After years of arguing about them, and oftentimes demonizing the Harry Potter books because of their themes, readers have another piece of the puzzle straight from the author’s mouth.
..J K Rowling has now revealed that Christianity has been one of her major inspirations.
Breaking her silence on the much-debated question as to whether religious themes permeate her books, Rowling confirmed that they echoed her personal struggle with faith.
Speaking in America this week, she was open about the Christian allegories in her latest book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
Well now, isn’t that a fine piece of news. Ought to squash a lot of goofy speculation about finding devil worship in the pages, or whether the gospel message is too hidden in the series. Pshaw! JK Rowling turns out to be a lot like many folks in modern culture… the product of an upbringing in what was once a Christian culture, but which has been so neutered by the modern ideas of humanism and the Godless turn that science took in the 20th century, that it seems no longer to have the strenth of soul or clarity of message to inspire. So we have an author struggling with her own personal beliefs, and thus her faith, and cobbling bits and pieces into her work’s major themes.
..At one point Harry visits his parents’ graves and finds two biblical passages inscribed on their tombstones.
“They are very British books, so on a very practical note, Harry was going to find biblical quotations on tombstones,” she said.
“But I think those two particular quotations he finds on the tombstones …they sum up, they almost epitomise, the whole series.”
So, what verses did Harry find on the tombstones in Godric’s Hollow? The first verse, on the tomb of Dumbledore’s mother and sister, is from Matthew 6:21, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” In the NASB, and from v19, the passage reads like this, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” The second verse that Harry found in the graveyard, he found on his parents’ tombstone…
“The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.”
Harry read the words slowly, as though he would have only one chance to take in their meaning, and he read the last of them aloud.
“‘The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death’…” A horrible idea came to him, and with it a kind of panic. “Isn’t that a Death Eater idea? Why is that there?”
“It doesn’t mean defeating death in the way the Death Eaters mean it, Harry,” said Hermione, her voice gentle. “It means…you know…living beyond death. Living after death.”
But they were not living, thought harry: They were gone. The empty words could not disguise the fact that his parents’ moldering remains lay beneath snow and stone, indifferent, unknowing. And tears came before he could stop them,
The verse is from 1 Corinthians 15:26. JK Rowling and Harry Potter are facing the eternal question…
..However the author, who was brought up an Anglican and is now a member of the Church of Scotland, said she still wrestled with the concept of an afterlife.
“The truth is that, like Graham Greene, my faith is sometimes that my faith will return. It’s something I struggle with a lot.
“On any given moment if you asked me if I believe in life after death, I think if you polled me regularly through the week, I think I would come down on the side of yes - that I do believe in life after death.
“But it’s something I wrestle with a lot. It preoccupies me a lot, and I think that’s very obvious within the books.”
That is indeed the dilemma that every human being faces. Is there life after death? A hint to the answer is carved on that stone. It isn’t in the Potter books, much as some want to find it there, at least not so obviously. But on the same page of the Bible where she found “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death”, she (and Harry, and you, if you still seek it) will find the answer to what she seeks, shared by an eyewitness
Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.
Ah, faith. Such a gift.
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