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I was already a Harry Potter fan when I discovered John Granger a couple of years ago. I can't remember how I found his (old) site, but I remember devouring his work. I was still a closeted Potter fan at the time, so it was refreshing to see a fellow Christian so open about his appreciation for the books.
I quoted Granger in my weekly Townhall.com column (with SPOILERS), where I reviewed Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and briefly discussed Christian themes and symbolism. I'll elaborate on these and other themes in future posts.
Also see "Christian themes abound in Potter," by religion reporter Jeffrey Weiss. He begins:
J.K. Rowling gets the last laugh on the dwindling number of conservative Christians who have attacked her "Harry Potter" saga over the past decade: The most important plot point of the seventh and final book is unambiguously Christian.
Ms. Rowling cleverly scattered so many red herrings amongst the loaves and fishes in the previous books that she made it difficult to see the trail clearly except in retrospect. The Potter story is not a linear Christian allegory, no modern day Pilgrim's Progress. And Harry's World is insistently devoid of explicit religion, right through the final chapter.
It definitely helps to know what "unambiguously Christian" means. As Weiss writes, concepts like loyalty, love, friendship, etc., are common among the world's various religions, but what makes something "Christian"?
Aside from J.K. Rowling quoting from the New Testament (although unattributed in the book), her depiction of substitutionary sacrifice in the series, especially in Book 7, reflects a Christian concept. I know of no other religion that speaks of a Savior who took within himself the sins of those he came to save, although he himself was sinless. Sacrificial love is probably the defining characteristic of what is "Christian."
If I'm wrong — that there are no sinless saviors who die for the guilty in other religions — I've no doubt that astute readers will set me straight. 
Addendum: Travis Prinzi adds in the comment section: "I think the only thing I might want to say in response is that Rowling's portraying of Harry's sacrifice and resurrection follows the "Christus Victor" model of the atonement far closer than the "Penal Substitution" Model. Harry didn't actually die for the sins of anyone, or in anyone's place, but FOR the Wizarding World in order to break the power of evil. Lewis's Aslan was much closer to a substitution model."
It seems that JKR mixed different "Christian" elements in the series. Deathly Hallows features substitutionary sacrifice, but only up to a point. Of course, no fallen human can be a savior in the sense Jesus is, but he can put himself in the place of a guilty party. The sacrifice may save the person's life physically, but Christ's sacrifice is needed to save his soul.
As Travis said, JKR also employs the victory-over-death theme of Christianity.
John Granger's looking for links to more blogs discussing the Christian aspects of the Harry Potter books.
8/1 and 8/2 Updates: More Christians-and-Harry-Potter articles:
- Terry Mattingly — "For millions of religious believers who embrace Harry Potter, this pivotal scene in 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' — book seven in J.K. Rowling's giant puzzle — offers new evidence that the author is, in fact, a Church of Scotland communicant whose faith has helped shape her work…The first inscription is from St. Matthew's Gospel and the second — stating the book's theme — is a passage in St. Paul's first letter to the Corinthians about the meaning of Christ's resurrection. Is this part of what Dumbledore had called an all-powerful 'deep magic' built on sacrificial love?"
- Matt Kennedy — "As with other icons of pop culture, the Harry Potter series has spawned no shortage of Christian critics, imitators and evangelistic entrepreneurs — including the Church of England — who are capitalizing on the success of the Potter franchise by using the stories to spread the gospel…The Church of England recently published a guidebook, called Mixing it Up With Harry Potter, to show people biblical lessons within the Harry Potter series. Harry Potter is a “hugely moral series of stories about good, evil, love, friends and everything else,” Owen Smith, the guidebook’s author, told the London Times…The guidebook will likely anger some Christians — including the pope and psychologist James Dobson — who see the Harry Potter franchise as an endorsement of witchcraft."
- John Mark Reynolds, a Biola University professor and Christian blogger I've met at God Blog Convention conferences, contributed several posts to a site called Exile Street. From his most recent: "I deeply enjoyed the last book and thought the ending satisfying. For those who found them quite Christian, they will find much in this last book to give strength to their idea. Whether intentionally or not the Christian heritage of Britain (and there was never a book more British) is obvious in the mythology…"
- MSNBC — "Have you finished reading? What do you think? Is Harry Potter a Christian story after all? Harry has made news, ever since his arrival on the scene in 1998, for provoking the ire of some right-wing Christians who believe his magical powers and wizardly aspirations—not to mention his boarding school peopled with eccentric friends and demonic villains—promote occultism and Satan worship."
