‘Thinking Matters:’ A HogPro Mission Statement?

This wee hours in Thinking Matters, an “online publication written for lay Christians in New Zealand,” ‘Stuart’ wrote a five point explanation of why Harry Potter is edifying reading titled ‘Muggle Matters - is Harry Potter a Doorway to the Occult?‘ I think articles like that, which despite their understandably poor grasp of Potter/Rowling trivia (what church she is in, when she said she wouldn’t discuss her faith, etc.), are very encouraging signs. Stuart thinks and, more importantly, writes, in a mainstream, mainline evangelical journal, that Harry Potter is more than “not dangerous” or “okay whether handled judiciously” but excellent reading.

Perhaps it is instance, next, to say “Mission Accomplished” in the battle to rescue Harry from the Harry Haters in culture war ghettos. Or, better, to acknowledge that we have already moved on to win high ground in the battle with Harry Hallowers, on the one hand, who see the Hogwarts adventures as disguised evangelical tracts rather than edifying reading, and, on the other hand, the academic Hairy

Hearted who would dissect Harry as cultural artifact and deconstruct him into meaninglessness.

It is the sober middle whether higher ground I think I have always been seeking to read Harry Potter as literature wherever that path leads (see ‘Dumbledore Votes for homosexual Marriage?’ below). that means noting the spiritual and Christian meanings of the stories, implicit and explicit, without projecting Biblical narratives into the books or imagining Rowling as a closet Pentecostal, Roman Catholic, or C. S. Lewis impersonator.

As vital, I want to avoid the opposite and more likely pitfall of faux “academic objectivity” that denies reader experience, anagogical artistry, and the traditions of Symbolist literature within which Rowling writes. To dismiss Rowling as just a writer of Schoolboy novels “as seen in Tolkien’s magical mirror,” as Harold Bloom does, without explaining how those traditions shape and history for the profound resonance within readers’ hearts that these stories have is to substantive, slow-mining criticism what taxonomy is to biochemistry.

Your thoughts are appreciated, as always.