Harry Potter and the Religious Undertones

Context: In a previous post, I mentioned that I could write an entire post about religion in Harry Potter. A friend from my ward later approached me and requested that I write said post. So, this year for Harry's birthday, I'm essentially dishing up an essay about Christianity in Harry Potter.

For the 20th anniversary of Harry Potter, I bought a special edition copy of TIME. I haven't yet had a minute to sit down and read it, but when I was flipping through it the other day I saw that one of the articles within appears to be on this same topic. I decided not to peruse further so as not to taint my own thoughts. So disclaimer: this post is composed entirely of the beliefs and thoughts I've had about the series for years and has not been influenced by any outside sources.

Not long after my parents started getting into Harry Potter, my mom taped a documentary/interview-type piece about J. K. Rowling and her journey in writing the series. I think this was a little before the first movie came out. It was definitely before the Internet's heyday, which would explain why the interview seems to have never made its way online.

There were a couple of things in this piece that I've never really heard people talk about. The first thing I remember was a few minutes talking about how Hagrid's story is actually based on the story of some minor Roman or Greek god. The second thing I remember was J. K. Rowling telling the interviewer that for her, writing these books was a way to explore her religious beliefs.

Being a smallish child, this made me feel uncomfortable. I was still coming to terms with my own religious beliefs. I remember thinking something like, "Should she do that? Can she do that? Can a fun action-adventure-fantasy series actually be religious?" (I didn't yet realize that both Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings are based on a religious model.)

I never knew J. K. Rowling to bring that topic up in an interview again, but it really impacted me. As the later books were released, I examined each one through a religious lens. When seen through this lens, the entire series is pretty much about Christ.

Let me lay out my case. We know that Harry's mother sacrificed herself for him, which resulted in a protective magic. Dumbledore is aware of this from the beginning; he shares it with Harry in the first book. At the end of the fourth book, Voldemort also talks about how Harry's mother sacrificed herself. He calls it "old magic" and says that he should have remembered it. I believe I read the fourth book for the first time not long after seeing that interview, and when Voldemort mentioned this old magic I immediately thought of Christ's sacrifice. I've always believed that's what Voldemort was referring to. He was raised by Muggles, so he would have known the Christian stories. He disdained anything that had to do with Muggles, though, so it makes since he would have dismissed the notion of a protecting "magic" through sacrifice until he was faced with it.

Now, Dumbledore wasn't raised by Muggles, so it's less obvious how he would have been acquainted with this idea. It's unclear through the series exactly what role religion plays for witches and wizards, but we do have a few hints. Godric's Hollow, where both Dumbledore and Harry were born and where both their families perished, is a wizard-founded village that appears to be predominantly wizard-populated. Yet we know from the series that there's a little church there. Whether it was built by the wizards or whether it was built by Muggles, in the seventh book it appears to be well-attended. And, since Dumbledore's mother and sister are buried in the church graveyard, the church has probably been there since before Dumbledore's time.

Dumbledore was born in 1881. Had he and his family not attended church, it would have drawn undue attention to them in a time where pretty much everyone attended. So we can probably assume that, whether his family believed or not, they probably went to church to at least keep up the appearance that they were an ordinary, non-magical family.

I've always thought that this is where Dumbledore's knowledge and belief in the power of love and his (eventual) acceptance of death came from. I imagine that in J. K. Rowling's world, the miracles of the Bible would have been viewed as a kind of "magic". Maybe they're even considered Muggle interpretations of encounters with great magicians. (I'm not saying I believe that prophets are a kind of magician! I definitely don't believe that. I'm just explaining how I feel like religion would fit into Harry's reality.)

Either way, we know Dumbledore reads the Bible. He put a Bible verse on his family's graves: "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." (Matthew 6:21) (Remember that he was very young when he would have chosen this verse: another suggestion that he was raised religious.) He also put one on Harry's parents' graves (at least, I assume he arranged their burial since he seems to have been the executor of their estate): "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." (1 Corinthians 15:26)

Even if everything I've said up to this point is all baloney and the entire series isn't supposed to have Christian undertones until (SPOILERS!) Harry's death, no one can question that his death itself is supposed to be a reference to Christ. I cried and cried the first time I read that scene. Because, yeah, I mean, it's Harry, and who knows how he's going to get out of this one? But also because I suddenly understood how personal Christ's death and Atonement were. I knew how much Harry cared about the people he was dying for...I suddenly understood how much Christ must care about me. I also suddenly understood how Christ's Atonement must work. I could somewhat grasp how a great sacrifice made from love could shake the world and generate enough power, enough "magic" to save other people by proxy.

It goes without saying that the afterlife scene between Dumbledore and Harry is one big fat religious allusion. Also, the scene where Harry comes back after being "resurrected," besides the obvious reference to Christ's Atonement, also helped me to understand sin and repentance. As Harry then points out a few times, Tom Riddle could have put himself back together if he could have felt remorse for what he'd done. However, he was at a point where having a fractured soul was actually less painful than facing what he'd done and trying to make amends.

Now is a good time for me to mention that even though I love the end of the series, I hated the way it was done in the final movie. It was rewritten in such a way that a lot of the religious symbolism was destroyed. That really disappointed me!

Anyway, those are my thoughts. If I missed anything that seems important, or if you want to add to the conversation, feel free to leave a comment.