"Harry Potter and the Christian Critics"

[katycarl]

"Failing to show that Harry was the spawn of Satan, the charge “Harry lies and bends the rules and gets away with it” was then granted Most Favored Damnation status—as though books like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn did not exist and were not classics of the English language. Proponents of such arguments seem to really think that a book in which the whole point was the purification of the hero ought to have a hero who did not need purification."

Go read the whole excellent article by Mark Shea at the First Things blog, www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/.

(Spoiler alert, since it discusses the series as a whole, but do we really have to worry much about that anymore?

(Also, there seem missing logical steps in one of his arguments, namely the comparison of HP-world witches and wizards with the elves and Istari in LOTR. Wasn't preventing the magical element from acting through human nature one of Tolkien's brilliant and very Catholic moves with inventing these species, a brilliance and Catholicity that has been blithely ignored by nearly every one of his imitators? I think, to answer the Christian critics fully, you have to address the fact that Rowling's "magic" looks more like the occult than does Tolkien's, and that humans are the ones doing it, in a little more depth than Shea does here. Still, the article stands as an incisive and insightful deflation of nearly all the points on which faith-driven anti-Potterites harp, and which also trouble us semi-fence-sitters in our attempts to be fairminded.)

[cristina]

I agree; those who say that magic in HP is the same as magic in LOTR ignore the point that magic in LOTR -- understood in the same way as magic is in HP; sometimes JRRT uses the term "magic" but refers to a different thing from magic in HP -- is, precisely, associated with Sauron and Saruman. I also agree that magic in HP looks more like occult than JRRT. The magic is set in our world, and worse, the witches and wizards also celebrate Christmas. The fact that many of the outspoken Christian critics of HP are ex-New Agers themselves does not help the pro-Potter crowd.

As for the rule-breaking in HP: my problem is not with the fact that HP breaks rules; it's with the fact that it's his rule breaking that saves the world. Although to be fair, this problem seems to diminish in books 3 onward.

Whether HP has sparks of genius, whether it has moral lessons, or even whether it does touch on Christian themes overtly or otherwise, is, for me, not an issue. It is possible for a book (or in this case, a series) to have both good elements and bad elements. Furthermore, it is possible for a pagan author (I'm not saying that JKR is) to stumble across Christian themes. The presence of Christian themes in a work simply reflects the universal appeal of those themes. Just because a book has Christian themes does not mean that the book, as a whole, is flawless from both the artistic and moral points of view.

[syme]

I really liked a lot of what Mark Shea had to say here. He certainly makes a lot of good points, as he usually does on any subject matter on which he decides to speak. However, I think he is too positive. In his eagerness to point out the falacies in the arguments of the "Christian critics" he forgets to consider that the series does have some flaws that require attention. As I believed I mentioned earlier (SPOILER WARNING) I was a little upset to find out in the last book about what I can only describe as wizard-assisted suicide. That was rather disturbing. The absence of God is also a problem. Nobody ever mentions God for any reason, even when it seems almost the only reasonable thing to do. It's like an awkward relation no one wants to talk about. At times one really gets the feeling of an "elephant in the room." I completely agree with Shea that the series has very strong Christian themes and symbols (the pheonix, the white stag, direct quotes from the Bible, the importance of selfless sacrifice for others, the "death" and "resurrection" that occur in the last book [which I imagined would happen given JKR's hints about her Christianity affecting the story]), but nevertheless, the fact is that unlike Tolkien's world, which was pre-Christian, this one clearly isn't. Thus, while God *is* definitely present in the way the story was conceived, it is very sad that He is never mentioned explicitly. It seems almost like JKR was afraid of offending the sensibilities of certain readers or something. Of coure, I can't know that, I can only imagine and I don't pretend to judge her. Indeed I greatly admire what she did and don't think it would be easy to bring God explicitly into the books in a smooth way, but I'm just saying there were indeed moments when it was just awkward nobody wondered about Him. It would have been nice to at least get a hint that Christmas and Easter were not just occasions to visit Ron's family.

To be fair, there *was* one instance in which it seemed to me that JKR suggested that the Church (of England???) was present in the wizarding world. It was the "little man in black" that officiates at Dumbledore's funeral and Bill and Fleur's wedding. Was he a wizard-priest? JKR leaves it ambiguous, and I am inclined to interpret it that way. (Which, by the way, would probalby have been the best way to deal with matters of religion in other sections: greater ambiguity--hints of the presence of belief in her characters' lives without going right out and saying: they sat down and prayed. Huh... although now that I think about it, there *was* one instance in which she describes something one of them does, I think Harry, as being "like" a prayer. I forget what it was, but my inclination was to think that JKR was implying that it *was* indeed a prayer. Still, for the most part religion seems to be outside the radar of her characters' concerns, and that is both troubling and unrealistic.)

All that being said, let me be clear that overall I think the Potter series is very admirable and that while it needs to be approached with a discerning mind (or a discerning parent, if one is a child), it is definitely well worth reading and enjoying. Cheers to JKR!

[cristina]

syme said:

All that being said, let me be clear that overall I think the Potter series is very admirable and that while it needs to be approached with a discerning mind (or a discerning parent, if one is a child), it is definitely well worth reading and enjoying. Cheers to JKR!

I wish there were more of these balanced assessments of HP. In discussing HP with others, in real life or online, I get the impression that you have to either rave about HP or hate the entire series with a vengeance. Is it not possible to either like the series but at the same time see flaws in it, or to not like the series but recognize that JKR displays occasional sparks of brilliance?