Thoughts from a Harry Potter agnostic

by Nathan Brown

[***Spoiler alert***]


For the past 10 years, I have been a Harry Potter agnostic.
While enjoying the stories as just that—stories—with each installment, I have been aware of their questionable literary merit and frustrated, with the increasing size of the successive volumes, about the seeming absence of a hard-nosed editor from J K Rowling’s literary life. Even about the 400-page mark of The Deathly Hallows, it was more determination to see how it would end than my engagement in the story that kept me reading.

But the greater cause of my Potter agnosticism was the continuing ambiguity about the nature of the story and characters themselves. Having read opinions on the Harry Potter series from across the spectrum, I was unable to settle the question in my mind. Of course, there were the hardline, angry Christian perspectives, who were askance at any mention of wizards and magic in anything less than a completely negative way and—ignoring the use such motifs as literary devices—were ready to declare Harry the illegitimate son of the antichrist himself.

On the other hand have been those educators and parents just happy to see kids put down the Playstation controller for a moment and pick up a book, like we did in the “good, old days.” And of course there were also Harry Potter’s grown-up fans, drawn in by a remarkably readable story.

And then there was one more school of though of which I had read a little—those Christian voices who were keen to point out the goodness embedded in the Potter stories. Some even went so far as to suggest Rowling—who has always been reticent in taking about issues of faith—was a Christian, using her writing to get “past watchful dragons” (as C S Lewis put it) in a post-Christian society, particularly in her native England.

So my anticipation of the seventh and concluding book of the series was heightened more by this underlying ideological tension than by my mere curiosity as to how the story was to end, whether Harry was going to make it out alive and how neatly Rowling was going to wrap up the loose ends. Without denying my enjoyment of a rollicking narrative, it was more as an observer of a cultural phenomenon that I made the pilgrimage to a suburban bookstore on the Saturday evening of its release and purchased one of the record 12 million copies sold on the day.

So am I a believer? As I have mentioned, two-thirds of the way through Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I was still to be convinced. And, in our cynical age, it is remarkably difficult to write an ending that is both credible and satisfying.

But J K Rowling pulled it off—and in ways that few of the many speculators were able to predict. As a modern-day fairy tale, the series works, while still giving the literary purists things to grumble about.

And, ideologically, my agnosticism has also faded. A few years back, I was a volunteer at a church teen camp at which the speaker used the early books of the Harry Potter series to explore the themes of the Great Controversy and book 7 brings the battle between good and evil to its climax. This motif has been an important part of the ongoing story—as it is in many of our culture’s great stories—and the distinction between good and evil becomes clearer as the characters are forced to choose their response to the growing conflict. While the dark side employ whatever means possible to achieve their ends, the Harry Potter heroes choose to make space for compassion and maintain self-imposed limits on their use of power.

But Rowling also portrays the choice between good and evil as not so black-and-white as one-dimensional stereotypes might be. The good guys have their flaws, doubts and struggles, while some of the worst characters are not beyond moments of ambiguity and even the possibility of redemption, if they choose.

And the central choices are those Harry must make. Does he have faith in Dumbledore’s instructions, despite the questions raised about his mentor after Dumbledore’s death? And ultimately is Harry prepared to face his own death, trusting that somehow his sacrifice will destroy the evil of Lord Voldemort and put an end to the reign of terror?

In a scene that wakes strong echoes of Aslan’s self-sacrifice, his walk to the stone table and his death in Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Potter dons the cloak of invisibility for a final trip into the Forbidden Forest to face Voldemort and his minions. And then the “deeper magic”—as Lewis describes it—does its thing. In both Narnia and Harry Potter, love, goodness and humility are stronger than evil, even when evil appears triumphant.

A believer? No, I don’t believe in Harry Potter, I have not rushed out to join a HP fan club and I have not sent any money (after my initial “donation” of about $A30 for the book itself). But at the end of our 10-year adventure with Harry Potter’s fantasy world and J K Rowling’s roller-coaster of a story, I have been reminded of the importance of choosing goodness and trusting that goodness to overcome evil, whatever it might cost and however doubtful it might appear.

As a result of reading Harry Potter, I am encouraged as a believer in God and in His purposes and plan for goodness in a world that often doesn’t look like it. And I am hopeful that others who may not yet be as familiar with the realities of the kingdom of God might recognize something of this same self-sacrificing goodness when they hear the story of Jesus and what He has done to overcome the evil in our world.

For other useful perspectives on Harry Potter VII, check out Gary Swanson writing on Adventist Review’s web site and Trudy Morgan-Cole at her “Compulsive Overreader” blog .