I first read a Harry Potter novel so I could explain to my older daughter why we don’t read junk like that. As a daddy to seven children whom we homeschool, I decided we wouldn’t have anything to do with Harry after a co-worker had recommended these stories (with no little enthusiasm!) about an English boy who goes to a school to learn witchcraft and wizardry.
We don’t watch television, so I was unaware of the controversy about the books in the Christian community, but I didn’t need much guidance to figure this out. That the title of the first book included the word “Sorcerer” seemed sufficient to me to keep it out of my home. Alas, our pediatrician (and Baptist mother of four) gave a copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone to Hannah, then 12, and I was obliged to read it or just a few pages in order to point out its failings as literature and edifying reading. I mean, advocating witchcraft — as an Orthodox Christian, this seemed a no-brainer.
I sat down with the beat-up paperback when the children were finally in bed and expected to be in bed myself in a few minutes. Instead, I was up the better part of the night enjoying the best story I had read in many years. The next day I told Hannah she could read Harry — in fact, I told her to start reading the book that day. I bought the other books in the series then available, apologized to my co-worker for disregarding her recommendation, and read the first chapters of the first book aloud that night to my other children.
What caused my about-face on Harry? First, there isn’t any sorcery or invocational magic in Harry Potter (the American publisher changed the original title, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, because he felt Americans wouldn’t buy a book with “philosophy” in the title). The scriptural objections to the witchcraft in Harry Potter are unfounded because the incantational magic of literature has nothing to do with the real-world occult.
As important for me, though, was the depth and evidently Christian meaning of the stories. I didn’t know then what I have learned since — that the author, Joanne Rowling, has an honors degree in Classics from the University of Exeter and is Church of Scotland in her faith (Presbyterian to us) — but her faith, intelligence, and classical training come shining through her stories. In the best tradition of English literature, which until very recently has been Christian literature written by Christians for Christians, Rowling “instructs while delighting” and “baptizes the imagination.”
I confess to being more than a little surprised when I learned that other readers had trouble seeing past the title to enjoy the delightful characters and drama. I realized then that I was able to see what the author was doing because I look through the same prescription eye-glasses she does. Like Mrs. Rowling, I love the Great Books, have an honors degree in Classics (mine from the University of Chicago), and I grew up in the Anglican communion (the American Episcopal Church). I could see the literary spellwork she was performing in these adventure-mystery tales because I could recognize the literary references and formulas, recognize the Christian imagery and symbols, and translate the Latin spells.
I explained this to friends who encouraged me to write a book they could share with other friends who loved or hated Harry. This book has been published as Looking for God in Harry Potter (Tyndale, 2004). In it, I describe how and explain why the books have become so popular: the human heart is made by Christ for Christ — and our hearts, hardened as they may be, resonate with the Christian themes, artistry, and meaning of these books, all of which echo the great story of our Lord’s Incarnation and Resurrection. Each book, for example, ends with Harry’s confrontation with evil — and Harry loses every single time and dies a figurative death. He is saved from death by love and a traditional symbol of Christ, and, in case you miss the reference, in the first book he rises after three days!
The most interesting thing about these books for me, however, isn’t the artistry and faith of the author (if I find them remarkable, to say the least). Fr. Fleetwood of the Pontifical Council for Culture and many other literate Catholics have noted the Christian meaning and goodness evident in these books. What stays with me is the salutary effect these books have had on my children.
C.S. Lewis once explained the bad behavior of one of his child characters as being the unhappy result of the boy’s “not having read the right books,” namely, stories about knights in shining armor slaying dragons and rescuing fair maidens. My children love King Arthur and Robin Hood (especially the Howard Pyle versions) and our yard often has several of them acting out their favorite stories from these books as well as Harry Potter. I think my neighbors know all the spells in the books from hearing the Granger kids yell them across the lawn. “Expecto Patronum!”
I didn’t think much about this play until the day I had to leave some papers with an unpleasant business associate. My 10-year-old daughter, Sophia, was with me in the van on the way to her violin lesson and she could tell when we pulled into the business parking lot that I was uncomfortable about the man I was going to see, however brief our meeting would be. She asked me why I looked upset and I explained that I was just nervous about my errand, but that I would be right out to take her to her lesson.
She got out of the van with me, I assumed to rollerblade around the empty parking lot. No, she was determined to come in with me and skated up to the door. “Of course, I’m coming with you,” she said. “You know, Daddy, just like Harry Potter; friends don’t let friends face danger by themselves.”
My children are reading the “right books.” Entering the building with my daughter and comrade-in-arms, I had to think that the Harry Potter novels are some of the best.
© Copyright 2004 Catholic Digest
John Granger is a Latin teacher in Port Townsend, Washington, and the “Harry Potter Professor” at Barnes and Noble University.com where he is currently moderating a Discussion Group for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. He is an ordained Reader in the Greek Orthodox Church — and has almost finished reading the latest Potter novel aloud to his youngest children (and biggest Harry Potter fans).
