A Christian's Defense of Harry Potter

Update: I have found a fantastic blog post that basically said what I had trouble articulating. Please visit it in addition to reading my take: Harry Potter, Jesus, and Me

I write this with some trepidation. My main hesitation is that I know that there are Christians who I love, respect, and are friends with that are going to really, really, disagree with me, and I worry about the negative reaction I might receive from people whom I love and respect. My fear is not a godly emotion, I realize, but if you do disagree with me, I just ask that you be kind in your disagreement. I intend, likewise, to be kind and humble in my defense of this book series.

I write this defense as part of a careful reevaluation of my media intake. I have been convicted recently of the kinds of movies, books, and music that I listen to, and rather than continue to make excuses for some of my choices, I have decided to really see what is helping me love the Lord more, what glorifies Him, and what I can honestly say is time well-spent when I have watched a movie or read a book. For anything that doesn’t fall into that, I’m making radical amputations and not apologizing to anyone for them.  In large part, this defense is me working through the controversy, content, and worldview of a book series I have found to be intellectually challenging, emotionally engaging, and delightfully entertaining. I hope my thought processes will help readers understand more about this book series, and not just what everyone says about them.

In writing this, I have gone to outside sources…people who love Harry Potter, as well as people who hate it. I’ve read interviews and comments on it from both sides, and some from the author, J.K. Rowling, herself. Granted, I did have a bias going into my research…I already like Harry Potter! But nevertheless, I think I have still found ample reason to include these books in my reading repertoire.

That being said, I want to make it clear that I am willing to be wrong with this. If, in my continued prayer and sanctification God reveals to me that I have made a sinful choice, I am willing to be obedient to that. Harry Potter is indeed rubbish compared to knowing Jesus, and if any point a fictional bespectacled wizard gets in the way of my knowing Jesus, I want him banished far, far away!

This a bit long of a post, and will contain spoilers, but I figure if you are reading it and have not yet read Harry Potter, that you are interested in the content anyway and may want some stuff given away. I won’t tell you the final conclusion to the story though. As a respecter of stories, I couldn’t do that in good literary conscience. 

A Christian’s Main Objection to Harry Potter: Witchcraft

One of the main objections the Christian community has had to Harry Potter is the concern that it promotes witchcraft and consulting with the dead. In other words, many Christians are concerned that the Harry Potter series is causing children (and adults) to want to be witches and wizards, or to become involved in Wicca or the occult. 

I think we first have to define what it means to “promote” something. When I think of the word, I think it means to try to deliberately convince somebody that he or she should do or be or think something. The question then is, is Rowling trying to convince people to be Wicca or to join the occult?

My answer would be no, for a couple reasons.

1.  Rowling is not Wiccan herself. In an interview that I read, (http://www.accio-quote.org), she was directly asked this question, and she flat-out answered no. If she is not Wiccan herself, then she would have no reason to promote the religion. 

2. The second reason is this: the kind of magic that is talked about in Harry Potter is not what Wiccans would define as the “magick” they practice. I did some digging on a few Wiccan websites to figure out what they actually believe, and theirs is a religion of nature worship, gods and goddesses, drawing “magick” power from nature, and communing with some sort of “divine,” very hazily defined. This religion is definitely demonic and anti-Christian, of course. I’m in no way arguing that Wicca is right. It isn’t. The websites alone creeped me out. The argument I’m making is that Hogwarts is not a school to become Wiccan, and the witchcraft they talk about is the kind of folklore, not of the Wiccan religion. In Wicca, magick is thought to be derived from the forces of nature. In Harry Potter, there is actually no discussion of where the magic comes from. And in Wicca, anybody can be a witch or a warlock. In Harry Potter, there are Muggles (non-magical people), and there are wizards. It’s something you’re born with and can’t change. 

So, I would argue that if there isn’t any clear promotion of real witchcraft in Harry Potter, then how can one argue that Rowling’s purpose is to make us all Wiccan?

