What has this guy been smoking?

[pegkerr]

This article, Harry Potter and "the Death of God" came up in my Harry Potter Google alert today. Okay, here's a clue: it is apparently from a right-wing Catholic website. The author is introduced as Michael O'Brien, "North America's foremost Potter critic" (who is apparently so notable that I've never even heard of him). Mr. O'Brien says:

In short, the series is a kind of anti-Gospel, a dramatized manifesto for behavior and belief embodied by loveable, at times admirable, fictional characters who live out the modern ethos of secular humanism to its maximum parameters.

I'd love to hear what John Granger (hogwartspro) has to say about this. I'll e-mail him tonight to see if he has any comment. Meanwhile, anyone else care to weigh in? aeditimi? Bueller? Anyone?

Edited to add: aeditimi has written a great response here. Thanks!

Comments

Meshuggatitando!

[barondave.livejournal.com]

I have quite the opposite reaction. One of the annoying things, to me, is how Christian the Harry Potter series is, especially the last book. They don't seem to have any Jewish characters (and don't talk about the religious beliefs of the foreign wizards), all the school holidays are Christian, they go to church, the spells are pseudo Latin, etc.

One fairly recent study (for which I don't have a reference) looked at tv shows and came up with the show with the most Christian values: The Simpsons. A much earlier study came up with the show with the best family values: The Addams Family. When a large part of the storyline is "us vs the world", the families tend to be closer and the religious values tend to assume the mainstream. When you have kids questioning adults it looks bad for all institutions, even if the kids are right.

In HP, Wizards are clearly of a Christian type. The mere fact of them performing magic doesn't say anything about their faith. The critic says, "All told, it is the grandest trans-cultural event of epic proportions in the history of mankind, rivaled only by the Bible." First of all, he's talking about the Bible and the New Testament, so he's already lost me. Second, sphincter conservatives just never quite understand why anyone doesn't see the world exactly like they do. When John Lennon made his famous comment, "We're more popular than Jesus now." He was a) correct and b) saying this was a bad thing. But the holier-than-thou types demonstrated that they didn't actually read the teachings of Jesus and got their panties in a bunch.

Sad, really.

Re: Meshuggatitando!

[nmalfoy.livejournal.com]

I don't know you but I like you. Well said!

Re: Meshuggatitando!

[barondave.livejournal.com]

Thanks. *non-denominational hug*

Re: Meshuggatitando!

[bohemianspirit.livejournal.com]

I'd also like to know why these people see no commonality between "Christian values" and "Secular Humanist values." How about plain old ETHICAL values? Love, compassion, concern with doing good vs. maximizing gain, etc. I don't see these as the IP of Christianity.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

"I'd love to hear what John Granger has to say about this. "

I thought he was off licking a cat.

K. [honestly, I can't keep up]

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

*falls over laughing* Nope. Different John.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

John Granger is an academic and Christian apologist for the Harry Potter series, who recently blogged about how he'd love to see the Christian right actually get a clue and apologize to Rowling for all their ravings against the series, now that with the release of book 7 it should finally be clear to all (even to the self-deluded) how much the HP books owe to the central story of Christianity.

Judging from Mr. O'Brien's ravings here, Mr. Granger will probably be waiting for a long time to hear that apology. Like, forever.

[msavi.livejournal.com]

I read up until this point...

"We might also consider for a moment the fact that no sane parents would give their children books which portrayed a set of "good" pimps and prostitutes valiantly fighting a set of "bad" pimps and prostitutes, and using the sexual acts of prostitution as the thrilling dynamic of the story."

...and then I was too busy laughing to finish reading the article.

[nmalfoy.livejournal.com]

I missed that part of the book...?

[msavi.livejournal.com]

Mr. O'Brien obviously comes from the Laura Mallory School of Crazy. Because witchcraft and prostitution are both evil, and so the parallel he draws between them is perfectly valid. [/sarcasm]

But I admit, I wasn't only laughing at teh crazy; I was also laughing because as far as the "good" whores vs. "bad" whores analogy goes, I'm pretty sure I read a fanfic like that once.

[chelsearoad.livejournal.com]

The review begs the larger question: is the term batshit crazy really redundant?

[barondave.livejournal.com]

I don't recall an MMPI standard established for any rodent guano, but I don't keep up with the literature.

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

Nope, not redundant. It is, I believe, the second loveliest phrase in the English language.

In my book, "bug fuck crazy" comes in number one, but I'm on medication...

[cesario.livejournal.com]

Anyone who can't see the message of the Gospels set out in the Harry Potter books is going to be equally incapable of apprehending their meaning in any genuine way when reading the Bible itself. Either Mr O'Brien employed no critical reading skills when he was skimming Deathly Hallows, or his interpretation of his own religious doctrines bears all the hallmarks of the kind of shallow, bullheaded literalism I generally associate with the southern Baptists who raised me. I have absolutely no patience with that sort of illiterate dogmatism, and less patience still with people who go into the reading of a book with an agenda to prove. That's just bad scholarship.

