The author of Looking for God in Harry Potter speaks to AGAIN Magazine about the Orthodox Christian perspective on the most widely read fiction ever published.

The following interview was conducted in 20005. With the release this week of the final book in the Harry Potter series, the most widely read fiction ever published, OCN recognizes the importance of revisiting the Orthodox Christian perspective on this literature. Many Orthodox Christians would disagree - some strongly - with the viewpoint expressed here by John Granger and Matushka Donna Farley. Their interpretation of the fiction is just one possible way to think about it.

The full interview can be read on the web site of Conciliar Press.

From Looking for God in Harry Potter:
"Christians, of all people, should be celebrating the Harry Potter novels and the attendant Potter-mania. The Potter books are the most edifying works of fiction written in many years. . . .

"My thesis is essentially this: As images of God designed for life in Christ, all humans naturally resonate with stories that reflect the greatest story ever told-the story of God who became man. The Harry Potter novels, the bestselling books in publishing history, touch our hearts because they contain themes, imagery, and engaging stories that echo the Great Story we are wired to receive and respond to. Looking for God in Harry Potter is a step-by-step walk through these images, themes, and stories to reveal the core of the Harry Potter books and why they are so popular: they address the need (really an innate need akin to our need for physical nourishment) that we have for spiritual nourishment in the form of edifying, imaginative experience of life in Christ.

"Because the Harry Potter books serve this purpose, they are excellent vehicles for parents wanting to share the Christian messages of love's victory over death, of our relationship to God the Father through Christ, even of Christ's two natures and singular essence. Based on our reading of Harry Potter, I have had conversations with my children about heaven and hell, the work of the devil in the world, and our hope in Christ.

"I am convinced that the fundamental reason for the astonishing popularity of the Harry Potter novels is their ability to meet a spiritual longing for some experience of the truths of life, love, and death taught by Christianity but denied by a secular culture. Human beings are designed for Christ, whether they know it or not. That the Harry Potter stories "sing along" with the Great Story of Christ is a significant key to understanding their compelling richness. I take hits from both sides for daring to make such a declaration-from Potter fans who are shocked by the suggestion that they have been reading "Christian" books and from Potter foes who are shocked by the thought that there could be anything "Christian" about books with witches and wizards in them. . . .

"Despite initially having forbidden my children from reading the Rowling books, reading them myself has convinced me that the magic in Harry Potter is no more likely to encourage real-life witchcraft than time travel in science fiction novels encourages readers to seek passage to previous centuries. Loving families have much to celebrate in these stories and little, if anything, to fear."

AGAIN: Upon reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (the original British title of the first Harry Book, titled in America Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone), what gave you your first hint that there was Christian content in these books?

John Granger: I only read the first book in order to explain to my daughter Hannah why we don't read this sort of trash. My concern was that it was scary serial fiction, like the popular Goosebumps books, so my first hint that there was Christian content in the books probably was learning that it was not what I feared-and that I loved the story. Then when I was reading the book aloud to my younger children, I realized that Rowling was using the philosopher's stone as a symbol of Christ (a traditional usage in literature) when reading about the evil Professor Quirrell's burning as he grabs Harry at the climax of that book. Even Hannah recognized this as a picture in story form of heaven and hell being the same place, namely the glory of God, in which the righteous rejoice and the dark-hearted burn. The sacrificial love of Harry's mother and the eternal life-giving symbol in his pocket do Professor Quirrell in-and made me think the author was smuggling in the Gospel message of Love's victory over death.

AGAIN: Why do you think so many reviewers, Christian and secular, have ignored Rowling's use of such traditional Christian symbols as the phoenix, the golden lion, the unicorn, the stag, and so on?

JG: Three possible reasons come to mind. First, the magic bogeyman and the consequent controversy in the Christian community. The debate was framed around the question of whether the books were safe, not what they meant or why they were so powerful. Second, a combination of misogyny and not taking children's literature seriously-unless written by a male Oxford don, like C. S. Lewis or J.R.R. Tolkien. And finally, ignorance. Lewis was astonished in 1939 that only 2 of 37 reviewers of his Out of the Silent Planet saw through its transparent science fiction trappings to see the Christian imagery, cosmology, and meaning. Why should we be astonished at a greater ignorance and blindness 60 years later, when the Christian content of English literature is invisible to even literature students and professors?

One question I am frequently asked is what I think about or say to Christians who hate or just reject Harry. Those asking me this question seem to want me to say such Christians are dunderheads or unloving or the like. Having been a Christian who rejected Harry before I read the books and who would never have read them if my parish priest had told me to avoid them, that would be a strange thing for me to think or say. Most Christians object to Harry because they have been told by authorities they respect that the books are not edifying, even that they are wicked, or because they are concerned about the dangers of real-world occult practice and don't wish to scandalize or confuse their neighbors by reading even children's literature with magic in it. The first reason is really just the virtue of obedience, and the second reason Christian prudence and charity. I can argue with those pastors and prelates who misrepresent what is in Harry Potter or who wildly exaggerate the numbers of people in American covens in order to alarm their congregations-but I can only admire and applaud those people who are practicing obedience and charity in their book selection.

AGAIN: What kind of reaction have you had to your book and talks from Orthodox readers and audiences? Are Orthodox readers in particular missing something if they don't read the Harry Potter books?

JG: Orthodox Christian readers and audiences, from those who were the patrons of the first book's publication to those I meet at church conferences and bookstore talks, have been supportive of my thesis with very few exceptions. Even those folks who don't like Harry have been very polite about their disagreements with me. My very conservative and traditional bishop even wrote a kind review of the first version of the book, which surprised me as much as anyone else! I shouldn't have been surprised, though. Traditional Orthodox life embraces edifying literature, music, dance, and art as ancillary supports to the life in Christ and understands symbolism because of the iconographic and sacramental traditions of the Church at a more profound level than other Christian churches. We also find it hard to get excited about children's literature as a threat to the faith. After Stalin and the Muslim captivity, can Orthodoxy fear a fictional boy wizard?

Friends tell me the occult is rampant in the former Soviet Union and Soviet bloc in the wake of the collapse of State atheism, so the fact that Orthodox leaders in these countries have said they don't like Harry doesn't surprise or concern me (for the reasons I mentioned above about obedience and charity).

Christians aren't missing anything of the one needful thing if they don't read Harry Potter, because literature at best is, as Eliade wrote, serving a religious function in a secular culture. It's a help and a support, maybe even a guide or push to faith, but it isn't faith or revealed scripture, of course. Orthodox Christians have this understanding of the place of the arts and entertainment in the spiritual life and, consequently, they have the most balanced response to Harry Potter. And if Orthodox Christians do not read Harry Potter, of all God-fearing people they have the least to regret, because they have the one needful thing, Love Himself, in the Mysteries and Services of the Church.

This article originally appeared in AGAIN Vol 27 No 4, Winter 2005. It is excerpted here courtesy of www.conciliarpress.com .