THIS CHRISTIAN AND HARRY POTTER

All you have to do to cause trouble in a church is talk about Harry Potter. Many of the fifty-and-older crowd don’t know anything about Harry. Others have read J. K. Rowling’s novels and share my delight in them. But there are some who denounce Harry Potter and all his works and all his ways as the spawn of the Devil. People are entitled to their opinions, of course, though I notice that many of the anti-Potter crowd haven’t actually read any of the books. Well, ignorance has never stopped people from having an opinion about anything. I wish, however, they would refrain from consigning me and other Harry Potter fans to the flames of you-know-where because we don’t agree with them.

The basic objection to Harry Potter is that it is about magic which is contrary to the Christian faith. What does magic mean? Defining magic even in the limited terms of the Bible has proven difficult to scholars. A wide variety of practices are condemned which we tend to lump together under the general term “magic” in English. When I taught religious studies courses, I defined magic as “the practice of manipulating supernatural powers.” Obviously any attempt to manipulate God is contrary to the Christian faith. Furthermore, attempts to call upon demons or evil spirits would be contrary to Christianity.

However, the magic the appears in Rowling’s works doesn’t involve the manipulation of supernatural powers. There are no supernatural powers in Harry Potter’s world at all. Magic is a part of the natural order that some are able to access. Rowling’s magic is a kind of technology, something that parallels science. The muggle (non-magical) community has a science-based technology, the magical community a magic-based technology. The wizard Arthur Weasely (who runs the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts department at the Ministry of Magic) is constantly amazed at the ingenuity of muggles getting by without magic.

Is there a danger that reading the Harry Potter books might lead someone into occult practices? That’s a possibility, but that could also occur from something as apparently innocuous as reading horoscopes in the newspaper. I don’t worry too much about it. Every young person I have talked to who has read the Harry Potter books or seen the movies recognizes that the magical world of Harry Potter is fantasy. None of them seems in the least tempted by occult practices. What’s important is that parents talk to their children about what they read, and even more, what they watch on television. Somewhere recently I saw a statistic (I can’t vouch for it’s accuracy) that fathers spend on average four-and-one-half minutes a day talking to their children. What’s that against five hours of television a day?

I don’t see Rowlings book as being anti-Christian or even anti-religious (unlike the “His Dark Materials” trilogy of Philip Pullman which is decidedly anti-religious). Although Rowling is herself a Christian, the question of the existence of God (or of the Devil) simply doesn’t arise in her writings. But that is true of a lot of literature. The old Dick and Jane readers that many of us Boomers used didn’t touch religious issues either. Rowling tells a good story, complex in plot with interesting characters. The young people in the stories are believable. They’ve got the same kind of strengths and weaknesses that real kids have. It’s just that real kids don’t have to fight dragons or kill basilisks or fell giants with a stone from a sling. Wait a minute; that last one is David in the Bible. Sorry.

The other objection to Harry Potter is that he and his friends are disobedient. They break rules and don’t always listen to their elders. That is certainly true, but isn’t that something we actually encourage in children? We warn youngsters about “stranger danger,” adults who must not be listened to because they may harm a child. In the real world not all adults are trustworthy. So it is in the fantasy world as poor Harry who is marked for death by the evil Lord Voldemort knows.

What is frequently missed by Rowling’s critics is her use of a virtue-based ethic rather than a rule-based ethic. Throughout the books the virtues of love, courage, loyalty, wisdom, and persistence are emphasized. Often when Harry creates a problem for himself it is because of a lack of virtue, most frequently of patience or self-discipline.

