J.K. Rowling, a church goer, opens up about the Christian and religious dimensions of her Harry Potter books:
What about you? Do you think the books are Christian, for Christians, good for Christians, dangerous for Christians? Are these books the next Chronicles of Narnia?
“The truth is that, like Graham Greene, my faith is sometimes that my faith will return. It’s something I struggle with a lot,” she revealed. “On any given moment if you asked me [if] I believe in life after death, I think if you polled me regularly through the week, I think I would come down on the side of yes — that I do believe in life after death. [But] it’s something that I wrestle with a lot. It preoccupies me a lot, and I think that’s very obvious within the books.”
That, by the author’s own acknowledgement, “Harry Potter” deals extensively with Christian themes may be somewhat ironic, considering that many Christian leaders have denounced the series for glamorizing witchcraft. When he was known simply as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Pope himself condemned the books, writing that their “subtle seductions, which act unnoticed … deeply distort Christianity in the soul before it can grow properly.”
For her part, Rowling said she’s proud to be on numerous banned-book lists. As for the protests of some believers? Well, she doesn’t take them as gospel.
“I go to church myself,” she declared. “I don’t take any responsibility for the lunatic fringes of my own religion.”
John Granger has written some interesting books on this subject. He postulates the themes in Harry Potter support a Christian worldview, rather than undermine it. http://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/
I read them all as they came out–I’m a Christian, I saw the themes, they were good for me. There can’t be a next Narnia–Rowling is not Lewis. But these books are good for us all. I think they invite many more non-Christian readers than Narnia does.
The last book in the series had a Christ-like ending. Unfortunately, the last movie changed the most important part of the story, the ending. Sad, sad, sad…
Here’s the best essay on the final scenes of the final book and the way the movie mutes the gospel nature of it all:
http://www.swordandploughshare.com/main-blog/2011/7/16/de-theologizing-harry-or-the-death-of-the-death-of-death.html
The Christian symbolism in the Harry Potter books/movies is incredibly powerful. I just saw the last movie and was blown away by how well Rowlings captured the fallen nature of humanity, the redemptive work of Christ, and the promise of God’s kingdom fulfilled in the wrap-up of the series. As much as I love Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, I think Rowlings’s retelling of the story of salvation is the better of the two.
Tim, what part was changed?
Well, they are not “Christian” books — whatever that might mean — but I do believe that they will be a combination of the next Narnia/Lord of the Rings. Not because Rowling is either Lewis or Tolkien … but because they catch the imaginations of the current, post-modern generations and fill them with hope in the midst of their circumstances. They are books where kids see themselves in the midst of messy lives and get a glimpse of what it could be (good or bad) based on the choices they make … the assumptions they make about others … the conclusions they draw about what is happening to them.
Narnia was a purposeful allegory — it resonates with Christians and non-Christians alike. Middle Earth was purposely NOT allegory — it resonates with Christians and non-Christians alike. Hogwarts is a purposeful and creative storytelling of historic Christian themes — it resonates with Christians and non-Christians alike.
In some ways, these seven books may be more influential … because they are set more closely to our world than Middle Earth or Narnia. And the opportunities they give to adults to dialog with young people are priceless because the situations in the lives and the situations of the characters are something they can relate to.
The “magic” makes it fun and helps process frustration and see possibilities outside their own selves and abilities.
And the story of Severus Snape is one of the most important … I think, actually, the most important. The story of repentance and resiliency and faithfulness. More than it being a story about Harry Potter versus Voldemort … it is a story about loving one’s enemies, even if it doesn’t feel like loving. It is a story of cHesed — of covenant-keeping.
I wish they could have done some things better in the movies — I thought the same about the Narnia movies and the LOTR movies, too. Face it — movies cannot do what books can do.
And, Tim … I think they got part of the ending right on: Harry conversation with his second son at he gets ready to board the Hogwarts Express says it all, really.
The Harry Potter books may not be like Narnia or LOTR to the Boomer generation, but yet another wonderful British author will transform and continue to influence the youth of today and tomorrow … and I am grateful to God for that.
