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The Sacred Texts of Harry Potter
I’ve been a big fan of the Harry Potter books. I don’t care whether or not they were great literature and don’t think they promoted witchcraft. They were just plain fun to read.
But I was deeply concerned when I learned of two graduates of Harvard Divinity School, Casper ter Kuile and Vanessa Zoltan, who started a podcast called “Harry Potter and the Sacred Text,” have a “weekly church-like service for the secular focused on a Potter text’s meaning.” Last summer they became the number two podcast in America on iTunes.
Their target market turns to millenials, who generally consider themselves non-religious, but are also struggling to find a sense of meaning in their lives. They have no source for learning about morality and ethics, learn no standard of behavior to follow in their lives, and put off marriage or decide not to marry at all. Given this lifestyle and lack of teachings, they are rudderless, struggling to find spiritual direction.
Ter Kuile and Zoltan reject secularism, yet study the Potter books using various traditional meditation and study methods: lectio divina, florilegium, and the Jewish method called pardes. Zoltan explained one of their goals:
To me, the goal of treating the text as sacred is that we can learn to treat each other as sacred. If you can learn to love these characters, to love Draco Malfoy, then you can learn to love the cousin you haven’t spoken to for 30 years, then the refugee down the street.
One of their followers, Mark Kennedy, who grew up Catholic and left the church, reported the podcast had changed everything for him: “I feel like I’m born again.”
The podcast told him that the Harry Potter series — the books that he always turned to for solace when he was angry or stressed or in need of an escape — could be a source of spiritual sustenance.
At first I asked myself if this new pop religion was any worse than New Age or other “spiritual practices” that have popped up in the last 40 years. It isn’t just this practice, however, that concerns me. I worry that people will not only dabble in these books as sacred practices, but they will continue to drift away from conventional religions. They will mistake the novelty of this unusual practice with a deep spiritual connection.
The ancient religions that are thousands of years old, or those sects that have emerged over time based on traditional sacred texts, offer something that the Harry Potter books can’t provide: a coherent belief system that has been studied and shared in volumes of sacred texts that provide education, life lessons, and practices. They offer a moral basis for how a person should live his or her life, and how they should treat others. They provide teachers who not only can counsel, educate, and support practitioners, but who can point out those times when we may be out of integrity with a religion. They provide every type of community, large and small, orthodox and modern, in order to meet the needs of people who want to deepen their religious lives.
Unfortunately this Harry Potter “religion” reinforces some of the very difficulties and drawbacks of the people who follow it. Many people think it is a religion or a substitute for religion, but it is not based on any profound thought, moral system, or texts. Millenials are described as self-centered, and the idea of charity or helping others isn’t taught; they may also be looking for a simple and painless way to feel good. Many other premises and teachings from the major religions are simply not addressed.
So I don’t think the Harry Potter texts are “bad” in and of themselves, but they allow non-religious people to believe that they are doing “something spiritual” and it misleads them into thinking that religion is easy and fun. Sometimes it is, of course, but it can also be demanding and move us to soul-searching and sacrifice. I think this is an unfortunate trend and will not contribute to the strength of society as a whole.
Are you concerned that these practices may drive people even farther away from traditional religion and from moral and responsible behavior?
Or do you think they serve a role in sparking the spiritual in people who have fallen away or have no religious moorings?
Published in Religion & Philosophy
I’m with you. I read, and enjoyed, the Harry Potter series.
But could we move on?
Thanks, Mac! Do you have any thoughts to add about the “sacred texts”?
Oops. Our comments crossed each other. I’m not clear about your comment. Could you clarify?
Could you direct me?
People tend to find what they’re looking for, wherever they look. I reckon it’s the people that determine what’s found not the place.
Also – haters gonna hate.
Good grief, Zafar. Who knew? I guess we can find anything we are desperate for, anywhere we want to look. Sheesh.
Okay–this comment. Are you saying that once you read these books, it’s time to be a grown up and move to something deeper and more mature?
I don’t know the lady personally, but I remember reading somewhere that J. K. Rowling wrote her name with her first two initials because she loved C. S. Lewis. She wanted to write the same number of Potter books as there were books in the Chronicles of Narnia.
Of course, Lewis was a great Christian apologist, and his books are laden with Christian themes. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is essentially the Christ story. While Rowling is no Lewis, I think it’s pretty clear that the Christian tradition influenced her as she created Harry Potter. The thing to which those people are attracted are the things that are taught within Christian churches every day. That’s why they resonate on some level. They are essentially reading Christian ethics.
However, I am completely with you in substituting fiction for sacred texts. This would be like worshipping Aslan, the lion in the Lewis books, which is completely missing the plot in the end.
One extra thing I’ll say about that Catholic who has found his spiritually in this Potter podcast…. It’s partly the church’s fault that a kid would fall so far away… that he would be so estranged from the core messages of Catholicism if he ever attended mass every Sunday.
