Review - Harry Potter 7 Is Saint Matthew 6

UPDATE: I revised this review for Christianity Today Online and that version can be found here.  Enjoy!

Fans of Harry Potter find out so much in the last book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  No single review could hope to cover all that we find.  And I could not hope to pretend I have found all that there is to be uncovered.  Here I am concerned to point out one of the more obvious discoveries, namely, that the great Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry Albus Dumbledore read the Bible.  Moreover, he seems not only to have read the Bible but to have understood it.

Observers of Harry Potter have argued (sometimes rather viciously) over J. K. Rowling’s alleged use or misuse or non-use of Christian themes.  The idea that Rowling has not used Christian themes throughout Harry Potter must seem foolish to honest readers aquatinted with both the Harry Potter books and the Bible.  But that wrongheaded notion is put to rest for sure in Deathly Hallows when Rowling quotes two Scripture passages word-for-word. 

Though Rowling has used Christian themes in Harry Potter, it is possible, as some commentators suggest, that her uses are empty of traditional Christian orthodoxy.  Deathly Hallows begins with quotes from Aeschylus and William Penn, which might hint that Rowling has a non-orthodox view of Christ and salvation not unlike some Quaker theology.  That is possible, I think.  And the sure-fire way to find out is to see what she says of her religious beliefs when the interviews start rolling in.  For what it is worth, I’d be surprised if Rowling does not line up more properly with traditional Christianity.  More on my reasons for that after returning to the subject of Dumbledore’s understanding of the Bible.

Albus Dumbledore quotes the Bible word-for-word by placing an inscription on the tomb of his mother and sister, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6:21).  On this point my wife (who possesses encyclopedic Harry Potter knowledge) and I disagree.  I believe that Dumbledore is, in fact, quoting the Bible.  The reason I think this is because he, well, is.  This is not an allusion to a Scripture passage.  This is not a paraphrase of a Scripture passage.  This is a word-for-word quote from a Scripture passage.  The quote is on a tombstone in a graveyard behind a real church where people are singing a real carol on a real Christmas Eve night.

Startlingly, one of the most explicitly religious aspects of the Harry Potter series is one of the most controversial.  Many critics have lambasted Rowling for removing religion from her world.  But then why are there so many churches?  Reread the books (I know, it will a long time) and notice how many churches there are and how often she mentions churches at critical junctures.  And why do wizards and Muggles alike sing Christmas carols?  Are we, for criticism’s sake, supposed to imagine that in the Harry Potter books the Christmas carols are not about Christmas?  Critics can say what they want.  An honest read, however, must include the recognition that religion, and particularly Christianity, has its place in the world of Harry Potter.

But back to the Scripture passage Dumbledore quotes.  We need to ask ourselves why he choses this verse from the Sermon on the Mount.  The circumstances surrounding the death of his sister help us understand why he marks her grave with this passage.  Dumbledore’s greed for the most precious of earthly treasures, the Deathly Hallows, ultimately led to his sister’s death.  Suffice to say that Dumbledore’s sister Ariana was one of the most tragic characters in the whole Harry Potter series.  Her life was one of immeasurable hurt.  Her need was the need of the poorest among us.  She required love.   Sacrificial love.  Her brother Albus failed her.  Dumbledore’s failure which led to the death of his sister helped him to comprehend one of the other truths in Matthew 6, “No one can serve two masters” (Matthew 6:24).  The pursuit of possessions of power, even with benevolent intentions, can ultimately only lead to destruction and ruin.  As he puts it in his own words Dumbledore understood that he, the most powerful wizard of his day, “Was not to be trusted with power.”

It was that very conflict of interest that ruined Severus Snape.  He attempted to serve two masters, his love for Harry Potter’s mother Lily Evans and his devotion to the possession of earthly power.  Snape lived out the rest of that verse in Matthew 6, perhaps as tragically as any character in literature, “He will be devoted to one and despise the other” (Matthew 6:24).  Near the end of Dumbledore’s life Snape reveals to the Headmaster his patronus, a doe.  The doe is Lily Evans.  When he sees Snape’s patronus Dumbledore’s eyes fill with tears, realizing that for all these years Snape has remained devoted to Lily.  His love for her was his master.  But so too was Snape mastered by his desire to possess, especially power.  Snape could not serve both his masters.  In the end, to his ruin and credit, he remained devoted to Lily and despised his opportunity for a place of power.

