By Steve Sommers
I was wondering where God is in the Harry Potter books. Don'tget me wrong. I've read them all and I plan on reading the nextone when I can get my hands on it - all seven thousand pages, orwhatever monster volume J.K. Rowlings comes out with, becausenobody edits her anymore. (I'm not such a huge fan, but I findthese books pleasantly diverting enough so that I read each oneall the way through).
But as to my question, after reading all of these books I wasjust struck by the fact that nobody ever goes to church in herbooks. Even the cruel Aunt and Uncle who care for young Harry inthe muggle(non-magical) world never go to church. It seems to methat she Rowlings posits a sort of agnostic or secular type ofEngland where no one much seems to have any sort of spiritualphilosophy, outside of perhaps just the existence of magic.
There are ghosts in her books which indicates some sort of afterlife. They function sort of as a comic relief and they don't domuch of anything except basically hang around and makeconversation every now and then. There's no indication that theyever faced judgement or will or might go either to Heaven orHell or even what unfinished business they might need to finishon the Earth. Major characters who have died, Harry's parents,Sirius Black, don't become ghosts. So, what happens to them?
There's never any mention of God. There's also no mention of theDevil. And there's never any mention of where magic comes fromor why there's even magic in the world. (I know. The evangelicalanswer is: The Devil. But these are her books and it's for herto answer). This finally makes her books rather unsatisfyingbecause she lacks a unifying framework to put all of her storiesin.
I haven't dismissed the idea that her books are in themselvesmetaphors for a Christian theology. In this case, Hogwartsschools would represent the world, the students are us, LordVoldemort would be the Devil (obviously) and Dumbledore would beGod, you know with his long white beard and all-knowingness.Maybe then Harry is Jesus. Well, I'm sure I'm not the firstperson to come up with this interpetation.
Generally, I don't think Christian symbolism works too well infantasy. I'm thinking of C.S. Lewis's Lion, Witch and Wardrobebooks, whichI read when I was eight or nine. I read a few ofthem and then stopped when I figured out what was going on. Thefantasy elements were fun, but the preachiness turned me off.And I got enough of that in church, anyways.
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