Imagine No Religion

A friend of mine forwarded this quote. It's from a Time magazine columnist, but don't hold that against him. He speaks with remarkable clarity and cuts to the quick on the latest Harry Potter book from J.K. Rowling Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

In The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien fused his ardent Catholicism with a deep, nostalgic love for the unspoiled English landscape. C.S. Lewis was a devout Anglican whose Chronicles of Narnia forms an extended argument for Christian faith. Now look at Rowling's books. What's missing? If you want to know who dies in Harry Potter, the answer is easy: God. Harry Potter lives in a world free of any religion or spirituality of any kind. He lives surrounded by ghosts but has no one to pray to, even if he were so inclined, which he isn't. Rowling has more in common with celebrity atheists like Christopher Hitchens than she has with Tolkien and Lewis. What does Harry have instead of God? Rowling's answer, at once glib and profound, is that Harry's power comes from love. This charming notion represents a cultural sea change. In the new millennium, magic comes not from God or nature or anything grander or more mystical than a mere human emotion. In choosing Rowling as the reigning dreamer of our era, we have chosen a writer who dreams of a secular, bureaucratized, all-too-human sorcery, in which psychology and technology have superseded the sacred.

— Lev Grossman

Isn't that remarkable for today's media? Still, it could be considered not completely accurate. I have at least one source that claims that there is a quote of the Bible in this latest book. That's not a significant epiphany, but it is noteworthy. The atheist lives his whole life denying God's existance while offering nothing in return. Rowling has not intentionally denied God's existence, but she has written a world where He is largely absent. The creation exists separate from the Creator in an unexplored mystery. Any tale of a world that fails to account for it's creator is at best incomplete.

This being a parent's blog, I guess the question is inevitable: Would I let my kids read Harry Potter? Puh-leeze! My kids have far better worlds to explore, their eager minds voraciously devouring books in hours. In a way, they have far too much hope to enter Potter's realms. Is that all I could say? No, but better to say too little and be able to say it later than to say too much and wish you'd kept your peace.