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Harry Potter inspired by Christianity
By Julie | October 21, 2007
Warning: spoilers ahead!
I have a confession to make. A confession that will leave some Christians gasping, wondering if I have a true alliance to God, and make others stand up and yell, “Sing it sister.” Let me just say this and let the shunning and praising begin…. I. Love. Harry. Potter. I do. I love the entire series so much I wish it weren’t over. I want to follow Harry, Ron and Hermione even deeper into their make believe world that was written so brilliantly it seems real.
I had vaguely heard the name Harry Potter when Marc decided to read the books. He was an agnostic or atheist at the time. As he read he told me a little about them. I listened, as a courtesy, with absolutely no curiosity. “Really, Marc, huh. Wow, that’s interesting.” But I didn’t find it interesting. I had absolutely 100% no desire to read a book about witchcraft, fiction or not. My lack of desire had nothing to do with me being Christian. I just did not, and still do not find witchcraft interesting. It’s Harry, his world, his friends and his moral dilemma of good and evil that held me glued to the books.
When the first movie was in the theatre Marc wanted to go see it, and he wanted me to go with him. He thought it would mean more to me if I read the books first, and if I gave them a chance I’d love them. So I read book one. And I fell in love with J.K. Rowling’s ability to weave an entire story around this Harry boy, in a make believe world that didn’t seem make-believe at all. Here’s something else Christians don’t want me to say: J.K. Rowling is a genius. A genius for creating such a sympathetic character! Who couldn’t love the boy who was never loved because he was different?
I spent the next week and a half reading the next three books. We did not have kids then. I came home from work, grabbed a book, barely acknowledged Marc, or any other aspect of life outside of Harry’s pages until it was time to go to bed. The night I finished the fourth book I stayed up until 4:30 reading. It ended in such a shocking, sad way that I couldn’t sleep. I got up and paced the house, wondering where J.K. Rowling would take us next, feeling so sorry for Cedric’s family, and he was barely even a character! (Years later I still quote, “‘Kill the spare,’ and Cedric lay dead.”) I was at work by 9 o’clock that day, exhausted, but was worth it!
The fifth book was released and I had a six week old, very colicky baby, who cried ten to twelve hours a day. Marc and I both wanted to read it. We read aloud to each other. He’d get home at night, one of us would hold a crying baby, pacing, feeding, rocking, while the other read. If the screaming got bad we went for a drive to calm our son. We drove all over town, one of us reading, the other driving, until the sun set. Then we came home and read until we were exhausted. We went to bed knowing our colicky baby was going to be up in an hour or two. Back then we were convinced he’d never sleep through the night, we just hoped he’d hit the three hour mark.
The sixth book was released and I was a couple months pregnant with my second son. Marc had been a Christian for a couple months. Because of his conversion, our baptism, my pregnancy and recent return to work, our lives changed drastically in a short period. We took our oldest on one of the most terrible vacations I’ve ever experienced. I had 24-hour morning sickness. My son was a scheduled kid whose schedule was left at home, along with his bed, the only place he slept successfully. He was grumpy, whiny and wild. I was sick. And Marc tried to cope with both of us. Life was a yucky mess. But as we drove, and in the quiet moments in our hotel, we read Harry’s tale, fell in love with Ginny with him, and marveled how J.K. Rowling referenced a spiritual realm that seemed accurate as she waged a battle of good and evil. We wondered if she could be a Christian. As we wondered, Christians blasted her for leading children to witchcraft.
Book seven came out while we were visiting family. On the drive back, we tried to keep the kids occupied so we could bang out as many pages as possible before we had to stop. Once home, we read to each other again, every chance we could. So many times a sentence would catch us, a sentence that seemed so deep, and so Christian, we had to wonder, could J.K. Rowling be a Christian, and could she be trying to make Christian statements?
Two different Bible verses appeared on two tombstones when Harry went to see his parent’s graves. And the deluminator! Wow. I was blown away by this. The deluminator appears to be nothing more then a special flashlight. But when Ron gets all huffy and leaves the group, he is unable to get back. Later he clicks the deluminator and a little ball comes off of it. It leads him away, and then it enters into him, straight into his heart and guides him back to Harry and Hermione. It was not until the light entered him that he was able to find the way to where he needed, and longed to go. The light inside him led him, and people can’t see this as Christian metaphor? In the grand finale Harry ends up sacrificing himself for the good of all people, becoming their savior, then beating death by his own resurrection.
When we were done reading, I ventured to the Internet to see what people thought of the book. Some Christians congratulated her, presuming she must’ve been a Christian to write a resurrection story. Other Christians blasted the books and tried to shield their kids from the series they called evil. A study guide was written to use the books to educate kids on Christianity. This ticked atheists, claiming the study guide stole the meaning of books, and why oh why do we have to put faith into everything? Others screamed there was no way Christianity played into the books’ themes, it was a coincidence, and those crazy Christians need to quit trying to brainwash their children.
Last week in an interview, J.K. Rowling confessed Christianity inspired Harry Potter. It’s got Christians rattled, saying, “But it couldn’t be, look at the fruit of her spirit!”
In her interview, Rowling said,
“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 I wrestle with a lot. It preoccupies me a lot, and I think that’s very obvious within the books.”
Christians say if she were really a Christian she would never wonder about where she’d spend eternity. I can’t say where Rowling is with God, and I’m not supposed to. But I do know Christians who struggle with the same question. The Christian faith is a journey. There are things I believed two years ago that time has shown me I was dead wrong on. In a few years time I’ll gain more wisdom and realize I’m wrong about even more.
Are the Harry Potter books evil? Have kids read them, then taken up witchcraft? I have heard of some instances where that has happened. I have also heard of kids who never had a desire to read, pick up Harry Potter and suddenly they’re through the books and back to the library to grab more, in different genres and topics. How can a series that gets millions of TV addicts to read be all bad?
This I know: God gives us our talents. And J.K. Rowling is one of the most gifted writers I have ever read. God gave her that talent. God is the God of promotion. No one gets promoted without his consent. It’s impossible to account the success, against all odds; of Harry Potter and not acknowledge the promotion involved in them.
As humans, we want acceptance from the group we associate with. If we don’t get acceptance, we vanish. J.K. Rowling has been blasted by Christians who condemned her books and tried to ban them. She has been criticized; her books have been labeled as evil. Christians have been anything but Christian to her. In the end, she comes forward to profess being inspired by Christianity. Now Christians question whether she’s genuine. Why would she want to be part of our group unless God is real to her? Honestly, if I’d been treated like she was, I would’ve written us off as judgmental hypocrites. But, claiming our faith inspired her? God has to mean something to her, because we certainly haven’t been an alluring, loving, and accepting group to be a part of.
God is at work in this world, He knows who we are, what we need, and what will reach us. I adore fiction. I believe in it. I believe God can use it to pull us into a captivating story, and that story can pull us to Him. He can speak to us through the words on the page, and direct us in a new direction. Christian fiction has so many do’s and don’ts. Do write about Godly things. Do put God in a good life. Do avoid sin. It entertains the Christian who has already committed themselves to God. But, how is fiction going to reach the reader who doesn’t want to read about Christianity, unless it goes into their world, delves into the drug addictions, the divorces, the suicides, the plagues that bind real humans? Maybe, we do have ‘go there’ to that world most Christians think we shouldn’t touch, to prove we’re real, and let God go to work. (Some of us have come from there in our real lives anyway, why shun it?)
J.K Rowling may have written Harry’s final chapter (it breaks my heart, I want more.) But God may not be through with him yet, or her. And if God is at work, we may all end up being even more surprised by Harry.
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