“For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh,
but against the rulers, against the authorities,
against the cosmic powers of this present darkness,
against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”
— Ephesians 6:12
Who would have guessed that a children’s book that’s fundamentally about death would have one of the largest publishing runs of any book in history — garnering 3.7 million pre-orders (that’s pre-orders, before the actual sales began) from Barnes and Noble and Amazon.com? I am talking, of course, about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Those sorts of sales would be amazing enough in a single volume, but this is number seven — of seven — Harry Potter books. Each one of the previous volumes has been a blockbuster best-seller, as well.
That publishing juggernaut has made the author of those novels, J.K. Rowling, a rich woman. She lives in Scotland, and she’s richer, now, than the Queen. Richer than the Queen! It’s unheard of.
No one’s been more surprised by the success of Harry Potter than his creator, J.K. Rowling. She was an unknown when she started out: a single mother, taking the risky course of trying to support herself as a writer. How could she possibly have dreamed that the boy wizard she created would become such a worldwide media figure?
There’s a whole generation of kids who have grown up with the Harry Potter books. My daughter, Ania, is one of them. She was eight years old when Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (or Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, here in America) was published. Now, ten years later, she’s about to leave for college — and she was one of those lined up at Barnes and Noble at midnight, to get her copy of the new book. My wife, Claire, was with her — which is no surprise, because adults have been just as much fans of these stories as the kids. (I drew the line, myself, at showing up for Harry Potter Day festivities, but you can be sure I devoured the book as quickly as they did.)
So, what is it about the Harry Potter books that makes them an appropriate topic for Christian reflection? A few Christian commentators have even warned against reading these books. They’re full of magic, they complain. They’ve got witches and wizards, and people waving wands through the air. Why, it just may be that Harry and all his friends, in learning to cast spells, are serving — wittingly or unwittingly — as servants of Satan!
I’ve never understood all the fuss about the Harry Potter books, because they’re wonderfully moral tales. The good characters — while not perfect, by any means — truly desire to do the right thing. As for the bad people, some are truly evil and others merely misguided, but they’ve all given themselves over to selfishness, cruelty and greed, and have slowly become possessed by these dark forces. Except for the magic wands, flying broomsticks and such, the world of Harry Potter is little different than the world we inhabit. Those who dwell in it are forever making choices, trying to discern the moral way.
The letter to the Ephesians says something very similar:
“For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” [Ephesians 6:12]
The numbers of these critics from the far right of the Christian church are shrinking all the time — and, I predict, as soon as the content of this latest book becomes widely known, the howls of opposition will die away to a pathetic whimper. I was personally thrilled, on reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, to discover that this book — unlike the others — is Christian to the core. In most of her press interviews, J.K. Rowling has deftly dodged the topic of her personal religious beliefs. In at least two major news articles, she is described as a member of the Church of Scotland — and not just a Christmas-and-Easter attender, either.
As J.K. Rowling reaches back into her previous six novels, and pulls all the strings of her complex tale together, she reveals something she had hitherto only hinted at. Harry Potter, boy wizard, is a Christ-figure. The “magic” at his disposal, the power that allows him to triumph over Lord Voldemort, the very incarnation of evil, is nothing more — and nothing less — than the power of self-sacrificing love.
There’s no way around it — I have to answer, now, the question, all true Harry Potter fans were wondering about, in the days prior to publication. (So, if you are still waiting in suspense to hear how the book ends, now is the time to stop reading and set this article aside until you’ve finished the book.) The question is: What happens to Harry? The last book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, made it clear that, when Harry and Voldemort finally went up against each other in the wizarding equivalent of a duel, one of them would not survive. So, which one is it who dies? Harry, or the evil Lord Voldemort?
The answer is: Harry. He voluntarily gives up his own life, so the power of Voldemort will be broken. Yet — just as in the Bible — that’s not where the story ends. In a remarkable chapter — one I think is the most fascinating of all the seven books — Harry lingers for a while between this world and the next.
This chapter is entitled, “King’s Cross.” It gets its name from one of the railroad stations in London, that forms the dreamlike setting for these events. Now, Rowling could have chosen one of the other London stations — Paddington, say; or, Waterloo; or, Euston. But she doesn’t. She chooses the name King’s Cross — an unmistakable reference to the cross of Jesus.
This is not the first time a cross appears in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Much earlier in the story, Harry is looking for a magical sword that’s going to figure prominently in the final battle. He is led to an icy pond, in a dark wood. He gazes into the depths of the pond, raising his magic wand to create enough light to see:
“Something gleamed in the light of the wand, and Harry spun about, but all that was there was a small, frozen pool, its cracked black surface glittering as he raised the wand higher to examine it. He moved forward rather cautiously and looked down. The ice reflected his distorted shadow and the beam of wandlight, but deep below the thick, misty gray carapace, something else glinted. A great silver cross…” [Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Scholastic: 2007), p. 367]
The cross, of course, is formed by the hilt and hand-guard of the sword. Yet, this is a detail Rowling didn’t have to include. The reason she did, I’m convinced, is to foreshadow what’s going to happen in the final chapters.
Now, back to that chapter named, “King’s Cross.” Harry, as I’ve said, has died — laid low by the killing curse of the evil wizard, Voldemort. He awakens in a misty, dreamlike landscape that resembles the King’s Cross train station. There he meets up with his old mentor, Dumbledore — late headmaster of Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, who has been killed, fighting evil, in an earlier book.
“But you’re dead,” objects Harry, as he lays eyes on the senior wizard.
“Oh yes,” said Dumbledore matter-of-factly.
“Then… I’m dead too?”
