The Role of Religion in the Potterverse was Magical Latin

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 186189

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

No Limberger:
> The argument often being presented here
> of Harry Potter being a "Christ-figure", is imo, an
> internal Christian argument between those Christians
> who have chosen to identify Harry Potter with Jesus
> and those Christians who reject Harry Potter over
> witchcraft, wizardry and homosexuality.  

Geoff:
I would say not.

I am an evangelical Christian but that does not make 
me disassociate myself with gay people. These folk 
do not wake up one day and say "From today I am 
going to be gay". It is not a choice. the choice lies 
in how they work out their orientation in their lives.

It is strange that many people get hot under the collar 
about JKR's books and yet seem to be quite happy with 
the works of C S Lewis and J R R Tolkien. Lewis has the 
White Witch, an evil witch who has Narnia in thrall under 
a spell and is not slow to use dark magic on anyone 
getting in her way. Tolkien has Sauron, and his former 
master Morgoth, as evil sorcerers who also maintain their 
sway with dark magic and the recruitment of evil-minded 
beings to do their dirt work for them.

The question of the Christ figure, for me, is that no human 
person can be Christ or carry the responsibility of Christ in 
overcoming sin. Jesus was God in human form; no human is.
Harry, like us, can be Christ-like which we can be; that, as I 
have said before, does not make us infallible, saintly or 
superior. Despite what another contributor has written, I do 
not see that JKR created a character irritating in his 
saintliness. I see him as an Everyman, like us, trying to find 
his way through life and deterine the best way forward. I see 
myself in him as a teenager trying to get into adulthood with 
a minimum of mess-ups.

My belief is that the internal dichotomy which you mention 
above stems from my last paragraph and not the roots which 
you suggest.

No Limberger:
>  In none of my postings have I insisted that anyone not view 
> Harry Potter as a Christ figure. If you wish to view Harry Potter
>  as a Christ figure, then do so; but not everyone does nor 
> should that point of view be imposed upon them.
 
Geoff:
Which runs counter to the many posts which have discussed JKR's 
approach to the underlying ethos and culture of her books which 
are UK-based,

Perhaps you have not been insistent, but the obverse to your 
statement is also true. You come over in some of your posts as 
being critical of those who disagree with your findings. This may 
be the old problem of trying to express views in writing without 
the nuances of face-to-face conversation available to us. Perhaps 
I do the same; if so, I apologise,  but I try to work to what I said in 
a post yesterday:
"As you have said, we perceive reality in the way we want to perceive 
it. In that case, we have to accept that other people have different 
ideas without trying to discredit or rubbish those views or bulldoze 
through our own."