Harry Potter vs. Christianity?

I've just been reading a few essays in a collection of literary criticism focused on the Harry Potter series: Mapping the World of Harry Potter.  While I'm fascinated by the idea of taking popular work (whether fiction, TV, etc.) and looking at it critically, I'm confused by these particular writers' opinions.  Both essays look at the intersection of Harry Potter and religion (Elizabeth DeVos's "It's All About God" and Marguerite Krause's "Harry Potter and the End of Religion"), and while they seem to come to absolutely contrary conclusions, both authors seem to agree on the premise that Harry Potter somehow poses a powerful threat to the world's Christians (the certain individuals "who believe they can only find that magic through narrow interpretation of a very different set of books").

And I'm perplexed.

Krause's argument centers on the idea that Christians' true antagonism to Rowling's books, rather than being enmeshed in a fear of witchcraft in the text, is actually centered on the much more legitimate fear of the absence of any religion whatsoever.  Rowling, Krause argues, presents a world where religion is irrelevant, never thought about, never discussed, and never present in any guise.  Rowling's characters make their decisions with no input from any higher power, relying on themselves for judgments of right and wrong, and rendering all morality to a state of relativity.

And here I have to pause, for this just feels all wrong to me.  Are we really going to argue that there is no moral compass in Rowling's books?  Has there ever been a clearer exploration of good and evil?  Of the impact of small choices upon the fabric of the human soul?  I think where we have diverged, Kraus and I, is in our definitions of religion.  Kraus wants evidence of "an organized system of belief centering on a supernatural being or beings."  In the absence of such organized systems, she sees the absence of God.  I, on the other hand, tend to find organized systems of belief rather irrelevant and unhelpful.  Created by humans in an attempt to claim the divine, they in no way encompass God.  On the contrary, God is present in Harry Potter in every moment of true kindness, every time a friend is willing to die for his or her companions, every decision that chooses goodness, mercy, and love over evil, cruelty, and hatred.  If God is real, the "I am" the bible claims, then Christians should be the last to need labels in order to find God's presence in texts, and in life.

There is no overt mention of Christianity in The Chronicles of Narnia or The Lord of the Rings.  Does that mean they are not Christian texts?  Are they only Christian texts because we can rest assured in the "christian-ness" of the authors?  I hope not.  I hope it is because they are full of things like sacrifice and goodness, the attributes of a God who does not need a name to be recognized.  

Tolkien and Lewis, I think, would be the first to recognize God in the Potter books.  Recognize God, at least in part, for the reasons DeVos puts forward: an awakening of wonder.  They were among the first to argue (passionately and academically) for the significance of fantasy, a genre that reminds us of the true magic we long for.  A magic present in our everyday lives, yet rendered unrecognizable by the blinders we've accepted against truth.  As such, I resonate with much of DeVos's essay, an essay that pleads for new eyes to see the world we live in -- new eyes that Harry Potter grants us.  What makes me uncomfortable is her assumption that this is irreconcilable with the teachings of the church.  Or, at least, that the church has deemed it so.  She suggests that the backlash against the boy with the lightning scar, from religious quarters, is due to his evocation of "awe, faith, longing for the miraculous and divine, and a perception of morality and benevolence" that is deemed by the church as its territory, and its territory alone.

Can she possibly be right?  Have we sunk so far into a power driven war of territory and domination, that we can't stomach the discovery of God in anything but our domain?  Or is it that we fear we've lost what Harry Potter has found? -- the ability to evoke the power of such longing.  I hope not.  I hope the backlash against Rowling and the world she's created is based on far more innocent grounds -- authentic ignorance and misunderstanding.

"How deeply reassuring to know -- from personal experience -- that light truly can be created with words.  And so we identify, at last, the source of Harry Potter's magical appeal: Rowling's magical world, perhaps more than any other fictional realm, validates our most fundamental longing -- a universal desire to access the amazing power that lets there be light and everything upon which that light shines." -DeVos p.75

east-coast autumn

Walking home from the library in lamplight, it took me a while to realize that blowing across the red brick sidewalk, and crunching beneath my flipflops, were the yellow-brown leaves of fall.

The Newport Mansions

On the last stage of the U.S. part of my summer, I'm staying with my family at a friend's condo in Newport, Rhode Island.  The remnant of Gilded Age America, it's the site of the "summer cottages" owned by such families as the Vanderbilts, the Astors, and their millionaire friends.

They're the closest thing America has to palaces.  

When we lived here five years ago (during my senior year of high school), we had a family membership to the Preservation Society of Newport County, which allowed us unlimited entrance to those of the mansions open to the public.  This time I was limited by a ticket to five.

