SERMON: "Theology and Harry Potter"
Rev. Paul Beedle
October 15, 2006
Recently on her personal website, J K Rowling announced: “Once again, the Harry Potter books feature on this year's list of most-banned books.” She says, “As this puts me in the company of Harper Lee, Mark Twain, J. D. Salinger, William Golding, John Steinbeck and other writers I revere, I have always taken my annual inclusion on the list as a great honor.” Then she quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Every burned book enlightens the world.”
It's hard for me to understand why anyone would want to ban Harry Potter. Of course, I'm aware that some folks are offended because they regard the Bible as a manual for living and believe that it prohibits witchcraft. [1] And I'm aware that, in its passages about witchcraft, the Bible warns against making your children pass through the fire – one of the ways people travel in Harry's world – and divination – one of Harry's classes. But ban the books? I remember as a child being told that horoscopes were just a game – that “we don't believe in them” – but we didn't cancel our newspaper subscription.
Furthermore, J K Rowling is very clear that she's not trying to preach anything in the Harry Potter books. When Diane Rehm interviewed her on public radio [2], she said: “I don't set out thinking, `this is what they're going to learn in this book,' ever. I have a real horror of preaching to anyone, or of trying to make ... enormous points. ... I'm not driven by the need to `teach' children anything, although those things do come up naturally in the stories, which I think [are] quite moral. Because it's a battle between good and evil. ... And it's not a bad idea that [children] meet this in literature. It's not a bad idea that they can see a character who ... makes mistakes ... but [is] a very noble character, he's a brave character and he strives to do the right thing. And to see a fictional character dealing with [life's challenges] I think can be very helpful.” I think she's right about that.
She has said that she “did not conceive [Harry Potter] as a moral tale, the morality sprang naturally out of the story, a subtle but important difference.” An artist will put values into her art. That's part of what makes it art. But it's so clear, from the use she makes of magic in the stories, that witchcraft is not a value she speaks up for. It's just part of the imaginary world in which her characters move. It's a device for creating interesting plot situations. It's a symbol for social and individual distinctions. It's a form of technology. It doesn't solve anything, it's just one more thing for the characters to react and adapt to. It doesn't drive the drama in the story.
Of course, children can become fascinated with the idea of magic. Rowling says that “Children ... often ask [her] how much of the magic is ... `real' in the books in the sense that did anyone ever believe in this?” And she answers, “a rough proportion – about a third of [it] is stuff that people genuinely used to believe in Britain.” Two thirds of it she invented. [3] She told Diane Rehm, “Children ... ask me, of course, `do you believe in magic?' and I've always said, `no, I don't.' I believe in different kinds of magic. There's a magic that happens when you pick up a wonderful book, and it lives with you for the rest of your life. That is my kind of magic.” Of course it is, she's a writer. She says, “There's magic in friendship and in beauty and... Metaphorical magic, yes. But in the sense that, do I believe that if you draw a funny squiggly shape on the ground and dance around it, then something... Not at all, I find the idea, frankly, comical.” Having read the books, that's what I would expect her to say. Maybe the people who want to ban Harry Potter haven't read them.
Or maybe they think the books are too scary for children. Diane Rehm asked her, “This idea of wizardry... The idea of people actually dying. How scary do you regard that to be for young people?” And Rowling answered, “It's scary in exactly the same way that ... the original versions of the Grimm fairytales [are], ... and th[o]se are folktales. And folktales are generally told for a reason. They're ways for children to explore their darkest fears. That's why they endure ... and they are frightening. ... There are horrible things. But this is centuries back, and I don't think children have changed that much. I think they still have the same worries, and fears. And literature is an `excellent' way ... a fabulous way to explore those things.” I happen to think that Rowling strikes a very good balance of scary and safe elements in Harry Potter. The part of the story that's about Harry's developing friendships and self-discovery makes a safe container for the scary parts. And that's just as it is in life.
The values Rowling does put into her stories are good ones for children to explore and think about: friendship and telling the truth and naming your feelings and coping bravely with adversity. And the presence of values in a story can raise theological questions. Some interviewers have asked them:
Rowling speaks of literature in the way that all manner of artists talk about their art. What distinguishes art from craft, on one hand (craftsmanship, as opposed to artistry, is about the usefulness of the object and the skill in making it), and mere self-expression, on the other, is that art strives for a quality that the 5th-century Chinese painter Hsieh Ho called “spirit consonance.” A work of art resonates, sets a sympathetic vibration moving in the soul of its beholder. It awakens something, brings something into consciousness or stirs the mix of the beholder's conscious understandings. The beholder does not say “gee, that's neat!” or “what the heck is that?!” but rather “yes!” or “oh!” This quality of art is a form of one of the key components of what I would call religious method.
