The Role of Religion in the Potterverse was Magical Latin

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 186168

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, No Limberger <no.limberger at ...> wrote:

> Any artist knows that their work will be viewed in a myriad of different ways when made public and is beyond the control of the artist.  In the case of JKR and her artwork called Harry Potter,
 I find no convincing evidence to suggest that this artwork was intended for a Christian-only audience.

Pippin:
I don't think that's what is meant by saying a work has Christian themes. We certainly don't mean it that way when we say that a work has medieval themes! We mean that it has themes which are commonly  associated with the middle ages in Europe. Castles, for example, or knights and dragons. That other societies erected castles, developed a warrior class with religious obligations, and imagined monsters for them to fight doesn't keep us from thinking of these things as medieval themes.

JKR has introduced themes which are commonly associated with Christianity in Western literature. I don't think it shows any disrespect to other traditions to study these as Christian themes, or to assume that the British WW as JKR depicts it was probably Christianized at the same time as RL Britain. 

Clearly we have the leftovers of a feudal system in which witches and wiards once participated, and feudalism in Europe was an attempt to organize society according to Christian principles. The Fat Friar is obviously a Christian character, but it seems to be overlooked that a British knight of 1492 and a baron circa the year 1000 would also have been Christian, since orders of nobility could not be bestowed otherwise.

In addition, though the popular mind may have attributed supernatural powers to unbelievers, officially the medieval Christian theory of witchcraft simply didn't allow for unbaptized witches. The devil only needed to traffic for souls which had  been saved. That is, if the Muggles of old had not considered their witch and wizard neighbors to be Christian, they would have  needed a different theory to explain their powers. 

In JKR's universe, Christian Muggles must have invented this specious theory of witchcraft to attack their equally Christian neighbors, just as the DE-controlled Ministry in JKR's story invents a specious theory about mudbloods stealing magic from wizards in order to attack the equally magical Muggleborn.

Pippin