[nmalfoy.livejournal.com]

If the series, which follows the traditional mythos of the hero's journey, is an "anti-Gospel", so, too are Beowulf, the Tarot deck, Star Wars, Frodo's epic journey, and even Alice's adventures down the rabbit hole.

[naomikritzer]

This guy needs to read Philip Pullman for some perspective.

Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, commented on the Pullman books (which I assume you've also read) at some point and said that he liked them a lot; that they were fiction in which God was secretly weak and in need of protection, and that he found it a very interesting commentary on our world, where this is not the case but many devout individuals act as if it is, as if our God is the God of Lyra's world. Isn't it nice to see quotes from religious figures who understand the concept of fiction (fantasy fiction, even)?

[avengangle.livejournal.com]

That's amazing. I really can't believe that someone said something like that, especially someone that important.

I mean, it's completely true.

Actually, I can't think of anything useful to say. But thank you so much for quoting that.

[cryptaknight.livejournal.com]

I read a quote from Pullman that went something along the lines of thank goodness for HP, because the religious types were so busy freaking out over HP that His Dark Materials just sort of slipped on by.

We covered both series in a European Children's Fantasy Fiction class I took in college, and there were a couple people who recused themselves from HP because of religious objections, and they were quite stunned by Pullman.

[naomikritzer]

Since first reading The Amber Spyglass I have been saying that the fact that the fundies have busied themselves freaking out over Harry Potter while completely ignoring Philip Pullman is clear evidence that they don't actually read.

[http://users.livejournal.com/anam_cara_/]

Quite right! That always surprised me, all the attention HP got, and silence on His Dark Materials.

[cryptaknight.livejournal.com]

It'll be interesting to see what happens once The Golden Compass is released in theaters.

[aberforths-goat.livejournal.com]

Funny. I've actually written a few things about the death of God in DH - though not quite in the terms you O'Brien gentleman seem to be thinking of.

Have a look:

http://aberforths-goat.livejournal.com/4353.html

[dreamflower]

These are the same people who find the same sort of problems in "Lord of the Rings" and the Narnia books, for goodness' sake. Logic and reasonableness has no purchase in their tiny brains.

I'd enjoy seeing John Granger's take on it as well.

[aeditimi.livejournal.com]

Actually, most don't find a problem with Lewis or Tolkien because they were professing Christians and (especially Lewis) beat the Christological metaphor into such simplistic death that the reader couldn't miss it. So that's okay, it seems. Even if one is a wizzard.

[dreamflower]

Oh, when the movies came out there *still* were complaints from that sort of narrow-minded people, even in spite of JRRT's and CSL's professed beliefs.

[aeditimi.livejournal.com]

okay, wow. I'm going to have to do a whole long post in my own journal about this, because comments are too short and I need more time to think.

Very rough first thoughts:

1. Some people just can't get past the witchcraft thing. I think it's nonsense-- if the world is about faeries or elves or unicorns no one has a problem, but because some people think sorcery such as that described in HP exists and is against the Bible, they won't get off it. This is not the place for a tiresome argument about what the Hebrew Bible says about witchcraft, what it is actually referring to (if anything), and how to think about that. A pointless debate, because I'll never sway a literalist.

2. A book can't be about the death of God if God was never present to kill.

3. That said, the Christian God that this reviewer believes in and conceives of is not to be found in HP. I've looked for "Him" there as well, to no avail. Again, this is no more or less awful than any other book in which the hero walks past churchyards and contemplates the meaning of life but does not darken the door of a particular house of worship. I dunno, pick any story not written by Tolkien or Lewis. Pick yours, for god's sake (har har)! A character whose family is Methodist (boy do we look bad) but has been driven out of that family and that faith identifies himself with no particular spiritual practice. And, since he's not a wizzard, no one would accuse him of being anti-God (although there are other reasons that he'd raise alarms for our poor reviewer).

Anyway, yes, I do think that Potterverse is pretty humanist, and that's the worldview in which Harry lives, not because he's an evil pagan, but because that's the world as a lot of people experience it. Now there's much more to be said about the strengths and weaknesses of HP from a theological and spiritual perspective, but I'll leave that for my own journal.

[bohemianspirit.livejournal.com]

I will look forward to reading what you have to say. ;-) I'm glad I found your journal; have been enjoying it immensely since I friended it. (Peg's too. ;-)) One of these days I'll go back and post comments on old posts of yours... no Net at home, alas.

[wild-patience.livejournal.com]

O'Brien is pretty much a fantasy hater. Years ago he came out with A Landscape with Dragons: The Battle for Your Child's Mind in which he bashed popular children's fantasy. The publisher, Ignatius Press, is a conservative Catholic publishing company.

He is the foremost Potter critic in the sense that he is the most critical of, not that there is any true literary criticism.

He's a novelist himself. (Are those grapes sour?) I read one of his books in 2000. It wasn't too bad, but I had no urge to rush out and buy more. Again, the publisher is Ignatius Press, a conservative Catholic publisher that doesn't publish much fiction at all (so I don't know how discriminating they are beyond the "must not contradict Church dogma").