“Ah,” said Dumbledore, smiling still more broadly. “That is the question, isn’t it? On the whole, dear boy, I think not.” [p. 707]
Has Harry actually died, or is it a near-death experience? It’s hard to tell. Yet, it turns out that, in this dreamlike train station, Harry is offered the choice whether to go on to the next life, or to return and help the forces of good in their battle with Voldemort. Dumbledore does not encourage him, one way or the other. The choice is his alone:
“I think,” said Dumbledore, “that if you choose to return, there is a chance that he [meaning Voldemort] may be finished for good. I cannot promise it. But I know this, Harry, that you have less to fear from returning here than he does.” [p. 722]
And where is this “here”? It just may be the place of judgment, the place where sinners are called to account for their actions on this earth — the fork in the road, from which some go forth into everlasting joy, but others face the strictures of eternal justice. That’s why Voldemort has more to fear from that misty way-station than Harry.
It will come as no surprise, to anyone who knows the character of Harry, that he decides to go back and aid the forces of good in their struggle against Voldemort. The reason he’s able to do so is because — like Jesus himself — he died a pure death, a sacrificial death for the good of others. In earlier books, it was the sacrificial death of Harry’s mother, Lily, that protected him from the killing curse of Voldemort, and gave him the distinctive, lightning-bolt scar on his forehead. Now, in this volume, it is Harry’s own sacrifice. His return from death is facilitated by the magic associated with a certain stone, known as “the resurrection stone.”
Before he leaves King’s Cross and makes his way back to the land of the living, Harry has a final question for Dumbledore:
“Tell me one last thing,” said Harry. “Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?”
Dumbledore beamed at him, and his voice sounded long and strong in Harry’s ears even though the bright mist was descending again, obscuring his figure.
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?” [p. 723]
That line is worth the price of the book. If J.K. Rowling had written nothing else of spiritual significance in this final volume of the series, that would have been enough. In the battle to believe, Christians sometimes struggle with doubt. We may wonder, at times, whether the spiritual experiences we have — the traces of God we sometimes sense in the world around us — are really there, or whether they are fabricated, somehow, by our imagination. Rowling’s word to us, spoken through the voice of Dumbledore, is that reality is bigger than the material world, the world we encounter through our senses. There is another world, as well — a world of the Spirit. Yes, some of our experiences of that world may take place inside our heads: but that doesn’t mean it’s any less real than the physical reality we can touch and hold and taste.
There are many other hints of Christian faith, scattered throughout Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Surely, Christian fans of the books will have a great deal of fun, in the years to come, peering between the lines to discern even more buried treasure.
There’s one more section of the book that’s particularly worth mining for allusions to Christianity. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the only book in the series that contains verses from scripture: two, to be exact. Rowling quotes these verses, but doesn’t cite them, chapter and verse; nor does she identify them as coming from the Bible. Yet, any Christian who’s at all conversant with the scriptures will recognize them immediately.
This is all the more curious, because none of the other six books in the series explicitly mentions Christianity. Yet, Christianity is never far away. One of the biggest celebrations at Hogwarts School, each year, is Christmas. There’s never any mention of the Christ child, but all the trappings of the secular holiday are there. Harry is introduced to his long-lost Godfather, Sirius Black, in one of the earlier books. Although there’s no mention of Harry having been baptized, we have to assume he was (for how else would he obtain a Godfather?). We also read about weddings and funerals, with a certain wizard presiding who sounds very much like a minister.
About those scripture verses: they’re both carved on tombstones. The tombstones are located in a place named “Godric’s Hollow.” “Godric” is an Anglo-Saxon name meaning “he who rules with God” or “he who rules well.” Harry finds the tombstones in a country churchyard, on Christmas Eve. One of the tombstones belongs to Dumbledore’s family. It marks the grave of his long-lost, beloved mother and sister. It bears this inscription: “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Rowling, as I’ve said, doesn’t identify the passage, but anyone who knows the Bible can tell you it’s from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6:21.
The second inscription is carved into the tombstone of Lily and James Potter, Harry’s parents who were killed by Voldemort while Harry was still a baby. It reads: “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” Again, Rowling doesn’t cite it explicitly, but it comes from 1 Corinthians 15:26. It’s part of a lengthy passage dealing with the resurrection.
In constructing her story, Rowling could have put just about anything on those tombstones. She chose to use verses from the Bible, even though there’s no mention, elsewhere in the series, of any character — “muggle” or wizard — practicing the Christian faith. The presence of those verses is no accident. As she leads us through Harry’s tortuous journey — as he grows to understand both the death of his parents and his own vocation, as one who gives up his life for others — she provides these two verses as road signs, so we may understand where Harry is headed. There’s no explicit mention of God in these books (other than the occasional “Thank God!” voiced by a character, and then only in this latest volume) — but God is present, everywhere, in the background. Some of us suspected this was true of the earlier books, but now — in this final volume — Rowling reveals it to be so. She could only have made it clearer by constructing a neon sign announcing, “Jesus this way!”
Comparisons with C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia are inevitable. Like the Harry Potter series, the Narnia novels are deeply symbolic of Christianity, but don’t actually mention God or the church. Instead, they use the concept of magic as a symbol for faith. With the publication of this final volume in the series, the Harry Potter books may well have become the Chronicles of Narnia for the twenty-first century.
When C.S. Lewis set out to write the Narnia books, he wasn’t trying to construct an elaborate allegory. He’s on record as having said that, explicitly.
“Some people seem to think that I began by asking myself how I could say something abut Christianity to children; then fixed on the fairy tales as an instrument, then collect information about child psychology and decided what age group I’d write for; then drew up a list of basic Christian truths and hammered out ‘allegories’ to embody them. This is all pure moonshine. I couldn’t write in that way at all.
“Everything began with imagesstyle=’font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-font-family:’Times New Roman’; color:black’> TC
