1 As for the man who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not for disputes over opinions. 2 One believes he may eat anything, while the weak man eats only vegetables. 3 Let not him who eats despise him who abstains, and let not him who abstains pass judgment on him who eats; for God has welcomed him. 4 Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Master is able to make him stand. 5 One man esteems one day as better than another, while another man esteems all days alike. Let every one be fully convinced in his own mind.In other words, as to the matter of discipleship, we're called to the motto derived from St. Augustine: In needful things, unity; in doubtful things, liberty; in all things, charity. It's not my purpose in bringing Harry Potter up to mock or disdain folks who are worried about associating witchcraft with anything positive -- in some cases we may mutually find one another's opinions benighted, but it's sound policy to leave people be.
The second argument is not a religious argument at all, but a matter of lit crit. What do the books mean? It's at that level I intend with occasional postings to engage --and there the Harry Haters are simply wrong.
- HP is a fairy tale. Know how you can tell? If a witch has a wand, a broom, and a cauldron, and lives with goblins, elves, dwarves, hippogriffs, unicorns, centaurs, vampires, werewolves, fairies, phoenixes and dragons, that witch is a fairy tale witch, not a Wiccan or a pagan or a dabbler in actual magic. There is no argument for throwing out Harry that doesn't also throw out fairy tales, classical myths, Chaucer & Shakespeare.
- I deeply fear that much of the ruckus against Harry reveals only how little Christians today know their own patrimony. The books are rife with literary allusion -- with sly winks particularly to Dante's Purgatorio, Chaucer's The Pardoner's Tale, to medieval Christian symbols, to Narnia, to Lord of the Rings (and even to an episode from Machiavelli's Prince), and of course, to the Bible. I don't expect kids to pick up on these things, but adults who recognize these allusions will enjoy the books all the more --and know that JKR is a fellow-traveler with them.
- The names tell you everything. McGuffin is a McGuffin --that is, a figure who serves as catalyst to the plot, but himself has no role in it. Peter Pettigrew literally grew petty --to the point he becomes a rat. Lupin is a werewolf, Sirius Black is a big, black dog. And Harry Potter is both an Everyman (Harry) and a Christ-type (Pater's son). In his Everyman role, Harry's best friends are Ron (passionate strength, according to my etymological dictionary) and Hermione (fem. of Hermes, god of reason). He embarks on a quest to rid himself of his mysterious connection to Evil personified, which turns out to require a succession of metaphorical deaths to himself before he is finally purified of the connection altogether. In times of desperate trouble, he incants, Expecto patronem-- "Come, Friend"-- and is protected by a mysterious stag (ahem!).
- In his role as Christ-type, we have his birth: Book One opens with Harry's birth and infancy mysteriously defeating Evil personified. This joyous event is celebrated by strange stars, mysterious messengers (owls), and the appearance of Magi (wizards) in the "Muggle" world to announce the good news. Hullo? We also have his willing death --and resurrection-- which results in the definitive defeat of evil. [Update: I had to go out before I was really finished here.] His mother's name is Lily. His death & resurrection win him a virgin bride (Ginny).
- The books are not a defense of dualism. In the first place, the ethos of the books is Christian. Christmas & Easter are celebrated. In one article, Michael O'Brien claims that Halloween is the books' biggest feast. Were that true, I too would find that problematic. But it isn't. It doesn't even figure in most of the books, and it's a bad day --the day Harry's parents were killed, and the day Voldemort sets his scheme for return in motion. The biggest feasts are Christmas & Easter, celebrated as such and not called solstices. (See? I'm not saying O'Brien's concern is silly, I'm saying he has not read very carefully.) Harry has a godfather, was christened, and his parents are buried in a Church cemetery, with a scripture verse on their headstone. People take the Lord's name in vain and say, "God bless 'im." And the portal between the material world and the more real world of spiritual battle (and the place of judgment in the other world) is King's Cross Station. Someone just sent me an article in which the pull quote is about the person who dies in Harry Potter is God. I cannot understand how people who profess to believe that God is Love can say that about a text where the hero has to learn to live and act by Love. The moral structure is not, as many have claimed, at all like Star Wars' The Force. In Star Wars, the ethos is indeed dualistic, since the struggle is to achieve balance between the Dark & Light sides. What begins as the heroic story of Luke's conquest over evil turns out actually to be the story of his father's being the "chosen one" who, through a journey of light to dark and back again, restores balance. In HP, the struggle is from the outset to defeat evil. Evil's strongest weapons are convincing people that it doesn't exist, or at least preventing them from calling it by its name. This running theme becomes explicit in the last book, when people can literally be arrested for calling evil by its name. How can Christians (and defenders of marriage and family) read that and not recognize their own struggle?
- Nor are the books a defense of paganism or pre-Christian virtues, as some have claimed. Classical virtue is represented well by Albus Dumbledore, whom Mark Shea has aptly compared to a kind of Vergil. He seems to be antiquity's Magnanimous Man. Reading too much into it? No, Rowling tells us this over and again when Hagrid says repeatedly:
Great Man. Dumbledore.
Dumbledore is good --about as good as a human person can be, but he makes mistakes and his goodness is surpassed by Harry, just as Christian virtue supplants that of antiquity. - Incidentally, I strongly suspect we have JK Rowling's opinion of all these matters in the person of Mad-Eye Moody (again, the name tells all). Moody is presented affectionately and as a true hero, but someone whose one-time effectiveness against the Death Eaters becomes impaired by his own paranoia, which evil forces use against him to the point that he misses out on an entire battle in the war against evil, literally trapped in a box. He dies well, Harry's true friend --which I think shows JKR is a bit more magnanimous than some of her foes are to her.
- Say whatever you wish about the quality of the writing or anything else, but to argue that this is anti-Christian is simply not to be able to read. Michael O'Brien, for example, complains that JKR perversely reverses the typical meaning of symbols. No she doesn't. As a matter of lit crit, not moral judgment, that's simply, flat-out, wrong. She associates evil with the Serpent and Good with the unicorn, the stag and the griffin. If we know our literature, we know better, and we know we have a friend in JKR.