- (REALLY GOOD ARTICLE) Jerry Bowyer — "Eventually I went to see the movie version with my whole family. When I left the theatre, I knew two things: first, that I had been an ignorant blow-hard. This wasn’t Wiccan propaganda: it was standard-issue fairy tale magic like Cinderella and The Wizard of Oz. Second, that Joanne Rowling had spent a great deal of time immersed in The Greats – the long line of literary masterpieces that range from The Lord of the Rings and Narnia back through Dickens, Austen, Shakespeare, the Arthurian Legends, the Church Fathers, the Scriptures themselves, and into the best of the pre-Christian Greek classics. In other words, Rowling was one of us…Not long after that, I got to know John Granger and his book, The Key to Harry Potter, and I knew that I was not alone."
- Me in the Washington Examiner — "Why are the books so successful? Rowling combined the British boarding school fiction genre with the classic 'hero’s journey' tradition, mythology and orthodox Christian themes to create a compelling series that reminds many of the works of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. 'Harry Potter' is thus a compelling series that will entertain and delight readers for generations.
"Not all reactions have been positive, of course. Stuffy literary critic Harold Bloom called Rowling’s writing 'dreadful' and said her mind was 'so governed by clichés and dead metaphors that she has no other style of writing.' And according to the American Library Association, the series tops the list as most challenged books of the 21st century."
- Al Hsu, writing for Christianity Today — "I wonder if there have been times in church history when the gospel narrative was this gripping a cultural phenomenon. People probably wouldn't be this crazy about Harry Potter if they had all grown up in a context where they had heard the Harry Potter stories so much that they no longer seemed fresh. The challenge for us in a post-Christendom era is that people have become anesthetized to the Christian story. They've heard it already, or they think they've heard it already. And it doesn't capture their imagination the way today's imaginative narratives have. In a world of Harry Potter, Star Wars, 24, and Heroes, it's hard for the Christian story to compete."
- Dave Bruno, writing for Christianity Today, discusses Matthew 6 — "Some readers point out that Harry and Hermione do not seem to know that the epitaph comes from the Bible. Rowling only makes it clear that Harry 'did not understand what these words meant.' At this point in Deathly Hallows, neither do readers. But I think Dumbledore knew the meaning of that verse quite well and put it there for a reason…What would cause Dumbledore to choose this verse from the Sermon on the Mount for his family's grave?"
- Story in the Scotsman about the upcoming HP conference in Toronto, quoting Travis Prinzi.
July 31st, 2007 at 12:50 pm
I think the only thing I might want to say in response is that Rowling's portraying of Harry's sacrifice and resurrection follows the "Christus Victor" model of the atonement far closer than the "Penal Substitution" Model. Harry didn't actually die for the sins of anyone, or in anyone's place, but FOR the Wizarding World in order to break the power of evil. Lewis's Aslan was much closer to a substitution model.
July 31st, 2007 at 12:56 pm
That was fast! Thanks for getting the ball rolling, Travis.
We're in agreement. The victory-over-death model is closer to what JKR is doing. Of course, Harry wasn't sinless and didn't die for anyone's sins.
July 31st, 2007 at 1:06 pm
I don't see Harry's death as doing anything for him like conquering death. I didn't notice in the book that his desire to sacrifice himself had anything to do with why he returned to life. It was Voldemort's taking in Harry's blood that did that. His sacrifice made a difference, but it wasn't a difference to him. It was a difference to everyone he sacrificed himself for. In the same way that his mother's sacrifice for him gave him protection against Voldemort, so too his sacrifice for everyone at Hogwarts protected them from Voldemort. That's why Dumbledore was able to say that it made all the difference. If someone had just killed him, and it hadn't been voluntary, he would still have had Voldemort serving as something like a horcrux for him, and he would have been able to return to his body (although I'm not sure why he could return to his body when Voldemort couldn't when his killing curse rebounded on him after Harry's mother's sacrifice).
July 31st, 2007 at 1:09 pm
Jeremy, these aren't exact analogies. Besides, it seems that we agree: Harry's sacrifice, whether or not it made a difference to him, made a difference for everyone else. To make a loose comparison, Christ's sacrifice made a difference for "everyone else."
July 31st, 2007 at 3:59 pm
PS La Shawn,
Have you broken down and gone to see the movie yet?
July 31st, 2007 at 4:07 pm
Nope! I'll buy and watch the DVD, though.
July 31st, 2007 at 4:11 pm
This will probably be my last post before Prophecy 2007. I’ll be live-blogging from there, of course, and hopefully getting some good interview material for upcoming podcasts.