I can only speak from the movies. I thought there were some wonderful messages in them. I think there also was very scary evil that I wouldn’t want to introduce to young minds. I am not saying JKR invented some new forms of evil, but I think the human mind can be hurt through the combination of evil and creativity. Is it proverbs that mentions inventors of evil? I am speaking more of myself on this… My creative nature has troubled me GREATLY as I have grown older, and seen more corruption and hate. It’s painful to have the mind function in creative evil. ( I think a young mind takes in a lot of ‘new’, and the Harry Potter series is powerful. Depending on each individual’s longings, much good or bad could be taken from the story. I don’t think the story is ‘bad’ or ‘evil’ I like it very much.
But some caution is wise I think. Some of the most destructive things in life were learned through observing passionate people. Wether in story or real life.
I’m glad it’s not Narnia; Lewis wore his religion on his sleeve, and it put me right off the books when I was a kid! I can see the Christian themes in the books, but they’re better in the background, where they don’t intrude on the storytelling.
I tend to think people over spiritualize things when they want it to jive with their own personal theology about God. Although I believe there are some spiritual truths to be found in the Harry Potter films, I think they fall short of God’s full story. But, I can also say the same for Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Narnia.
However, one theme that I thought was central to the Harry Potter films was the importance of community over individualism. Although Potter was the hero, protagonist, and chosen one, he certainly couldn’t have survived without the help of his small community of fellow friends. And, that is one integral part of living and serving in the kingdom of God… community. For that, I applaud Rowlings and her films for vividly portraying the importance of it.
J K Rowling. Genius. The Harry Potter books are right up there with Narnia and LOTR – all three have had a huge impact in our family.
There are themes of good vs. evil, loving your neighbor, loyalty, self-sacrifice, etc. In a very general way one could argue that Harry is portrayed as a sort of Christ-figure, in that he is prophesied to overcome the ultimate Evil One, Voldemort, and he does so by sacrificing himself. However, to suggest that these books are “Christian” in the same ways that C. S. Lewis’ Narnia books are would be to completely ignore the significant ways they deviate from Christian themes and values. Magic use is glamorized, as is delinquency for the sake of good, a sort of positive “the ends justify the means.” Defiance of authority, even good authority figures, is winked at or even justified in the interest of fun, adventure, and “saving the day.”
Yes, they definitely have Christian themes found in them. I have read them all several times and my two boys are reading them and I have had wonderful discussions about courage, sacrifice, loyalty, friendship, etc. Also, we have discussed the Christ-figures in the books and resurrection scenes that occur in every book with a Christ symbol present. John Granger’s book “How Harry Cast His Spell” is an excellent resource discussing the Christian elements in the series. Connie Neal’s “The Gospel According to Harry Potter” is another book defending the Christian themes in HP. Harry Potter, unknown to many, has some deep literay qualities such as literary alchemy (common with Shakespeare, Dickens, and Lewis), chiastic structure, narrative misdirection, and influenced by the English literary tradition (see Granger’s “Harry Potter’s Bookshelf”, Travis Prinzi’s “Harry Potter and Imagination”, and James Thomas of Pepperdine “Repotting Harry Potter.”)
Patrick, brother, are you saying I need to read one or all?
Scot … you can’t read just one of the Potter books….just be grateful you didn’t have to wait a year for the next in the series
I’ve used the work of cinema critic Lloyd Baugh to argue that Harry Potter is a Christ-figure.
http://tinyurl.com/3bdnv8w.
In 12 different ways.
steve taylor
Kris, I second your recommendation of John Granger aka the Hogwart’s Professor’s works. He has written several books on the subject. Being both educated in the classics and an Orthodox Christian, he is able to tease out the many Christian and Medieval strands which run throughout the books.
Thank God for J.K. Rowling, who helped ignite the moral imagination of my two daughters.
Scot: I’d be very surprised if you could stop at one book.
I’ve read all 7 at least 3 times. They’re a ripping good yarn, & easy to love. I saw the last movie last week as my birthday treat (thirty-thirteen this year) & was teary eyed as I saw Hogwarts being damaged…
Apart from lack of time why would you not read them?
