Writing to keep Afloat

When browsing the dregs of Facebook or Reddit about what is and is not acceptable for Christians to read, I get the impression that many Christians–at least the internet comment writing kind–really don’t like magic in novels. Famously, Focus on the Family‘s Paul Hetrick denounced the Harry Potter series because of the witchcraft the characters regularly take part in. Maybe Hetrick has a point. There are dark depictions of witchcraft in the Harry Potter series, but to denounce any book with witchcraft or magic related content regardless of the context is legalistic and lacks a basic practice of discernment. So to understand what portion of the Harry Potter series violates the Christian moral ethic, we must first define both what the Bible means when it forbids sorcery and what is happening in the Harry Potter series.

The Bible clearly outlines sorcery and divination as sinful and evil. 2 Chronicles 33:6 says “He sacrificed his children in the fire of the Valley of Ben Hinnom, practiced divination and witchcraft, sought omens, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the eyes of the Lord, arousing his anger.” Referring to Manasseh King of Judah, this passage makes it clear that seeking the future, child sacrifice, and consulting the dead is abhorrent to the Lord. Furthermore, the Catechism of the Catholic Church says “All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to “unveil” the future. Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.” (2116) And in the next section (2117) says, “All practices of magic or sorcery, by which one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at one’s service and have a supernatural power over others–even if this were for the sake of restoring their health–are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion.”

What can we make of these assertions? Firstly, the Bible is not referring to the modern day idea of magic and witches that have grown inside of story more so than reality. It does not mean broomsticks or a wart on the end of a nose. The Bible and the CCC are referring to more specific practices, namely, controlling others, seeing the future, and consulting or raising the dead.

Now that we have a clear idea of what the Lord hates when referring to magic and witchcraft, we need to make a clear demarcation between two things which many Christians will argue are opposites, but which appear very similar to a secular mind: sorcery and miracles. Both of these seem to operate outside of the typical rules of the world. They both produce unexpected results. We know as Christians that one is heresy and the other hope, but what is the key to understanding their polarity. Of course, miracles are powered by goodness, the Lord himself, and sorcery is powered by evil. Take the obvious example of prophecy and divination. They both achieve the same ends: to see into the future. A true prophet receives his prophecy from God, but a diviner gropes in the dark for a glimpse of the future in all of the ways listed above in the CCC.

How can we reconcile this when we look at the Harry Potter series? There is a whole subject called “divination” in which the students participate in horoscopes, palm reading, and interpretation of omens. It’s so egregious that it would seem that Rowling got her divination curriculum straight from this list in the CCC. And worse, controlling people (the imperius curse) and raising the dead (inferi) are prominent in the later books. If this is your line for consuming this content, I completely understand. I don’t blame anyone that looks at casual practices of divination in a novel and rejects it as reading material, but I do encourage you to look deeper at what is happening.

The first two infractions, controlling others and raising the dead, are easily dismissed. In the wizarding world, the imperius curse (which allows the caster to take over a person’s mind) is illegal and punishable with a life sentence in prison. Harry does use the imperius curse in dire circumstances which opens a conversation about how good people can turn to evil and how we must ward against this. Raising the dead is only ever done by Voldemort and is viewed as a truly abhorrent action. Therefore, the series as a whole shows both of these types of sorcery to be unacceptable.

There are two main points in defense of Harry Potter that I will make in regards to divination. The first is that the opinion of the main characters about the subject of divination–and really only about that subject–is that it is ridiculous and a waste of time. Our main mentor character, Dumbledore, even considered removing the subject altogether but did not because–I believe–he wanted to keep Trelawney under his protection. After the subject is introduced in the third book, Hermione quickly has an outburst during a divination class and never returns. In book 6, Harry and Ron receive failing grades on their divination exams because they always made up their answers and never did any of the work. This makes it clear that Harry, Ron, and Hermione never seriously take part in divination and have a healthy disdain for the subject.

Secondly, and more importantly, I want to address how prophecy and divination play a key role in the plot. In book 6, we learn that Voldemort attacked the Potters because Snape was listening at the door of Dumbledore’s interview of Trelawney and therefore heard the partial prophecy that spoke of a boy born “as the seventh month dies”. In Christianity, prophecy is often used to show what will happen. There are hundreds of Old Testament prophecies that Jesus fulfills. But Harry Potter shows what happens when a false prophet is heard. Trelawney, being not a true prophet, but a diviner, is overheard by Snape and so the prophecy leads to the death of James and Lily Potter. At the end of book 5, Dumbledore tells Harry that if the prophecy was never heard by Voldemort, it would have held no weight. If Voldemort had not believed in the danger of the boy born at the end of July, he would never have “marked him as his equal” and therefore, they never would have been pitted against one another. In short, the evil is done by the prophecy itself, since it is a false prophet that delivers it and since it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. My point is, there are zero positive portrayals of divination in the Harry Potter series. In fact, it is shown to be at least ridiculous and at most evil which directly aligns with Christian views.

Moreover, Harry Potter portrays deeply Christian values in a way that other novels fail to. Harry is a child who loses everything because of the self-sacrifice of his parents. They are killed in the successful attempt to save him, and so he is saved by sacrificial love. After Harry grows up, he is faced with the same choice his parents were. The difference is that while Harry’s parents make a split-second decision on whether to save their own child–a choice most parents would make willingly–Harry must, with the foreknowledge and expectancy of his own death, walk into the woods and face the Dark Lord in the hope that his death will save everyone. We know what happens next. Voldemort is once again defeated by love. Harry is killed, and comes back from the dead to join the fight and kill Voldemort once and for all.

The Christian themes are heavy and unavoidable. In Jo Rowling’s own words responding to an interviewer on the subject, “I wouldn’t want to push that too far. Because Harry was never supposed to be Christ, or… but you are absolutely right to say that there is Christian symbolism in the book. I’m certainly not being very evangelical, I struggle with faith a lot, but there’s poetry and a beauty about the Bible that I think most people writing in the Western tradition will borrow from. And the idea of self-sacrifice, “there is no greater love than this,” is so beautiful and powerful that I think there would be very few people who would turn away from that idea.”

In the end, my personal opinion is that parents can use the Harry Potter series to teach lessons that are hard to find elsewhere. Firstly, our heroes–all except Christ–sin. This is why Harry is not a true Christ figure and most likely why Rowling denies that she wrote him as such. Christ died for us, but he certainly did not struggle with sin. Harry is a hero, but he is also a boy who increasingly succumbs to anger and sin. Since as Christians, we believe in the inherent sinful nature of every human, we must believe that all of our heroes will fall into sin like Harry does. Secondly, context and framing is very important. To say that we cannot write or read about topics like divination because they are evil is to essentially say that we cannot write or read about evil. And as an extension, that means we cannot write or read about most of the Bible or history. The logic does not hold. Instead of burying our heads in the sand when we see something evil, it is much better to lean into our discernment. With wisdom and knowledge, look at how the evil is framed and have nuanced conversations with our friends and family about it. Saying “witchcraft is off-limits” means that you miss the opportunity to talk about what the Bible really says about magic. Lastly, caution around certain topics is useful. Bravery and discernment is more useful. Knowing that sorcery is evil is one thing, knowing what it looks like when you meet it on the street is another.