Posted on 03/27/2008 12:23:53 PM PDT by AngieGal
Most people agree that the wildly popular Harry Potter series has a religious following. But to what extent are the stories about the fictional boy wizard a religious allegory?
Danielle Tumminio, a Yale Divinity School graduate student who instructs a course called "Christian Theology and Harry Potter" at Yale would say, "Yes."
Her course uses all seven Potter books to examine Christian themes such as sin, evil and resurrection, reports CNN.
(Excerpt) Read more at christiantoday.com ...
This person is a divinity student at Yale and he/she needs a secular novel to explain theology??? Unbelievable! Some universities have used the Harry Potter books in curriculum, but a whole course??? in a divinity school??? Are they planning to preach Harry Potter from the pulpit, because it is so much easier to understand than the Bible?
Awful.
Yale Divinity School is a sick joke.
The fact that Dumbledore was recently declared gay was the new found precipiation for this dreadful course.
..but did he wear his pants low? I don’t think so.
Not what she said. I think her point was that it puts certain theological issues into a context that makes them easier to address.
You couldn't substitute this class for one on the works of Barth or St. Augustine -- nor do I imagine that Yale Divinity School is planning to do so.
OTOH, I can easily see this approach as being a useful means of engaging certain theological issues in a way that makes sense to a modern American.
Everyone should demand their tuition back.
I sure want to pay $30K to $40K a year to study this and other useless pop religion courses at Yale. Don’t you?
/s
Danielle Tumminio, a Yale Divinity School graduate student who instructs a course called "Christian Theology and Harry Potter" at Yale would say, "Yes."
Is that even English? Isn't the question "But to what extent are the stories about the fictional boy wizard a religious allegory?" How the HECK is "yes" an answer to that question?
I'm so glad I avoided the Ivys.
I’ve read the Harry Potter books. There is NO theology in them. No God or gods and darn little in way of spirits (mostly ghosts).
I guess that is what makes it easy...
It still isn't English.
You don’t think there is any valuable Christian allegory in someone who wishes his destiny was not his, who fights a great evil that decieves a large portion of the population, and who finally resolves to sacrifice himself so others might live?
It’s YALE
Atheists welcome here! God, they don’’t need no God in their divinity school
(I know a lot of Yale Divinity School grads)
“You don’t think there is any valuable Christian allegory in someone who wishes his destiny was not his, who fights a great evil that decieves a large portion of the population, and who finally resolves to sacrifice himself so others might live?”
Judging by some of the responses, obviously not.
The Potter books contain some of the same elements as the Lord of the Rings series and you don’t hear people hollering about that one.
True, but I think if you look at some of the other HP threads that you will see a good number of people on both sides of the issue. I’m headed to bed, and don’t really have the energy to dig the old threads up - I just was a little surprised when you said there was NO theological material in any of the HP books. G’nite!
You’d be much better off reading the “The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever”.
It has all the ingredients you just mentioned *and* was written by Stephen R. Donaldson, a Christian missionary.
Magnificent books...FAR better than the insidious Potter manifesto.
[which is SO full of thinly veiled but powerfully subliminal “advanced/high ritual magick” as to be positively mortifying to those of us who actually recognize it when we see it]
Flame me all you want but I stand by my statement that these books are extraordinarily dangerous things that might ‘appear as angels of light’ when they are most assuredly not.
If I had kids, they would positively, absolutely NOT be allowed to read them.
They may *appear* superficially to be a type of Christian allegory but they are definitely not.
Regardless of whatever small “redeeming value” or “morality” they may incidentally possess, the other, barely hidden content far outweighs it.
I refer you to a biblical passage to underscore that extremely relevant point;
“This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you. A little leaven leaventh the whole lump.”
Rowling may have “pulled herself admirably up from poverty”, “prompted huge numbers of children to read when they otherwise would not have” and become filthy stinking rich from them but I wouldn’t trade places with her.
There’s no amount of money worth my soul.
What you said.
It’s another “two computer, four conversation” kind of night.
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