This is really very fascinating. The Christians circles I’ve been around for the last forever, all were hell bent on how bad HP was. I wasn’t interested in the books so stayed out of the issue. My son, 21, having never read the books or see the movies just went through the movies this year and enjoyed them thoroughly and was amazes at how many positive themes were woven throughout. He was especially amazed at the primary theme being the power of love, the strongest magic. Well, I might have to read them, and at least watch the movies.
Personally, I thought the books got better as they went along. The first had the least to do with mythic or biblical themes. It was a great tale, with lots of fun dialog but not terribly thought-provoking. Each one picked up steam, though, and became more multi-layered and engaging. They captured the minds of young and old just at the time when many cultural prophets thought books were headed out, so I thank God for them just for that wonderful truth. The later books definitely have more distinctive Christian themes/ideas/characters – but they’re just increasingly better stories told with better and better writing, in my book. And I love good story-telling and good writing. Because I wasn’t raising my family when they were published, I didn’t work so hard to find Christian connections for my kids as many of your commenters have – but my grandkids found them all on their own. They are worth reading, Scot – though I don’t know when you’ll ever have the time. You have more energy than any other 10 people I know – but you also do more reading and writing than should be humanly possible!
This series is truly some of the most creative and delightful stuff out there and you just might get a real kick out of that. My advice? Don’t read them searching for “Christian” themes – read them because they’re fun and entertaining and capture the imagination in ways not much does these days.
Kevin #12: I agree with your concern regarding “the ends justify the means.” This was my reaction as well, at least with some of the earlier books. This seems to recede in the later books as the struggle between good and evil becomes much more of a community affair as opposed to HP-vs-world.
I think the best thing about the series is the books are (1) a fun and engaging look into the British prep school world and (2) they are full of interesting topics of a spiritual nature (Christian and otherwise) that can be used to engage young people (and some older ones) in conversation.
another thought–I loved the way that Rowling aged the characters. I remember thinking that I could tell that they were no longer children of 11 but young teens. Scot, you must start at book 1 and read them in order–there’s really no other way to understand the story. Each book is a school year Harry and friends are 11 when it starts and 18 when it ends.
There are Christian elements to Harry Potter, yes, but it’s not a knock on either the books or Rowling to conclude that it’s still a doubting, postmodern form of Christianity. It’s a wonderful story; the seven books are well worth reading, and fine for just about any age (with appropriate adult supervision at younger ages, of course — Rowling deals with weighty themes like death). But don’t expect either the allegory of Lewis or the thoroughly-woven Roman Catholic worldview of Tolkien. It’s a series full of questioning hope that Christianity’s claims may be true, almost as if Rowling is asking whether Christianity may indeed be the “true myth” that Tolkien commended to Lewis.
I remember right after my wife and I finished reading book 7, one of the first things we said was that all the conservative Christian haters on Harry Potter needed to make a huge apology to Rowling for completely missing the point and ironically trashing a series that in fact turned out to be so explicitly Christian.
# 14 Scot – thought you didn’t read fiction
If you do, it has to be all 7.
I agree with Diana (#20) that as the story unfolds in the latter half of the book series, it gets better and better — and, imho, the spiritual themes are readily apparent. I don’t think a Christian reader will need to look very hard to see theological elements in the story.
Tim (#3), I was disappointed as well at what was omitted/changed in the dialogue of the last movie. The book ending was far richer.
My opinion of HP has changed over the years as the story has emerged, and as my faith has changed/grown. I really admire J.K. Rowling’s honest admission that this is the nature of her faith as well… Questions are a normal, ongoing part of her relationship with God and in church/community.
Patrick (#11), I’m with you — J.K. Rowling is a literary genius right up there with Lewis and Tolkien. Her imagination and giftedness in writing are marvelous!
Scot, I hope you can find time to read all 7 books. HP is not just for children
My teen daughter is re-reading all the books now, and discovered J.K. Rowling’s website — which, as it turns out, is as imaginative and engaging as the books!
I’ve never had a problem with the Harry Potter books. The few fundamentalists in our area who did seem to be more vociferous than realistic. People will always stand against what they don’t understand.
I wonder if Lewis received the same criticisms for Narnia.