I’ve said it before elsewhere. The church could–and should–do a better job of teaching the faith… nurturing the mind as well as the spirit so that a kid doesn’t think lessons about fair play whilst playing a sport on a broom are actually unlocking the afterlife.
So I’d rather someone look at Harry Potter to think about proper ways to act than read Lolita, but I don’t think the podcasters are doing anyone a favor when they call passages worthy of analysis “sacred texts.”
They’re just good novels.
Maybe they can be gateways to something else… Like walking through wardrobes?
Who knows?
Thanks, Lois. I agree wholeheartedly, although I’d say the same for other religions. I was a Jew after all, and didn’t discover the depth and richness of Judaism until recently. Many Jews are aware that they’ve not done a great job of keeping people in the fold. It’s a real shame. (Don’t misunderstand–I’m responsible for falling away, too.)
I also think that books that teach the morals we hold dear, whether fiction or fact, are wonderful. But as you say, they don’t substitute for sacred texts.
“When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing…” — G.K. Chesterton, Catholic convert
The truly sad thing is, if these Nones knew their Bible better, they’d be better able to critically analyze the Potter series and would be able to pick up on themes and lessons taught for millennia.
We live in a time of moral idiocy and shallow sentiments. Our religious ancestors must be appalled.
So true, WC. At some point they might actually realize how empty these “teachings” are and look for something of substance. I can hope. . . .
The overarching theme of the “Harry Potter” series is the conflict between Good and Evil. People would ask if Rowling was going to kill off Harry Potter, and I thought, no. She could not let Evil triumph over Good. She did not. However, she did indicate that Dumbledore was homosexual, for which I found zero evidence in the novels at all. We all know her politics, and she has pretty much restrained herself in the Potter series. I have found some pretty good quotes however.
This is just an example of G.K. CHesterton’s observation:
when people stop believing in traditional religion, the danger is not that they will believe in nothing; the danger is that they will believe in anything.
Agreed. Just want to append the rest of the Chesterton quote: “…they don’t believe in nothing–they’ll believe in anything!” Such is the result of the post-modernization of our schools (that have succeeded in nothing if not eliminating God from their halls), our culture, and worse– our churches. The downward spiral of “anything goes” and “if it feels good do it.”
My first marriage was to a Jewish woman. In order to have the marriage performed by a Rabbi, I had to take classes from the Rabbi. One point that he made has stayed with me for the last nearly 50 years. He said that there were a tremendous number of people who simply dropped out of their religions at too early a stage to have learned that within all major religions that there is a common thread of spiritualism. Unfortunately, the dogma which is so much a part of the early training tends to turn people off before they get to the real spiritualism which is at the core. Catholics, like me, were drawn to Buddhism because the spirtualism is pretty much upfront. Later in life I learned that all that I had sought in Buddhism was in Catholic teachings. I love the Harry Potter books, but found nothing particularly spiritual or enlightened in them. However, I read them after a long lifetime of studying the major religions and finding their common core. Those people drawn the the mysticism of Harry Potter are seeking something far more simplistic than the teachings of the yogis and other great religious thinkers. They want enlightenment without doing the work. They are the product of a generation raised on a diet of television dramas in which major problems are solved in the course of 60 minute productions, or, perhaps a seven volume set of fantasy novels. They lack the patience and the discipline to find their way. This silly short cut will eventually prove to be inane and lacking in any substance, but until it does, and as long as their silliness is reinforced by others seeking the same, they will indulge in this nonsensical fantasy based on stories originally told by a mother to her young children at bedtime, and eventually written down and expanded to full length books. This is not an uncommon happening. Stranger in Strange Land by Heinlein drew many hippies into its alleged spiritualism. The rock opera Tommy had a similar concept, a short cut to enlightenment by playing pin ball. This is a fad, and it too will pass.
Exactly. And that’s a gateway to something real in a post-modern world, but it would be really great if kids had enough education to connect the dots. It is a failing of the whole system.
Also, I don’t agree with Rowling’s politics, but they are secondary to universal themes. At least she isn’t promulgating that there is no Good and Evil, a common trope.
Snape is my favorite character from the series and all, but jeez. Never be surprised at the level of ridiculousness of fan girls.
I also want to be clear. I agree with @eugenekriegsmann, but I think he might be too pessimistic. I totally agree that there was nothing especially profound in the novels, but at least the Harry Potter books have some of the universal themes that are correct. I don’t think a podcast series presenting them as “sacred texts” is useful, but I do think fiction can sometimes act like a gateway. Here I have a little trust in God. He can use all sorts of tools, I think, if a heart is truly seeking.
Snapists, eh? That is whacky.
Tame compared to this.
I haven’t read the Harry Potter series, though my kids have and I’m generally familiar with the works. My comments are broader.
As a conservative, I’m skeptical of systems created by One Smart Person — or by a smart committee, a Congress, etc. The richer the system, the more important it is, I think, that it be something evolved over many generations, subjected to examination, testing, revision, and, sometimes, rejection.
