After years of being condemned as a scion of the devil, has Harry Potter finally won over his critics in the Christian Church?
Up to this point, the church has been the one sector of the world’s population that hasn’t fallen under the spell of JK Rowling’s boy wizard. Since he first appeared, Harry Potter’s magic has been condemned as a corrupting influence for young, Christian minds, because he glamorises the occult. As the Vatican’s chief exorcist, Father Gabriele Amorth, declared last year: ‘Behind Harry Potter hides the signature of the king of the darkness, the devil.’ One American evangelical publisher even put together a cartoon series that warned, ‘The Potter books open a doorway which will put untold millions of kids into hell.’
But this year, to coincide with the publication of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the Church of England is publishing a guide advising youth workers on how to use Harry Potter to spread the Christian message. ‘Mixing it up with Harry Potter: 12 sessions on faith’ outlines how to use the books and films as ‘a launch pad’ for exploring Christian themes. The Bishop of Oxford, the Rt Rev John Pritchard, explained that the guide springs from the example of ‘Jesus [who] used storytelling to engage and challenge his listeners’: ‘Although the fictional world of Harry Potter is very different from our own, Harry and his friends face struggles and dilemmas that are familiar to us all.’
Meanwhile a mass mailout from evangelicals in America demanded, ‘Is Harry Potter the Son of God?’ Abigail BeauSeigneur has posted a 16-page article with 249 footnotes online, arguing: ‘The story of Harry Potter is, and always was, a Christian allegory - a fictionalized modern-day adaptation of the life of Christ, intended to introduce his character to a new generation.’ If Harry Potter were to die, she comforts anxious readers; it would only be in preparation for the resurrection.
But Potter isn’t the only popular phenomenon that the church has attempted to harness in order to shepherd its errant flock back into the fold. In recent years, churches have been exhorted to channel the appeal of everything - even the Bluewater shopping centre. According to a 2002 church report, people ‘find fellowship’ in shopping together at Europe’s largest retail centre, and like the ‘homely and hospitable smell’ of shopping mall coffee - recommending that churches ought to offer a ‘bright, attractive welcome.’
One vicar who has successfully responded to his church’s clarion call to internalise the zeitgeist is Philip de Grey Water of St Sampson’s church in Golant, Cornwall. Throughout this holiday period, the Vicar is hauling in tourists and internet browsers alike with his idiosyncratic, downloadable sermons. Alongside Evening Prayer, the Vicar asks Sunday to Sunday, ‘What would Jesus say to…’ Big Brother, Borat and Catherine Tate. It remains to be seen whether the congregation will reply with a resounding ‘Am I bovvered?’