July 31st, 2007 at 5:10 pm
There are so many variant interpretations of substitionary sacrifice, atonement, etc. that a one-to-one match is probably impossible. This has the up-side of allowing Christian readers to find analogies to whatever variant they ascribe to, but the downside that non-Christians can find loopholes to argue against the book's unambiguous Christianity. For instance, I don't see how anyone can miss the direct correlation of Harry's actions to one particular Scripture, although it's not overtly referred to in DH. That being John 15:13, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (ASV)." But non-Christians can certainly argue that the sentiment is not a uniquely Christian one.
I think the argument for Deathly Hallows to be considered unambiguously Christian must be made by accumulating multiple points of evidence and convincing others that there's a Christian "whole" that's bigger than the what can be seen in the scrutiny of individual "parts."
Frankly, if I had been teetering on the fence of whether DH was unambiguously Christian, the phraseology JKR chose to use when describing Narcissa's examination of the "dead" Harry would have tipped me to the pro-Christian side; i.e., … her "nails pierced him." Now let me see, where have I heard THAT phrase before?
July 31st, 2007 at 5:22 pm
Roxanne–
Thank you for mentioning Narcissa. I missed that one completely.
August 1st, 2007 at 12:07 am
Travis, it most definitely is substitution, even if it's not ransom substitution, penal substitution, or even vicarious substitution of a more general sort. Since Rowling is more Tolkien than Lewis, I'm not sure why you'd expect an allegory with every part signifying exactly one part of something Christianity teaches.
As for Harry's death conquering death, here is what JKR said in the recent chat (transcript here):
Alborz: What does it mean to be the master of death
J.K. Rowling: As Dumbledore explains, the real master of Death accepts that he must die, and that there are much worse things in the world of the living.
J.K. Rowling:
J.K. Rowling: It is not about striving for immortality, but about accepting mortality.
His mastering death wasn't his coming back, then. It was his willingness to accept death.
August 1st, 2007 at 5:07 am
His mastering death…was his willingness to accept death."
Which is exactly what I wrote in my Townhall review.
August 1st, 2007 at 10:31 am
I love the series and I fully believe that they are chalk full of Christian meaning. However, I still wish Rowling were more forward with her faith. She put the book's ending over proclamation of the truth and when asked for further details after the final book's release she said it was more about her struggle to believe. It's a shame she does not use her fame to proclaim Christ to the world. As far as Harry and Christianity goes, I have written several posts about it on my blog at http://atthestudy.blogspot.com
August 1st, 2007 at 5:41 pm
Is it possible to find Christian meaning in a book even if the author isn't as sure about her faith as we want her to be? Is it possible that Rowling used Christian imagery and themes as story-telling devices–but without a fierce Christian faith of her own? I think it is. I don't know how strong a faith Rowling holds; none of us does. Maybe her successful use of religious themes is like a minister who manages to bring parishioners to God even though his own faith is shaky or cynical. Knowing how the pieces fit together and knowing how to use the allusions is separate from faith itself.
I'd like to discuss the books without speculating on JKR's faith.
August 1st, 2007 at 8:12 pm
JeanMarie–
Although I think I understand what you're saying, I don't think we have any right to hint that Rowling's faith is shaky or weak. I'm sure she's sensitive about it right now; she's taken so much flak from both sides, she'd have to be superhuman if she didn't feel a little reticence right now.
The message of the books is, indeed, unambiguously Christian. To all: let's leave the poor woman alone and concentrate on the books, shall we?
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:48 am
Thanks, Trish. That was exactly my point. I wasn't hinting anything about her faith. I only meant that it is presumptuous to think we can understand her faith from the books.
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:07 am
What a great site - I'm so glad I found it. I just posted my own reveiw…I’d love to hear what others think!
http://catherinemcniel.blogspot.com/2007/08/my-final-post-about-harry.html
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:02 pm
jeanmarie–
Good. I'm glad you clarified that.
August 3rd, 2007 at 1:36 pm
I came across this news article (HT to LaShawn) about the conference in which I am quoted. If you want to see the derision with which not-literary folks look at those of us who examine the literary aspects of the novels, check the comments undernearth the article. It's fascinating and appalling.
August 6th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
>a one-to-one match is probably impossible
Why is it even necessary? Can it not just cover the themes and not have to be a one-to-one allegorical correspondence? These are not tracks in disguise, but fictional stories touching on fundamental themes that underlie creation/redemption/eschatology.
I like to remember that all truth is God's truth and remembering the angel who supposedly chastised Augustine along the seashore, everything can't fit in the hole (books) anyway. It would cease to be the good story it was, an allusion to underlying myth of creation, and become another droll failure.
September 6th, 2007 at 9:08 am
Who would have thought that Michael D. O’Brien and Lev Grossman would have something in common, particularly since both, while holding diametrically opposing worldviews, are so eager to say that there is no God in Harry Potter.