So, while Harry Potter could be a brilliant metaphorical distillation of our search for meaning and virtue, it’s more likely that, as the product of one woman’s artistic efforts, it’s something less than that. And people who wish to put it to a higher use than its creator probably intended — that is, to use it for something beyond entertainment purposes — are doing so at their own risk.
We’ve all heard the phrase “I’m spiritual, but not religious.” I think those people have it exactly backwards: better, from a purely humanist perspective (that is, without any consideration of salvation and the disposition of the soul), to be religious but not spiritual. Spiritualism is a primitive urge, the desire to experience — or, the subjective sense of having experienced — the numinous. It’s something apparently universal in humans. Religion, on the other hand, is an effort to codify and understand the purpose of living, and the meaning of a good and worthy life. (It isn’t the only such effort, but it’s undoubtedly the most common domain focused on that effort.)
If one has to be one or the other, but not both, I suggest being religious. And then pick your religion with a little discernment, avoiding those that rather clearly appear to have been developed, not so much as a codification of goodness and virtue, but rather as entertainment (Harry Potter), financial gain (Scientology), or naked personal empowerment for its founder (Islam and, probably, Mormonism). Not to say that they don’t have their virtues as well, and I certainly know many fine people who subscribe to them. But, if you have the full range from which to select, why not aim… higher?
There is another problem, which is that most professed Christians in this country have at best an eighth-grade education in their faith – often worse. This is a year old (and I’m a little skeptical of Lifeways), but I suspect it’s underlying finding is true: American Christians don’t understand the Bible that well and are not all that consistent in their application of the faith.
I commented about this podcast when someone else posted about it a few months ago – I don’t see it as uniquely troubling thing, other than what it means for Harvard Divinity School that it is graduating self-proclaimed atheists these days.
Well, this is just ridiculous. We all understand that there’s only one true religion. All praise be to the Partridge Family temple and the goddess Shirley.
http://www.thepartridgefamilytemple.org/albuquerque/shirley/
I agree. On the other hand, let’s face it, reading the Bible is difficult. It is a complex book for all the reasons that make it sacred. It takes effort and time—worth it, of course, especially if you are unusually burdened or gifted with both spirituality and a strong interest in religion.
But most people, quite understandably, go through the motions of religion, get their understanding of the Bible from the pastor and/or books and movies (Passion of the Christ, Life of Brian) and get on with other things.
Thus has it ever been. The beautifully decorated Cathedrals with their stained glass windows, the icons and statues, the old medieval passion plays, hymns, “Ben Hur,” the Children’s Illustrated Bible I had when I was a child, the graphic-novel versions of the Old and New Testaments… and the work of Madeline L’Engle, Lewis, Chesterton et al were all ways that could supplement or substitute, depending on the consumer.
If you happen to dwell amongst people (or virtually “dwell” as the case may be) who read the Bible seriously and thoughtfully, you can have really good conversations about what’s actually in it. But if you don’t…
I wonder if, for some Harry Potter fans, the mere notion of treating it as “Sacred Text” will lead them to the actual Sacred Text?
I will admit that I am woefully ignorant of wayyy too much, though I’m trying as an adult, and I think I know more than a lot of people do, which is such a low bar that I have no pride in being able to step over that bar at all. Even when you want to do the work, it’s not easy to find anyone to guide you. Our culture has fallen away from Christianity to the extent that even the very basics are not picked up at all, or they are picked up and not understood.
I mean, at least when I was a child I learned the Lord’s Prayer in Girl Scouts. (My brother learned it playing football in high school, as they said it before football games in the locker room.) So you can probably guess my family was not exactly “churched.” But what we got from the culture was more than kids get now.
And the whole thing with churches teaching? Um. They don’t.
Come to think of it, my sister-in-law who went to church on Sundays–back pew, she says, so her family could leave and beat the traffic–went to a Christian rock concert with me and asked why they kept singing about “I am.”
It’s… startling.
Nor do I know how to fix it.
I wonder this, too, because secular books that are still laden with Christian ethics made me want to learn more about the real God. That’s the optimist’s view because I don’t know where else kids are supposed to pick up anything at all.
I agree, RB. And she is quotable. It’s too bad that at least the Potter series couldn’t be free of politically correct nonsense! Thanks.
I agree with you. Apologetics used to be important for the edification and growth of faith. Discipleship was to go deeper and move to meat, rather than the constant drinking of mother’s milk as we rehash baptism one. More. Time.
Hebrews says to move forward in your faith, but we have stagnated. The deep stuff is too hard and controversial, offends too many, and results in picking and choosing. Pastors who need collection plated filled avoid it.
We have done this to ourselves.
I agree with all you say, except I think that this fad is further evidence of the continuing decadence of our society. Harry Potter won’t take us down, but the books represent just what you state above, and it doesn’t bode well for the future. Thanks for your thoughtful comment, Eugene.