Virtue-based ethics have had a long tradition in Christianity. Too often it is assumed that Christianity only employs a rule-based ethic. That is not true. Unlike Judaism or Islam, Christianity does not have the complex legal system required to work a divine-command ethic. To be sure, there are apodictic rules, the Ten Commandments, that are embraced by Christians, but religions that rely on laws alone need a system for interpreting the law and applying it particular situations. Just try putting a bunch of assorted Christians together and have them interpret the law “You shall not kill” as it applies to self-defense, war, capital punishment, birth control, abortion, embryonic stem cell research, end of life issues, and gun regulation. It would be impossible to find agreement on how the command is to be applied. Then for good measure throw in Jesus’ teaching: “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire” (Mat 5:21-22). The legalistic approach doesn’t get us very far.

There is great value in teaching virtue. William J. Bennett, a Christian and certainly no liberal, insists, “formation of character in young people is educationally a different task from, and a prior task to, the discussion of great, difficult ethical controversies” (The Book of Virtues, 12). We should seek to develop virtue and then try to determine what right actions are in particular situations rather than trying to create rules to cover every possible situation.

Yes, Harry Potter is a rule breaker. So was Jesus. No, I’m not equating Harry and Jesus. Harry is not the Savior, and he is far from perfect. That imperfection is part of his appeal. He’s like all of us, imperfect. If his sometimes bad example exposes some of the imperfection in us, so much the better.

You know, I wouldn’t mind having Harry and his friends as traveling companions on my pilgrimage. Even though Harry’s got a temper, he’s braver than I am. Even though Ron is afraid of spiders, he’s more loyal than I am. And even though Hermione is an insufferable know-it-all, she isn’t as bad as I am. She doesn’t maintain a blog to share odd opinions with people.

May the Lord God bless you on your way and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne

YOU CAN’T GET A DECENT CUPPA

On December 16, 1773, the Sons of Liberty stormed three ships docked at Griffin’s Wharf and dumped 342 crates of tea into Boston Harbor. It’s been downhill for American tea drinkers ever since. Well, that’s not exactly true. Many of the great supermarket chains in the United States began as tea merchants, e.g., The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company or A&P. Nevertheless, this has become a nation of coffee drinkers. Eccentric tea drinkers have been reduced to second class status. I am one of them.

Being in the church business, I go to a lot of meetings. There is always a huge vat of coffee, freshly brewed. Generally, Lutherans cannot talk to each another without a cup of coffee in one hand. Most churches make no provisions for tea drinkers, or if they do, it consists of a carafe of warm water and a box of 100 economy brand tea bags. I’m looking at a box I found at my church. The paper wrapper around the tea bag has turned yellow with age. Since the building was put up in 1980, I’m pretty sure they’re no more than 25 years old, but I’m not positive. I’ve been places where I think the tea bags have been around since the Truman administration.

Most restaurants are no better. First, you have to specify HOT tea or the iced variety will be served. Even so, asking for hot tea doesn’t guarantee hot tea. Usually you get a tiny metal container filled with what was once fairly warm water and a tea bag in its little paper covering lying by the side. You put the tea bag in the water and nothing much happens. The tea is very shy. Maybe after awhile you can coax some out of the bag and into the water. And despite the label that says your have the “choicest blend of orange pekoe and pekoe black tea” (which tells you nothing about the kind of tea, only about which leaves have been used), the tea tastes like it was made from the muck swept off the tea blender’s floor.

There are exceptions, of course. Chinese restaurants serve nicely brewed oolong or china black tea. Japanese restaurants do excellent green tea, though it is often hard to get more than a single cup from some of the wait staff. The Russian Tea Room in Chicago actually prepares a proper Russian tea in a glass with lumps of sugar on the side. Of course that glass of tea costs as much as light lunch in most places, but it is an experience for tea drinkers.

OK, I admit I’m a fussbudget about tea. I prepare it from loose tea in a Bodum glass tea pot which has an infuser with a plunger so I can stop the brewing after three to four minutes. I drink it in American fashion sweetened, but without milk. Over the years I have purchased tea from various merchants, but stick with a particular tea when I like the blend. So I drink Earl Grey, Prince of Wales, gunpowder green, and jasmine tea from Twinings; keemun and peach tea from the Coffee and Tea Exchange in Chicago; and for special occasions various flavored and scented teas blended by Mariage Freres in Paris and sold through the Cultured Cup in Dallas. And yes, for those special occasions I have Spode, Royal Albert, and Wedgwood tea cups to drink from.