Now, of course, that doesn’t mean that someone wouldn’t read the books and think, “Hey, that witchcraft thing is kind of cool. Is there anything like that for real?” and then maybe stumble upon Wicca and get involved. But I think that is the result of more than just a cursory reading of the books. That would be an indication of a lack of Biblical thinking in general. Fiction is powerful. But it takes a weak mind for it to be that powerful, especially when religious conversion is not the author’s intention. We can’t blame someone’s conversion to a false religion solely on a book series. There’s more to it than that. 

What the Bible Says About Witchcraft 

In the Bible, God is very clear about the evil of witchcraft and consulting with the dead. I’d take far too much time to exhaust all the verses on it, but here are a couple main ones (all ESV): 

Leviticus 19:31 "Do not turn to mediums or necromancers; do not seek them out, and so make yourselves unclean by them: I am the LORD your God.”

Deuteronomy 18:10-14: “There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD. And because of these abominations the LORD your God is driving them out before you. You shall be blameless before the LORD your God, for these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the LORD your God has not allowed you to do this.”

Pretty clear. I don’t think those verses, or any related ones, give us any doubt what God thinks about witchcraft. So for the reader, the question becomes this: does reading Harry Potter count as practicing witchcraft? 

I’m going to admit my struggle and conflicted thought process here. On the one hand, after reading the books many times, I don’t see any temptation in my own life to practice Wicca or to see if magic is “real.” I already know that demonic powers, disguised as magic, are most certainly real and not to be trifled with.  And in an important way, the truths in Harry Potter fall short for me because there is no overt God ever mentioned or alluded to. Any sort of love or sacrifice or selflessness is really quite transitory and superficial if they are not cloaked in the one, true, eternal God manifested in the person of Jesus Christ. But if we expect Harry Potter to measure up to this standard, then we risk idolatry, for nothing but the Bible itself meets this standard. The best literature, I believe, is the kind that awakens our hearts to pursue God and His Word with more fervency than ever before. Great literature can act as an illuminator to truths that have always existed and will persist in their potency, no matter what chaos the world comes to. In many ways, Harry Potter has been that illuminator for me. Never to the extent the Bible has, of course, but in much the same way the moon reflects the light of the sun, so can literature reflect truth.

But, on the other hand, witchcraft is not neutral. It is evil, and the Bible is clear about that. I can see substance in the arguments that I have just put forth that the kind of magic in Harry Potter is not the kind of magic we see in the real world, that of evil and demons, but I wonder if that’s a distinction we make or a distinction the Bible makes. It’s not clear to me yet. It’s something I still working through. 

Right now, here is where I am: It would require a stretch of the imagination for me to say that reading Harry Potter counts as practicing witchcraft.  Ultimately, it goes back to the kind of magic portrayed in Harry Potter. Rowling’s magic is the kind of imagination, folklore, and fairy tales, not the kind of demonic occults or tree-worshipping Wiccans. I read a clever quote to this effect (on a sound Christian website, no less): “’Harry Potter is to Wicca that Luke Skywalker is to Christianity.’ Not exactly a close connection.’"(Shawn M. McEvoy,  http://m.crosswalk.com/blogs/mcevoy/can-i-enjoy-it-my-harry-potter-180.html) If we use the argument that any magic in literature is wrong, then we will have to pull C.S. Lewis and J.R.R Tolkien off of our shelves, something many Christians who dislike Harry Potter are reluctant to do.

I think the Christian freedom that Paul discusses in Romans 14 and elsewhere comes into play here. If reading fairy tale magic that makes no reference to real witchcraft causes you to have an undue interest or attraction to real witchcraft, if it makes you more tempted to become Wiccan, then of course you should avoid it. I would encourage you to do so. But to reject Harry Potter simply for a shallow literary device (which is what I think Rowling uses the element of magic for) without looking deeper into the novels’ overall worldview is shortsighted. 