I, for one, am thankful for the books.
If anything, I’d say that Rowling’s ending was TOO overtly religious. She in fact once made the comment that she didn’t want to talk much about her faith (while still writing the books) because people might guess the ending. Surprise! Harry = Sacrifice and Resurrection.
There’s definitely a lot of bold imagination in those books that sets it apart from the pack–although I wouldn’t exactly call them genius. Rowling consistently showed her lack of writing proficiency in extremely forced characterizations, drama and death pulled out of thin air like a soap opera, important plot lines meandering around until disappearing without purpose altogether, etc. etc. etc.
Regardless, I wish that opposing Christians could have gotten the message that fantasy fiction is not intrinsically evil without the need of their being Christian allegory. Allegory does not negate evil. If allegorical magic can be okay, so can plain old fictional magic.
In fact, Tolkien thought that this was so because fictional magic is nearly allegorical of deep spiritual truth in and of itself. Magic is Creative. It is the power of our words. The ability to make a sun green, a man yellow, the burden light, or a stormy sea peaceful.
He likened magic to adjectives. Adjectives modify concepts instantaneously, and so does the concept of magic in the sense of a story. Moreover, he called it right and natural that we should yearn for this ability to Create with such raw power. If we are made in the image of our Creator, Tolkien says, we are inherently Creative. It is our purpose and stories are the fuel to our fire, as it were.
Moreover, he says any story–no matter how fictional–must in some sense be based on the truth. For we have not the power to conjure up new reality like God. We can only play the hand we are dealt with (Tolkien calls us ‘Sub-Creators’). Therefore, one purpose Tolkien claims stories serve is to investigate and look at truth from different angles than we are altogether used to so as to get a more full and rich picture of what is good and what is right. This purpose can be accomplished badly or well–but no actual story can accomplish it not at all!
Alan Jacobs, mentioned earlier in Scot’s blog, had a good article on Harry Potter in First Things back in 2000. You can read the article here:
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2007/01/harry-potters-magic-28.
How timely. I have two grandsons visiting from San Diego (one is 10 and one 12). They both have read all seven HP books and seen all 8 movies (book 7 is presented in 2 movies). My daughter, their mother, said they literally devoured the books. She is now reading the books; she’s on book 4. A literature prof at a local, well-known Christian university in our town thinks the HP books are wonderful forays into values the Christian faith affirms.
When they first came out, my aunt was horrified that my daughter was allowed to read the books as her preacher had been very vocal in warning the congregation about them.
Seriously, it was like she was deeply questioning our parenting skills simply based on what her church told her. She had not read the books.
I calmed my wife down, told my aunt to not believe everything her pastor said, and kept on raising my child as I saw fit. But I didn’t appreciate the conflict in my family solely generated by a preacher I didn’t even know and who probably had not even read the books.
However, it was a great lesson for my daughter in the ins and outs of the church, e.g. law vs. love, blindly accepting what you are told vs. intellectual inquiry, being in the world vs. withdrawing from it.
I forgot to note that our own preacher saw nothing wrong with HP and later used clips from the movie in a sermon.
I will admit that the overt sorcery and spells made me uncomfortable. Kids want to emulate and even when it’s just for fun, playing around with casting spells and such is uncomfortable for me. To my eye, there is something of a different hue to the witchcraft of Narnia.
And yet, we took it as a story-telling device. Our son loved the stories. The stories will be part of his happy childhood memories. It has encouraged him to read and appreciate character development and moral dilemmas. In general, good examples and acts of courage are honored. It has been a bonding thing to enjoy the stories together.
One example I like to repeat is when a boy is awarded big points for standing up to his friends because sometimes standing up to your friends requires greater courage than standing up to your enemies. That’s a life lesson if I’ve ever heard one!
The Potter books are definitely not Narnia–they’re better. Lewis was a great non-fiction writer. His characters in his fiction were just mouthpieces for his ideas, though.
Re #1, John Granger has an article in the current issue of Christianity Today titled, “Harry Potter is Here to Stay, Why the last movie is only the beginning of the Harry Potter phenomenon.” Reading the article solidified my decision to read the books.