Harry Potter, culture warrior

Conservative Christians should not fulminate over J.K. Rowling's creation, says Jerry Bowyer, but embrace her books' core messages

It's a pity that so many conservative Christians have identified Harry Potter as their enemy, because he is probably the most effective proponent of the classical Christian view of the world to have appeared in decades.

Of course, with the release yesterday of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," the fifth in the series, the old hubbub has started again: Harry Potter is a wizard; he consorts with witches; the Bible says witchcraft is bad; Harry Potter is bad.

I will not rehearse, in this space, the arguments in favor of liberty of conscience in the matter of Harry Potter. These arguments are valid, but I don't believe they go far enough. The matter of Harry Potter is not like the debate over whether serious Christians should celebrate Halloween. Should Christians look askance at their brothers and sisters who read Harry Potter? Wrong question. Let's ask whether we should look askance at those who don't read the books.

This is because, in the great battle between Christianity and its modern rivals, Harry Potter is on our side. And he's one of the few pop culture figures who is.

In order to see why, we have to look a bit into history. What does the classical Christian tradition say about sorcery? Why is it sin to be a witch or a sorcerer? It is a sin because it treats power as the ultimate value, subordinating questions of good and evil. Two of the more influential works of literature on sorcery in Christendom were both written about the same man: Faust. "Faust" by Goethe and "Dr. Faustus" by Christopher Marlowe each tell the story of a man who sells his soul to the devil in order to achieve occult power. "All things that move between the quiet poles shall be at his command. . . . A sound magician is a mighty god" ("Dr. Faustus"). The point here is not whether the seeker of power uses incantations or technology to manipulate the world; the point is that the sorcerer uses his technique in such a way as to elevate himself above good and evil.

C.S. Lewis, a favorite of evangelical Christians, said this more clearly than anyone else in "The Abolition of Man": "I have described as a magician's bargain that process whereby man surrenders object after object, and finally himself, to nature in return for power. . . . For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality. . . . For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men: The solution is a technique; and both, in the practice of this technique, are ready to do things hither to regarded as disgusting and impious. . . . You will find in some critics that Faustus has a thirst for knowledge. In reality, he hardly mentions it. It is not truth he wants from his devils, but gold and guns and girls."

The sorcerer is a seeker after power, much more like the villain of the Potter stories, Lord Voldemort, than like Harry himself. In fact, at the climax of the first book, Harry confronts Lord Voldemort over the evil wizard's desire for the Sorcerer's Stone, which has the power to grant eternal life to the disembodied villain.

Having failed to successfully tempt Harry into giving him the stone, Voldemort's final and paramount argument is given: "There is no good and evil, only power, and those too weak to seek it." Thus J.K. Rowling puts into the mouth of Harry's archnemesis a brief summary of the philosophy which can be known in the 20th century as "relativism."

Fundamentalist critics have made much of the fact that the character who owns said Sorcerer's Stone is named after a real-life occultist named Nicholas Flamel. Thus, we are told that the Potter literature is a "gateway to witchcraft." I think these critics have neglected to actually read the story and have therefore missed the point.

The Sorcerer's Stone was the goal of Renaissance-era alchemists who believed that it could transform base metals into gold and grant eternal life to its owner. Alchemy was objectionable to Christians not because it didn't work, but because even if it did work, it would grant wealth to those who did not create it and eternal life on man's terms rather than God's. With whom does J.K. Rowling side? Apparently not with the alchemists. Albus Dumbledore, Harry's mentor, at the end of the book persuades Flamel to destroy the stone even at the cost of his own life.

All the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons of this world can add together all of the sermons that they've preached on this topic over their lifetimes and not have reached one-hundredth of the number of people with this message as Rowling did. Nor would they have done it with one-hundredth the persuasiveness.

I haven't read the Potter books and I've seen only a few minutes of the movie, but for the life od me I can't understand all the fuss.

My youngest boy, (prisoner6sson now 13), was enthralled with Potter and bears an uncanny resemblance to him. He has collected tons of Potter stuff and he and Wife can go on at great length about anything Potter. BUT he knows quite well that it's a STORY, a telling. The only connection to reality is alegorical.

Jerry is correct about embracing the core messages. I especially liked the last paragrapgh about the Falwells and Robertsons.

The article was in Sunday's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Here's a link to Jerry's website where you can find lots of other great, conservative commentary.

www.jerrybowyer.com

prisoner6

One should not judge a book by its cover. Or in this case, by its stage props. And that's exactly what all the magic, wizardry and sorcery in Rowling's writings are: stage props.

A novel should be judged by its message, not by the words used to phrase the message. The word "Hell" is only a "bad word" when used in a particular way. It is not bad in itself. The same goes for a story about magic and wizards.

Same with LOTR and lots of other books/movies/tellings. If I have any objection at all...and I'm reaching here...it's related to my experience with "The Silmarillion." A wonderful retelling of creation, or perhaps an "alternative telling" of "a" creation.

I put the book down halfway through and never picked it back up because many of my friends who had read the book, were getting a bit too wrapped up in it. Sort of like the Trekkies, Star Wars folk et al who begin to blur imagination with reality. It's fun to dress up as a character and go to a convention, but when it gets to the point where one is say, speaking Klingon as a first language, some personal issues are revealed.

I was amazed at how many of my friends could quote The Silmarillion but not The Bible!

That said as evidenced by my "prisoner6" username at times even I get wrapped up in fiction. The Prisoner was a marvelous series and for me at least a poigniant telling of individualism, conservative philosophy and independence.

But isn't it curious that fans of the series that so stresses the individual over the collective, the self over conformity, routinly dress up as characters and act out episodes where the series was filmed?

Perhaps there is an ingrained need/desire to conform. Perhaps despite all our trumpeting of individual uniqueness we all secretly, instictively long to belong. Perhaps just as we each believe we have won our self-reliance and identity a deeper, darker, deceptive force blinds us, we fall and in the end socialism wins.

Perhaps there is no escape from The Village.

prisoner6

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		Jerry Bowyer hosts a daily radio program on 1360 WPTT-AM and a TV program on Cornerstone TeleVision, "Focus on the Issues" (jerry@bowyermedia.com).

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