There is a danger in telling people you are a tea drinker. They give you fancy boxes of tea as gifts. Of course, it is always tea in bags, and frequently isn’t tea at all but some fruit or herbal beverage more properly called a tisane. I like tea for the sake of tea.

Will there be tea in heaven, do you suppose? If there is, well and good. If not, I’m sure God has things worked out so that I won’t miss it at all. In the meanwhile, I’ll stop for afternoon tea each day as part of my pilgrim journey. Surely a fine cup of tea is a sign of God’s goodness.

May the Lord God bless you on your way and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne

HEROES AND BOOKS: GOD AND THE BIBLE

In another context I was asked why I didn’t name God as my hero or list the Bible as my favorite book. The answers are interrelated, but will take a little time to explain. The Greeks had stories about the gods as heroes. It’s something fairly common in a polytheistic world-view. No one god is all-powerful. Each is limited by the other gods and the forces of nature. No god, for example, could change the decision of the Fates who spun out a person’s life, measured it, then cut it off. The gods were prey to all the emotions of humans, but they could cause a lot more damage because they were so much more powerful that mortals. In these circumstances it was possible to have a god who was a hero, a divine being who triumphed over an adversary.

That won’t work in a monotheistic religion like Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. When there is only one, all-powerful God, there is no overcoming the adversary. The Jewish and Christian Scriptures are quite clear that God has no equal. Even the stars which are sometimes called in Hebrew elohim (gods) are nothing more than lights created by the One God. Satan is not the evil equivalent of God. Satan is a creature made by God and limited by God. In what seems to be a heavenly conflict between the forces of good and evil, there is never any question that God wins.

In that sense God can never be a hero, certainly not one we can imitate. God is the “totally other,” pure being without limitation, without beginning or ending. While it is true that we are created in the image of God, this does not mean we are in someway divine, chips off the old block (or sparks off the divine fire as the Stoics would say). No, we are always creature, not creator. Being in the image of God means we have a special correspondence with God. With the Spirit breathed into us we have some limited capacity to know, understand, and love God, but only insofar as God chooses to be revealed. On our own, we can know nothing about God.

This brings me to books and the Bible. It is quite possible to read the Bible as an ordinary book. In fact, it can be profitable to do so. It can be treated as a primary historical sources from which we can extract some knowledge about peoples between about 2,000 B.C. and A.D. 100. We can discover things about their religion and culture. It always fascinates me, for example, that the oldest part of the Bible, Judges 5, portrays two women, Deborah and Jael, as the heroes who save Israel. Quite a contrast with some of the later views of women.

We can read the Bible to appreciate its qualities as literature. We can read it for very entertaining stories. We can explore it to see how it conceived the cosmos. We can study it for the moral teachings it contains. In this sense we read the Bible as we would any ancient book.

But there is another way in which we can read the Bible: as the bearer of the eternal Word of God. It is important to understand “Word” as an English translation of the Hebrew dabar and Greek logos. Word is not just spoken sounds or written characters, but reason, revelation, truth. The Word is God, and always has been so. Through the Word, God created the cosmos. In Christ the Word became flesh. The Word was proclaimed by believers thus acquiring a form in words first orally and then in writing. The Word continues to be active in our own day as the means by which people are brought to faith.

Since God is the one who is totally other, there must be a way that God can be mediated to us so that we can comprehend God. That is the Word. The Word to us is always mediated in some way whether that is through creation, through the person of Christ, through the Scriptures, through the Sacraments, or through the telling of the Good News.

The Word of God is alive. It cannot be limited to some rules or propositions about things. Dead words don’t have the power to transform people the way the living Word does.