So what's religious method? You've all heard of scientific method: observe, form a hypothesis, test it, interpret the results, argue about it, make more observations and new hypotheses and test them and keep the whole thing going. Religious method is only slightly – but significantly – different. It begins with experience, and then comes observation, inward and outward observation: what happened “out there” and what happened “in here.” Then it's finding words for it, or symbols – the same thing as forming a hypothesis, really, except if the experience is unrepeatable you can't test it. So the test is, do these words capture the experience? Do they do it justice? Do they help me remember it? Do they help me explain it to another? And then you interpret the results of using those words or symbols to express and remember and tell about it. Do these words and symbols help me find meaning in my life and in the world? Do they help me to understand reality and virtue and good values? Do they help me know how to live? And we do that in community: do they help us find meaning, understand reality and virtue and good values, and know how to live together? And then it's the same as scientific method: we argue and have more experiences and observe and interpret them and keep the whole thing going. All religions do this. Not every religious tradition facilitates it well, just as not every scientific establishment facilitates science well. But if the tradition is alive, it is conducting religious method in some fashion.
For the artist, art is that step of finding words or symbols that capture inward and outward experience. For the beholder it is the step of sharing and interpreting words and symbols. Individual spiritual practices, and the group spiritual practice we call worship, are the ways we store religious truth – what we think is true in our individual lives, and what we think is in some way universally true. And we preserve these in traditions. Tradition is to religious method as the academy is to scientific method. Tradition, like the academy, can be either vibrant and living, or rigid and dead. And we can feel at home in one tradition more than in another in the same way as we feel more at home in one sort of academy than in another. We have worship styles the way we have learning styles. And we can have strong feelings about them because they are our personal gateways to participation in religious and scientific understanding, respectively.
Back to Harry Potter. Magic is Rowling's major plot device but it's not what the stories are about. They're about friendship and telling the truth and naming your feelings and coping bravely with adversity. What drives their drama is a prophecy – the one Dumbledore and Harry were talking about in the scene that Cameron and I performed for the children's conversation. Prophecy is a big idea. Exposure to big ideas is another reason these books can be good for children to read. For J K Rowling, prophecy is a literary idea. “It's the `Macbeth' idea,” she says. “...If Macbeth hadn't met the witches, would he have killed Duncan? Would any of it have happened? Is it fated or did he make it happen?” [5]
Prophecy is also a big idea in philosophy and religion. Central to religious practice are the questions, “how ought we to live?” and “how do we live?” By “how do we live?” I don't mean simply looking around and observing what people are doing, I mean “what are we?” and “what are we capable of?” “How do we live?” is a question about how our physiology and psychology work and what their limits are, what theologians call anthropology, some idea of human nature that tells us what we are capable of and what our choices and commitments cost us. It's very important for religious practice to discern what is a sustainable commitment for a human being, what is a healthy commitment. To find an answer to “how ought we to live?” we must ask “what is the extent of our power?” And this is where prophecy comes in. If everything is fated, why bother? Does it really matter how we ought to live? Ultimately the idea of prophecy is about whether and how we direct our will and our striving in life, about whether we should hope or despair.
Rowling does a good job of depicting the feelings and life issues of her characters in age-appropriate ways. Her 11-year-olds seem accurately 11 years old. That's a reason these books have connected so well with people around the world. They provide material for children to ponder. Through these characters' matters of friendship and right-and-wrong, and through this prophecy and its role in the story, children can begin to ponder these profound theological questions about hope and despair and fate and power and love and choices at an age-appropriate level.
What comes through to me most strongly in Harry Potter are the insights, instincts and sensitivities of a good mother. Rowling obviously cares about children and understands them and their development very well. As her characters age, they illustrate what sorts of changes come over children as they move through adolescence. Young children also need to know about that. As do parents and teachers, and so I think it's not a bad idea for adults to read these books. They're not all prophecies and magic, they also provide portraits of child development that are easy to retain.
There are other children's books that have these same excellent qualities and usefulness for children and parents. And if you have a favorite, I encourage you to tell me or Valerie about it. Harry Potter is one of many books that stand in a long tradition of excellent chidren's literature. The finest of these, like Harry Potter, touch on profound ideas and deep feelings and matters of the soul in ways children can grasp and work with. Far from being banned, they ought to be standard equipment by which we build a better world by encouraging our children toward self-discovery, self-awareness and reflection on big ideas.
Let it be our prayer for and continuing service to our children, to encourage them toward self-discovery, self-awareness and deep reflection. And may we, their guides, ourselves be guided by hope and love. So may it be. Amen.
[1] Primarily Exodus 22:18, Leviticus 19:26 and Deuteronomy 18:10-11, plus a mention in a vice list in Galatians 3:19-21. The prophets Micah (5:12) and Nahum (3:4) make passing mention. Narrative references to witchcraft appear in I Samual 15:23 and 28:7, II Kings 9:22 and II Chronicles 33:6.
[2] http://www.quick-quote-quill.org/articles/1999/1299-wamu-rehm.htm
[3] http://www.quick-quote-quill.org/articles/1999/1299-wamu-rehm.htm
[4] http://www.quick-quote-quill.org/articles/2004/0304-wbd.htm and http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/faq_view.cfm?id=71
[5] http://www.quick-quote-quill.org/articles/2005/0705-tlc _mugglenet-anelli-3.htm