On the Value of Harry Potter

by the typically thoughtful Mark Shea:

...If there is anything that Christian parents should pay attention to, it is the curious way in which Harry's universe manages to be magical while never attaining to the truly supernatural as Christians understand the term. This is not bad, but neither is it quite good enough.

What I mean is this: all the Harry Potter novels confront Harry with real choices between good and evil and Harry, like all good protagonists, always manages to struggle through to choosing good in the end. But Harry seems to be aware only of what Catholic theology would call the "natural virtues" of prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude. These things are real virtues and Catholic parents should get down on their knees and thank God that a series of books which takes these virtues seriously are currently inspiring children to shut off the boob tube and wolf down these tales as starving kids eat bread.

But it is also vital for Catholic parents to recognize that these virtues are only natural virtues and that a fully formed human person cannot live on bread alone. Therefore, we must finish the job Harry Potter begins by introducing our children to a truly supernatural world, not of magic, but of grace and, in particular, the theological virtues of faith, hope and love. Harry's universe simply knows nothing of these things, nor do religious questions or the reality of God ever enter into the picture, with the unfortunate consequence that Harry is likeable, but not a light whose brightness is equal to the magnetically frightening black hole of Voldemort's evil.

A secular universe-even one filled with magic-cannot summon the human spirit to its full potential. So after Harry, don't forget to introduce your children to other writers such as Tolkien and Lewis who can take your child "further up and further in." And above all, don't forget to point them to the truly supernatural person of Christ who is not only a greater source of wonder than Harry Potter, but real...

He wrote this early on in the series. I think certain things later on might offer some further light on the supernatural virtues, especially charity, but it's still a good point.  Shea, writing after the conclusion of the series, also had this to say about charges that the Harry Potter universe lacked any hint of God:

When The Lord of the Rings came out, Sir Ian McKellen demonstrated yet again that actors should stick to acting by replying to Christians who suggested Gandalf has some Christ-like aspects:

What I liked about Hobbits was that it was the perfect community but it didn't have a church. There is no God in Lord of the Rings, no Pope, no bishop, no credo, or no one telling you what to do.

The irony of Michael O'Brien's "death of God" claims about HP is that they echo McKellen's thinking about Middle Earth. Nobody in HP goes to church or prays. God is never invoked. Harry feels forsaken by Dumbledore, so that allegedly proves that the world Rowling has created has no room for God. As O'Brien says: "There is no God, apparently, so we must be our own gods. If there is no father (as every orphan knows) than we must be our own fathers."

But, then again, as McKellen says, it "proves" exactly the same thing about Middle Earth. The closest you get to prayer is the Standing Silence of the Men of Gondor (and that, only among the best of them, such as Faramir). Gandalf makes dim mention of Frodo being "meant" to find the Ring, but surely this can't mean Frodo is the humble one chosen by Providence, because then we might have to admit the same possibility for Harry.

For the same reason, Frodo's soldiering on through sheer dint of will despite death, betrayal, loss, and apparent abandonment by the world are really Tolkien's way of asserting that God is dead, and that Frodo must achieve salvation without the help of grace. After all, if we acknowledge that this is preposterous, then we might also have to acknowledge that when Harry must undergo a baptism to retrieve the Sword of Gryffindor that Rowling carefully describes as shaped like a cross, or is helped by the phoenix (an image of Christ as old as 1 Clement), that too might just possibly suggest that Harry isn't quite living in the autonomous existentialist atheist universe O'Brien insists he is. Indeed, Rowling's books are stuffed with Christian imagery, climaxing in Harry's own sacrificial self-offering "death" and "resurrection" by which he saves the wizarding world and robs Voldemort of his power. Not for nothing did Rowling note that she did not discuss her Christian faith too much, lest it give away the end of the series...

For a ton of analysis of all things Potter (with frequent use of the hermeneutic of the Christian faith), see here.

And, if you still don't bite, I refer you once again to St. Basil.