“Magic is Might” 

So reads the inscription on a statue in the Ministry of Magic after the evil Lord Voldemort has taken over Britain’s magical government (eerily reminiscent of Nazi rule). What is really important to realize about the themes of Harry Potter is that magic has not been glorified, but love and sacrifice has. I really can’t say it any better than the Reverend Torey Lightcap (who, through a quick glance of his website, seems a little milky in this theology, but I think he nails something here): 

“Rowling’s theology is a bit of a boiled-down feast. For her, life is summed up well in three pieces of Scripture, two of which she chooses to quote in one chapter [of Deathly Hallows] and gloss in the rest of the book; and the last of which simply hovers invisibly over the entire Potter project.

 The first two quotations appear on the headstones of long-deceased but plot-essential persons: “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6:21) and “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15:26). The third, as I say, is an implication, hidden, as it were, in plain sight: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13)” (quoted by Shawn M. McEvoy,  http://m.crosswalk.com/blogs/mcevoy/can-i-enjoy-it-my-harry-potter-180.html).

What Harry and his friends come to realize in the books is that magic doesn’t just solve problems, but often complicates or exacerbates them. Rather, they find that what is worth fighting for is not magic and magical people, but love and freedom from the tyranny of evil. “Magic is might” is the slogan of those who kill innocent people to have their way, but not of those who realize, that whether wizard or Muggle, nothing is worse, not even death, than living without love for others or receiving love yourself. 

Here are some fantastic quotes from the books themselves, describing these themes. Most of them come from the character of Albus Dumbledore, an overarching source of wisdom for the characters as they fight their various battles. 

"Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love." 

"To the well organized mind, death is but the next great adventure."

"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."

"Humans have a knack for choosing precisely the things that are worst for them."

"Remember Cedric. Remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right and what is easy, remember what happened to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort. Remember Cedric Diggory."

"You fail to recognize that it matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be."

"It is important to fight, and fight again, and keep fighting, for only then can evil be kept at bay, though never quite eradicated."

"There are all kinds of courage. It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends."

"We must try not to sink beneath our anguish, Harry, but battle on."

“That which Voldemort does not value, he takes no trouble to comprehend. Of house-elves and children’s tales, of love, loyalty, and innocence, Voldemort knows and understands nothing. Nothing. That they all have a power beyond his own, a power beyond the reach of any magic, is a truth he has never grasped.”

“Tell me one last thing,” said Harry. “Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?”
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

I could go on…but I hope that gives you a sampling of what the overarching themes are of Rowling’s seven beloved novels:  that good ultimately triumphs over evil, but never without dear, precious sacrifice. And, even more important for today’s time: evil exists. And it is not good, no matter what disguises we give it or if we chalk it up to personal preference.  

Conclusion

With any book outside of the Bible, no matter how good the author’s intentions are, we must tread lightly and submit each sentence to the authority of God’s Word. I would never suggest that we do otherwise with Harry Potter, and I know I will be reevaluating them as I grow in my faith and knowledge of the Lord.  But I hope in writing this, if you had any doubts about the novels, that I gave you reason to give them a chance. And you know what, this genre may not be your cup of tea. And that’s okay too. But I think that knee-jerk reactions informed by a well-publicized opinion aren’t always to be trusted. Sometimes we must do a little more research, a little more digging. I hope I’ve saved you some of that effort, and if you do decide to read Harry Potter, I hope you have a blast doing so. 

And if you don’t want to take my word for it, here are some published articles of solid Christians, including John Piper, arguing that Harry Potter is okay. As a warning, some of these do contain spoilers:

http://www.crosswalk.com/blogs/mcevoy/can-i-enjoy-it-my-harry-potter-180.html

 

http://www.crosswalk.com/family/parenting/i-open-at-the-close-where-the-deathly-hallows-could-lead-us.html

 

http://www.crosswalk.com/blogs/dr-james-emery-white/mad-about-harry.html

 

http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/ask-pastor-john/is-it-okay-to-use-secular-media-to-teach-christian-principles