I don't know what it is that draws me back to them so strongly.  Maybe it's the way they seem woven into the fabric (albeit at the fringes) of my family's life, their presence looming over Rhode Island holidays for as long as I can remember.

Or maybe it's the unquenchable longing for a doorway into other worlds -- the desire to experience other times and lives, unbounded by the limits of my single soul.  The desire to understand how other boys and girls, as intrinsically human as myself, lived in ages and styles so foreign to my own.  So beyond the borders of my ability to imagine or comprehend.

Whatever the reason, these marble palaces and dark stone castles, with their ancient trees and lovely walkways, beckon me like friends, mysterious, unknown, yet somehow familiar.

There is the Breakers, the military general of Newport houses, a towering city of unyielding stone.  With lawns reaching to the edge of the cliffs and the wave tossed Atlantic, the Vanderbilt stronghold is gilt, gaudy, and unforgiving.  Filled with Neoclassical art, gold-plated ceilings, and wide open spaces, there is no coziness within the luxury.  But there is beauty in the palatial expanse of the entrance, the light filled corridors, and the outdoor sitting rooms overlooking the sea.  It is a house built for drama and intrigue and grandeur.

Marble House, built by the Vanderbilt younger brother, is as mysterious as its passionate, complex, and iron-willed mistress.  A museum of medieval artifacts, it is exquisite with a beauty that is austere and untouchable.  The most expensive home in America, it was given to Alva Vanderbilt for her 39th birthday.  She responded by divorcing her husband, forcing her daughter into an unwanted marriage, and leading suffragist rallies -- all while shrouding herself in dense, inhuman glamour.

No matter how many times I hear the names of Rosecliff's true owners, it's impossible for me to experience it as anything but the Gatsby mansion, where Jay danced with Daisy to the light of a single candle.  A house of romance and tragedy.  The scene of many films, from The Amistad to True Lies, it's The Great Gatsby that, for me, has made an impression.

Despite it's mottled marble interior, the Elms remains one of my favorite of the mansions.  Perhaps it's the location, across the street from our Newport home, or perhaps it's the 'behind-the-scenes' tour we once took, up into the servants' quarters and kitchens, or, most likely, it's the grounds, sprawling with stone lions, garden rooms, and reading trees.  But whatever the reason, I feel I could happily live there.  =)

And today I saw Chateau-sur-Mer for the first time.  A Victorian castle with rich interiors of polished wood and painted walls, it was delightfully warm and cluttered, but so dimly lit as to make me feel almost blind.  Once the tour was over, I sat and read in a tree for almost an hour.

Quotes from "My Love Affair with England"

The past lives on, in art and memory, but it is not static: it shifts and changes as the present throws its shadows backwards.  The landscape also changes, but far more slowly; it is a living link between what we were and what we have become.
-Margaret Drabble, A Writer's Britain

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings . . .
-William Shakespeare, Richard II

New York, New York! (and what I did there)

I spent yesterday in New York. Woke up at 4:30 to drive to Providence and take the Amtrak into the city. It's embarrassing to admit, but while I've been to several of the world's oldest, largest, most beautiful, and most famous cities (Rome, Cairo, London, Seoul, Paris, etc.), I've never been to the Big Apple.

I loved it.

It was unlike anything I've ever experienced in America.  A world unto itself.  If there is glamour left in this country, then surely it resides there, in the city of brownstone and brick, where age, beauty, and (let's face it) violence intermix, and history has not been flattened like so much unwanted baggage.  There was grandeur there, reminiscent of the glory (and decay) of Rome.



The purpose of the trip was business -- visit the British Consulate and get my Visa -- but most of the day was spent wandering.  Walking through Central Park, exploring Times Square, catching sight of the Empire State Building.  And yes, eating a pretzel.
But it sent shivers down my back to know that all the while I was a stone's throw away from places like Harlem and Hell's Kitchen, place names that are evocative of literature and film, broken dreams and distant hopes.  New York, like all of Europe, is alive with memory.

I even got to see an Off Broadway show.  While it's the West End in London that has really fed my taste for theatre (I've seen over 13 shows there in the course of two trips to the UK), Broadway still echoes in my imagination with memories of my first exposure to Les Miz and my early dreams of being a Broadway singer (never mind that I can't actually sing).



The show itself was an adaptation of C.S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters.  A two person show with one speaking role, and one Acting 2 dream part (all movement, and body, and voice).  Incredibly well done, Mommy and I were given free tickets by a professor from Carnegie Mellon while trying to get a last minute deal at the ticket window.

We got back to Newport around 11:00, exhausted, sore, and happy.