that JKR's Christianity does have some
effect on the series. Voldemort has some Satanic qualities and the
graveyard scene at the end of GoF, in my opinion, resembles a Black
Mass. As Sistermagpie says, the trial in OotP isn't much like Jesus'
trial, but as one of the most famous trials in Western culture I
should think that it was at least at the back of her mind. And her
ideas of Good and Evil are obviously Christian-influenced. But I don't
think we should take this too far. The Wizarding World is obviously
religious (there's the Fat Friar and St. Mungo's, for instance) but
JKR hasn't gone into too much detail about this, I assume to avoid
offending anyone. (There are old debates in the archives about
religion in the Wizarding World, if anyone wants to get into that; see
part of Message 34239 and downthread.) As far as I remember, none of
the characters we've seen are practicing Christians, a slightly odd
choice for an evangelically-minded series. As for using the knowledge
of JKR's faith to predict DH, well, I'm not convinced it'll come out
as any more than Good things happening, and the famous plot twist from
the Gospels being re-used. 
 
But JKR's treatment of religion does leave out some interesting
things. This is a milieu in which souls and the afterlife are maybe
not facts of life, but certainly empirically verifiable in a way that
nothing spiritual in the real world is. No-one in the Wizarding World
can ignore the existence of souls. What's that going to do for
religion? Suppose the facts of life in the Wizarding World contradict
religions? Isn't this something JKR should have mentioned by now?
What's their afterlife like? Why isn't Harry interested in this - I
know he's not interested in anything, but this is life after death for
crying out loud! Why, if a person can live without a soul (poor Barty
Crouch Jr.!), should a Horcrux keep someone alive? I have a nasty
feeling that JKR's overlooked some very basic aspects of the
Potterverse...

> montims:
> Well, to be quite candid, if the Potter series IS "an intentional  
> Gospel allegory written with evangelistic intention", that will    
> destroy it for me and I will feel manipulated
 
Ann:
I understand this. It would feel rather manipulative to put all the
evangelistic content in the last book, as if JKR had suddenly
announced that she was uninterested in the series and just wanted her
readers' souls. You know the saying "There's only one thing men want"?
Same thing. If explicit Christian content had been in all the books so
far, that might be different.

> Bart:
> That is part of what makes the horcrux so terrible; if you lose a  
> piece of your soul, you lose your ability to make choices. Morty has
> an illness which prevents him from being able to make choices; by  
> making the horcruxes, he lost the chance of ever being cured.

Ann:
I disagree. Not only does canon shoot this down - Voldemort made his
first Horcrux at seventeen, and we know he's made choices since then,
such as killing the Potters - but it goes against JKR's theme of
choice being what matters, *which you rely on for the idea of a
Horcrux depriving its owner of free will*. That is, it's
self-contradictory. Since we're discussing Christianity today, I'll
also mention the Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard (Matthew
20:1-16) - we get a chance until the eleventh hour.

Ann