tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post6254482014698160248..comments2024-03-28T15:56:40.911+00:00Comments on Bruce Charlton's Notions: The soul and prophecies in Harry PotterBruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-47009569700533825782014-03-08T07:08:50.941+00:002014-03-08T07:08:50.941+00:00@R - If you don't like the books - and I find ...@R - If you don't like the books - and I find that perfectly understandable and reasonable, since I didn't like them for several years - then obviously you don't pick up on the *deep* themes - because the deep themes are only perceptible to those who are immersed in the books.<br /><br />That the HP books are deeply Christian is clear from the points I have made and which you describe, and whole volumes have been written by the learned John Granger which establish this pretty irrefutably.<br /><br />The HP books are deeply Christian, but JK Rowling has become (whether or not she acknowledges the fact) apostate - for the usual reason of giving priority to Left wing politically correct ideas. <br /><br />This politically-driven apostasy has happened to millions of British people (including the past two Archbiships of Canterbury) and it is an absolute tragedy - but it does not contradict the fact that JKR WAS a Christian, and that this profoundly influenced, indeed fundamentally structured, the Harry Potter books.Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-90921521938419152852014-03-08T06:24:59.578+00:002014-03-08T06:24:59.578+00:00I came across your blog from Nathaniel's Diffi...I came across your blog from Nathaniel's Difficult Run post. I think I read (or at least skimmed) every post and the comments in your Harry Potter section. I like your style of writing and approve of the ideas you articulate, and it was an enjoyable read; however, I have to heartily disagree that there's any meaningful amount of Christianity in Harry Potter at all.<br /><br />In your writings on Harry Potter, you keep referencing its "deep Christian structure" and messages, and yet nearly half of your posts are about how Rowling is herself a fairly amoral/immoral secular leftist. Maybe the disconnect isn't Rowling denying her deep-seated Christian principles after all, and maybe you just read too much in to the book?<br /><br />About the only spiritual themes I picked up in Harry Potter struck me as patently cheesy. The books do not present Christianity, they present <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moralistic_therapeutic_deism" rel="nofollow"> Moral Therapeutic Deism</a>; that is, they present a castrated and defanged feel-good spiritual do-goodery. If you want to call that deep Christianity, then fine, but it's also deep rabbinic Judaism and deep Islam and deep Hinduism, too.<br /><br />The main issue (in all your posts on Harry Potter) where I agree you do make a point is in Harry's pleading with Voldemort to repent. I will give you that one; that concept of forgiveness seems particularly Christian. However, this is possibly by accident, possibly by cultural osmosis, and especially likely is by the aforementioned Moral Therapeutic Deism which retains many former Christian virtues like forgiveness and humility.<br /><br />Also, there's a Bible verse on a tombstone somewhere.<br /><br />I think that's about it for Christian themes in Harry Potter.<br /><br />There's death, and people being sad about death, and models of the afterlife. None of those concepts are explored in a Christian way; they're explored in a general, secular, "spiritual but not religious" way which I imagine I'd be much more likely to hear from the neighborhood Tarot card reader as I would be from a pastor.<br /><br />There are also virtues, such as they are. Courage I guess is a big one; Prudence not so much. They talk about "Love" a lot, which I understand from the context to mean a protective and maternal emotional state that Harry's mom had at seeing her infant son threatened; it seems a weak thing compared to the Agape that the Bible talks about. There's also a lot of Lying, Sneaking, Defiance, and Stubbornness.<br /><br />On top of these are plenty of flat-out pagan elements; ghosts, Samhain, Yule celebrations, tea reading, astrology, Sirens, and a dozen other things. Unlike the spiritual elements which you admit are hidden, these are right there the whole time in the focus of the story. There are, also, pagan attitudes and ideas articulated by the characters at several points (though I'd need to re-read to find them all; I wasn't reading them under moral scrutiny). My criticism, by the way, isn't that the books aren't Christian and are therefore bad; my criticism is that the books aren't Christian and therefore aren't Christian (they're bad for completely different reasons).<br /><br />I just really have a hard time seeing the fledgling spirituality in the books as being particularly <i> Christian </i>. Though I've read you say this many times, I really don't understand your reasoning in recommending it as a great Christian spiritual work, one right up there with C.S. Lewis' writings. JK Rowling seems from her politics and statements to be a spiritual-not-religious, Moralistic Therapeutic Deist who believes in personal fulfillment and being "nice" and has some ideas of an afterlife, and that's exactly the spiritual tenor of her Harry Potter books. I think it makes a lot more sense of the series, really, to read it in that light.<br /><br />And so that's all I had to say. Cheers, and carry on.Reecehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10691425406901685427noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-67208707268340880292013-10-30T21:38:32.024+00:002013-10-30T21:38:32.024+00:00"(Prophecy implies God even when a specific p..."(Prophecy implies God even when a specific prophecy might well be 'demonic' - indeed it might well be that most true prophecies were indeed demonic - because the existence of demons is predicated on the existence of God)"<br /><br />Only tangentially related to this discussion, but I was amazed to find in St. Seraphim of Sarov's famous discussion with Motovilov, that Seraphim considered the prophecies of the pagan Sybils to not only have been genuine (!), but to come from the Holy Spirit (!!).<br /><br />So, the presence of Prof. Sybil Trelawney (likely unintentionally) references the exact same pagan institution, which is another reason to consider her prophecies as coming directly from God.<br /><br />The fact that she has no talent of predicting the future otherwise may be a sort of divine dispensation itself, since (absent an explicit tradition that warns about the dangers of misusing divine gifts) it works to keep her from being able to take unnecessary pride in her own abilities. A case of God choosing to work through the weak, so to speak....<br /><br />(St. Seraphim's other category of pagans who were granted the Holy Spirit were the philosophers, which I am guessing refers to such phenomena as Socrates having his 'tutelary spirit':<br /><br />"You have often heard me speak of an oracle or sign which comes to me …. This sign I have had ever since I was a child. The sign is a voice which comes to me and always forbids me to do something which I am going to do, but never commands me to do anything, and this is what stands in the way of my being a politician.")<br /><br />So, coming back to Harry Potter, the series is very much set in that kind of pre-Christian epoch -- where, explicitly speaking, the wizard society is in the "darkness of ignorance of God", but is still subject to active Divine Providence of this kind.<br /><br />The fact that the (effectively) pre-Christian wizarding society is coterminous with the post-Christian Muggle society winds up being a bit of a red herring, though....Arakawahttp://arakawa.github.comnoreply@blogger.com