How do we know all this for sure?  It’s in their eyes.  And again, it is in Matthew 6.  If there is one thing we know for sure about Harry Potter, it is that he has his mother’s eyes.  Her green eyes.  How many times are we told how Harry’s green eyes are the same as his mother’s?  Contrast them with Snape’s eyes.  His dark eyes.  How many times have we seen Snape look into Harry’s eyes?  Always, we think, Snape looks with hatred.  But really he looks at Harry’s eyes feeling anguished and conflicted.  Snape sees the eyes of Lily Evans, whom he has always loved with devotion.  Also Snape sees Harry Potter, whom he despises.  For Snape, Harry Potter personifies all that he cannot possess, the love of Lily Evans and a position of earthly power.  In Deathly Hallows we see the two sets of eyes face off one last time as Snape dies while looking at Harry.  “The green eyes found the black, but after a second, something in the depths of the dark pair seemed to vanish.”  And so we again must turn to Matthew 6, “If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” (v. 24).  Dumbledore had pitied Snape, his best quality was his most hidden secret.  “My word, Severus, that I shall never reveal the best of you?”  If love is hidden behind darkness, how great is the darkness indeed!

Though Snape’s eyes go forever dark, Harry’s eyes remain bright, perhaps shine more brightly than at any time before.  “Slowly, very slowly,  he sat up, and as he did so he felt more alive and more aware of his own living body than ever before.”  In the culmination of knowledge Harry gains after Snape’s death, he knows that he must die as a sacrifice.  Harry must walk willingly, eyes wide open, to his death at the hands of Voldemort.  He must choose to love his friends above himself and sacrifice himself to save them.  And so appreciating “what a miracle he was” Harry goes into the Forbidden Forest where Voldemort is waiting.  As he walks he discovers the last of the Deathly Hallows, the Resurrection Stone.  And by its power those close to him who have died return and walk with him for a while.  Harry’s mother joins him.  “She pushed her long hair back as she drew close to him, and her green eyes, so like his, searched his face hungrily, as though she would never be able to look at him enough... His eyes feasted on her, and he thought that he would like to stand and look at her forever, and that would be enough.”  Why is it enough for both of them to look into each others’ eyes forever?  Is it just the profound love of a mother and a son that they see?  I contend it is more.

Lily and Harry see not only each others’ eyes and the love they have for each other, but also the profound place of loving sacrifice to which each of them had come.  It is not enough that they are mother and son.  It is enough that they both possess the truest love, sacrificial love.  And their eyes tell them so.  “The eye is the lamp of the body.  So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light” (Matthew 6:22).  That light, the light of Lily’s and Harry’s eyes, comes only from one source, sacrificial love.  And their sacrificial love, like all true sacrificial love, comes only after everything else - all possessions and all self-interest, everything - is set aside for love’s sake.

So is that it?  Is Rowling’s Harry Potter a narrative exposition of Matthew 6:19-24?  Is Dumbledore a metaphor of “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also?”  Is Snape a metaphor of “he will be devoted to the one and despise the other?”  Is Harry a metaphor of the “eye is the lamp of the body?”  Is the narrative as didactic as it is delightful?  We ought to seek heavenly treasure.  We cannot attempt to serve the two masters of heavenly treasure and earthly treasure.  We are full of light only when we seek the ultimate heavenly treasure, sacrificial love.  Nutters as it sounds, I think Harry Potter 7 is Saint Matthew 6.

Epilogue

All us Harry Potter fans must have our theories and explanations.  I have shared with you mine.  And with a genuine smile on my face, I will not begrudge you if you think me, in the words of Ron Weasley, “Mental.”  Since you have made it this far, however, I will briefly mention the second quotation from the Bible and why I think it likely that Rowling fits more squarely into traditional Christianity.

After Harry and Hermione discover the grave of Dumbledore’s mother and sister, they come upon the grave of Harry’s parents.  On that tombstone too is an epitaph, another word-for-word quote from the Bible, “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15:26).  I think it most likely that Dumbledore is responsible for this inscription also, as there seems to be no other person in the Potters’ lives who would take precedence over him in this decision.  Now in the context of that Scripture passage it is the death and literal resurrection of Jesus that conquers death.  Rowling and Dumbledore could have put anything on the Potters’ tombstone.  They did not have to quote the Bible.  They did not have to reference the New Testament passage that most explicitly connects Jesus’ death and resurrection with a vital faith.  But they did quote that very passage.  She seems to me too careful a writer to make this reference without its fullest meaning in mind.

Comments

[Nina Ruth]

OK, even I cried!
If you don't submit this to TIME magazine and/or Christianity Today, I will...!!!!

[catherine]

Fantastic ideas. Thanks. I love that post-Christian Harry (as well as Post-Christian reader) didn't even know what the quotes on the tombs were...but we knew.

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

[Ann]

I loved reading your thoughts and sent them on to several others who will also appreciate them. Thanks

[Jimmy]

I guess Dumbledore didn't pay attention to Leviticus 18:22.