The popularity of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series ignited a debate within the American Christian community between fundamentalists, who believe the story is dangerously subversive to Christianity, and more moderate Christians, who point out biblical symbolism in the story and the triumph of Christian values like faith, love, redemption, and the victory of good over evil. On one hand, Richard Abanes, author of Harry Potter and the Bible: The Menace Behind the Magick, argues that the Harry Potter series contains “spiritually dangerous material that could ultimately lead youth down the road to occultism” and promotes “unbiblical values and unethical behavior (6).” On the other hand, Christian minister John Killinger highlights parallels between Harry Potter and the New Testament in an attempt to prove that, ultimately, “the master plot, the one underlying the entire novel, is the critical struggle between good and evil” with Harry as Christ and the evil wizard Voldemort as Satan (38).
Both of these points of view are perceptive, but neither fully appreciates how J.K. Rowling uses Christian beliefs and symbols to challenge traditional Christian morality, especially as derived from the apocalypse story of the Book of Revelation. The Book of Revelation features a hierarchical, dualistic vision of black and white, moral and immoral absolutes like good and evil. Elizabeth Rosen, author of Apocalyptic Transformation: Apocalypse and the Postmodern Imagination, argues that the apocalyptic myth is more powerful than other paradigms theorists have used to make sense of social conditions (like conspiracy theory and chaos theory) precisely because “it encompasses a moral dimension” and “is naturally a vehicle for the analysis and criticism of behavior, whether of the individual, nation, or cosmos” (xiii).
Christian supporters of the series, like Killinger, deserve some credit for drawing attention to the importance of good and evil in the series. Nonetheless, Rowling’s message about that dichotomy is oversimplified to the point of misunderstanding when used to “prove” the story promotes Christian morality. In an interview to The Times of London, British Reverend Brian Coleman, who developed a weekend of Harry Potter family services around James 1:16-27, “insisted that the Harry Potter books were highly moral,” declaring “They are about loyalty, standing up for friends, standing up for good against evil” (Gledhill). In reality, however, Rowling’s Harry Potter series does not simply present the unequivocal triumph of good over evil; it features the struggle to transcend the apocalyptic dualism that promotes conflict between good and evil. Furthermore, the story promotes an alternative to traditional apocalyptic morality by starring characters who do not fit neatly into one of two molds, “good,” or “evil.” The moral message of the Harry Potter series undermines the Christian moral system found in the Book of Revelation, rather than supports it.
Opponents of the series who more readily recognize the subversive potential of Rowling’s work correctly point out the series’ effect, but their endless accusations of black magic, paganism, and unethical behavior misidentify Rowling’s target. There are some, however, including Richard Abanes, who do perceive the challenge to Christian morality in the Harry Potter story. After extolling the virtues of the strict “moral boundaries” in the Lord of the Rings series (“rooted in Tolkien’s devout Christian faith”) Abanes lambasts Rowling’s work, in which, he claims, “moral ambiguity and relativism abound, while at the same time no one really seems to know who is and who is not evil…one’s best friend might turn out to be an enemy, while an enemy might actually be one’s closest ally” (234). It is clear he believes the triumph of morally ambiguous characters in Harry Potter is a serious threat to Christian morality, which, for him and other fundamentalists, depends on rigid definitions of good and evil.
Unfortunately, Abanes weakens his own argument when he also refers to the books as “little more than occult-glamorizing, morally bleak, marketing sensations filled with one-dimensional characters…” (233). One-dimensional characters, by definition, cannot be ambiguous. Although this is only one example, throughout Harry Potter and the Bible Abanes struggles with alternating attempts to portray the story as compelling enough to tempt readers away from their morals, and trying to criticize it as inane, and poorly written, “filled with crude jokes, crass remarks, gratuitous violence, gore, juvenile antics, and just about every other ploy used in today’s action-packed PG-13 films and video games” (243).
In the introduction to Apocalyptic Transformation, Elizabeth Rosen is careful to establish a difference between the apocalyptic myth and the apocalyptic narrative (xxi). According to Rosen, there three sub-genres of apocalyptic literature: traditional, postmodern, and neo-apocalyptic. Each draws on a different combination of characteristics from the myth or the narrative to further a unique agenda. Rosen applies the term “postmodern apocalyptic fiction” to several works of fiction, which, like Harry Potter, advance alternatives to the Christian apocalyptic morality of the Book of Revelation.
These stories, moreover, feature many of the the same major plot elements that appear in the apocalyptic myth of the Book of Revelation, but adapt that narrative framework “to use it as the most effective vehicle for…social critique” (Rosen xx). Postmodern apocalypse stories seek to question readers’ beliefs and assumptions, and challenge their understanding or acceptance of the world. By examining how J.K. Rowling in particular retells and revises the apocalyptic myth of the Book of Revelation to deliver a decidedly non-apocalyptic moral message, I will show that Harry Potter provides a postmodern critique of, and an alternative to, the dualistic moral system ingrained in modern-day American society.