If we understand that Christ was the Word in flesh, then we view the Bible as a testimony to the Word. I believe that the people who wrote the Bible were inspired by the Word of God alive within them. They wrote not thinking they were creating Holy Scripture, but simply putting into writing what they had heard, taught, and believed. In doing so, however, they were communicating the living Word.

So many approaches I have seen to reading the Bible seem to ignore the Word alive in the community of the faithful. The Word was present among believers before ink ever touched parchment or papyrus. The people who wrote what became the Bible were members of the community of faith. And it was the community of faith that made inspired decisions about what writings rightly bore the Word of God.

I have had a frustrating time teaching students who seem to regard the Bible as something that simply dropped from heaven as a whole in King James English. Most Christians, for example, seem ignorant of the fact that in the first few centuries of our era, many Christians did not regard James, Jude or 2 Peter as part of the Bible, and other Christians regarded 1 Clement, Barnabas, and the Shepherd of Hermas as parts of the Bible. It was a long process is reaching agreement about what constituted the Bible–a process that still isn’t over because Christians still disagree about what constitutes the Old Testament.

I mention these things as a reminder of the dynamic nature of the Word of God in the community and the effect of that dynamism on the Bible. That is often lost when people treat the Bible as the Word of God trapped between the covers of a book. We have to read the Bible as a way of letting the living Word of God move and shape us.

In general, I believe there needs to be a combination of methods employed in reading the Bible so that we can hear the living Word. There needs to be an approach that involves the active intellect to explore the meaning of scripture. There needs to be a meditative type of reading, lectio divina, where we mull over and chew on the Scriptures. There needs to be a prayerful use of the Bible, especially of the Psalms, where we allow the words of Scripture to become our prayer. And there needs to be a communal reading of scripture which allows us to benefit from the insight granted to others.

Heroes and books make good companions on our earthly pilgrimage. I wouldn’t want to be without them. But without God, the living Word, we wouldn’t have the slightest chance of ever getting to our destination.

May the Lord God bless you on your way and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne

A POLITICAL RANT

It’s the silly season in Florida again. Election campaigning is in full swing. I have to keep my eyes open for campaign signs springing up in the church lawn like mushrooms after a rain. If we aren’t careful, campaign workers storm the parking lot during services and stick literature on every windshield. Then I have to spend the next Sunday explaining how the church is not backing any candidate. A few colleagues in the community have attended workshops on how to construct voter guides that seem to examine the candidates’ views, but in reality are endorsements for a particular candidate. I hate that kind of chicanery.

A couple of weeks ago I received a letter from a candidate addressed to “Pastor”which ends with these sentences: “I thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for faithful ministers and stewards of the Gospel like you who care about our nation–a country founded by God and upon his Word. I look forward to continuing the fight for what we believe.”

Of course this is a blatant appeal for political support which a not-for-profit organization cannot give. I could, of course, send my own money to the “Christian” candidate if I wanted (using the handy contribution form enclosed), but reading his literature certainly doesn’t lead me to do so. The candidate is a defender of property rights and gun ownership, neither of which can be identified with the teachings of Jesus. The candidate also favors a state constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. I do agree that’s what Jesus meant when he talked of marriage. It seems to me, however, that Jesus’ concern with marriage was not defining it, but strengthening it by condemning adultery and divorce. Those problems aren’t dealt with in the campaign literature. I studied the material thoroughly, but found nothing about helping the poor or feeding the hungry, both of which were major concerns of Jesus.

Sigh, it’s one more attempt to use religious-sounding issues as a means for political gain. I am so tired of politicians claiming to be the “Christian” candidate when Jesus himself wouldn’t have recognized what they espouse as his teachings.

I highly recommend the book by Jim Wallis, God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It, as a good discussion of religion and politics in the present age.

In the meanwhile, this weary Pilgrim hopes not to confront too many “Christian” candidates on the way before the silly season is over.

May the Lord God bless you on your way and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne