When contemplating what I would write about when it came to books and religion, I thought what better subject than one of my personal favorites and the series whose last four books were the fastest-selling in history? And so I began an inquiry into the religious implications of books that consistently topped another list—the American Library Association’s Most Challenged.
Conservative Christian groups have been in an uproar about Harry Potter since its inception in the late 90s. I read an article on ChristianAnswers.net called “Is Harry Potter Harmless?” Let me share some quotes that seem to sum up the conservative Christian point of view :
“I don't think people fully realize what they're dealing with, and I think anyone who knows anything about spiritual warfare knows those books can open the door to spiritual bondage.”
-Clara Sessoms, manager of Living Water Christian Books
"With the growing popularity of youth-oriented TV shows on witchcraft—'Sabrina, the Teenage Witch;' 'Charmed;' 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'—a generation of children is becoming desensitized to the occult.”
-Author John Andrew Murray
It’s not out of the ordinary to have a segment of what some might call fundamentalist-types up in arms about something they find spiritually detrimental. It happens quite frequently and with things that seem to be less offensive than a teenage wizard and his pals.
What really intrigued me about the whole Harry Potter situation was that there are those who argue, vehemently at that, that the best part of HP is that it has no religiosity at all. On the Harry Potter Lexicon Web site a contributor known as glamourousgeek wrote a detailed essay about all the pains J.K. Rowling took to avoid religion in the books including how no characters say prayers despite being in life-threatening situations, deity is not mentioned in the celebration of Christmas and neither side uses religious arguments to win supporters for its cause.
Author J.K. Rowling that she skirted the issue of religion in the books so that people with Christian backgrounds wouldn’t know what was coming in the closing seventh novel. And what came was an undeniable nod to Christianity complete with a sacrificial death that leads to a sort of resurrection of the title character. The Christian values of love, courage and loyalty are also promoted throughout the series.
While the tide of conservative criticism did wane after the publication of the final book, many conservative Christians still feel that Harry Potter is an invitation to join the occult and become a practicing Wiccan, which could be another blog post entirely.
So, after synthesizing all this information, my question is how can people read the same exact story and find not only different meanings but also conflicting ones?
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I think you have a really interesting post here. With religion, there will always be people who will see religion in everything, and others that won't see it in anything. You will always find the people who can see religious connotations in literature - whether the author intended it to be there or not.
ReplyDeleteThe interesting thing about Harry Potter is that it is a fictional story about a boy who is a wizard. Yes, there is a religion that practices magic (wiccans), but that won't necessarily mean that people will up and leave their religious convictions because Harry Potter, the fictional character in the fictional world, does it. It seems as though the stories that have the magic and sorcerers are the ones that cause the most problems, but how many people are REALLY switching to being a Wiccan because of these books? I'm sure there are more people who are investing in magic books from the store to act like Harry Potter than looking up how to be a full-out Wiccan.
People tend to like books that are completely different from the real world it seems like - things like Lord of the Rings, Chronicals of Narnia, etc. People have talked about those books having strong religious affliations to Chrisitianity, but if you ask people who aren't necessarily looking for it, or looking into the story and further than the straight story line wouldn't notice something like that.
I think the whole religious affliations are in the eyes of the reader. People can find symbolism with the littlest word, sentence, setting, etc., but that doesn't necessarily mean the author sat there and decided to put something or say something in a certain section to symbolize a Christian concept. People could look at it any way they want, but sometimes things are just more plain than we want them to be.
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ReplyDeleteThat is a great question and one could very well ask the same question about the Bible. In fact, I think someone did. Indeed, many many people have.
ReplyDeleteAs humans, we tend to look for the things that we want to see. We have selective perceptions. For many people, it could be more difficult to take things at their face value simply because they are seeking a referent or some type of deeper symbolism in what is being read. We are creatures of thought and therefore we tend to seek for meaning in everything...the problem being that sometimes we find meanings that are not intended. With that in mind, it becomes very easy for people to read the same thing and walk away with a completely different meaning and understanding of what they read - simply because they were looking for something different.
I think that fact that different people can get so many different interpretations out of the written word is exactly what is so fantastic about literature. Sometimes the writer does have an agenda, but that isn't what's important. What's important is what you as the reader take from it. I don't think any of us should assume that what we got out of a book is what the author intended, and I also don't think we should be trying to only interpret what the author intended because that ruins the whole point.
ReplyDeleteFor example, the reason we're supposed to make the scriptures personal to us is so that the Spirit can communicate to us how the verses can help us in our individual lives, at many different points in our lives, in many ways that those who sat down and wrote them probably never imagined they could be applied. So, if you can find religious themes and possibly even spiritual experiences out of novels even if the author never intended for them to be there, go for it. And if people want to get mad about the evil intentions or possible bad effects of an author's work, I think that's their problem and not the author's.
So much of how we perceive something is determined by our background. People respond differently to situations based on where they grew up, their family background, their major, religion etc. We can find symbols of Christianity anywhere if we want to. But are they really there? Or do we just perceive that they are because it is what we are thinking about. I think the same goes with books like Harry Potter. If we go into it thinking it is about trying to convert children to a life of witchcraft and wizardry we will likely find that. If instead we believe it is just a fun story for teens we will think that as well. So I believe that based on our background we will see different messages then our neighbors, and sometimes even conflicting ones with others or the author.
ReplyDeleteAndrea Wiser