CHURCH AND POP CULTURE
Or Why I Read Harry Potter

Laura Lehman Amstutz

I was introduced to the world of Muggles and magic in college. One of my friends was an aspiring author and wanted to steal author J. K. Rowling’s secrets. And with these friends, if one of us has read it, we all have to read it.

This is how I found myself standing sheepishly in line at 11:35 p.m. on July 15, 2005, waiting for the newest installment of Rowling’s series. If I hadn’t had friends who worked in both major chain bookstores in town, I probably would have skipped the event and gotten it the next day, but friendship again decreed that I be a part of the um, magic.

And it was sort of magical. Adults and children dressed in costumes, getting things painted on their faces, and the bookstore decked out in Harry Potter-esque scenery. All of this for a book was quite amazing.

As a seminary student and an aspiring pastor, I admit my addiction to Harry Potter quite reluctantly. The church has never had a good relationship with pop icons, particularly those that suggest something beyond what is logical or something that may be construed as evil. Most popular culture is somehow connected to art, and Mennonites, like many Protestants, have a somewhat rocky relationship with things artistic.

Or perhaps the church is just jealous of the attention that popular icons receive in a world where we feel we are largely losing ground. Either way, most churches would not subscribe to reading Harry Potter, over say, The Purpose-Driven Life. But perhaps we should.

If we look carefully at those things that become popular in our culture, we may, as my friend suggested in college, be able to steal their secrets. So what are the secrets locked inside what has affectionately been called Harry Potter mania? I have a few suggestions, and perhaps astute readers can come to some conclusions of their own.

First and foremost, the Harry Potter phenomenon is about imagination. It is about a world that does not exist . . . but could. The Potter books are written in a language that is understandable, but it pushes the imagination beyond what seems completely possible. The story is a fantastic one.

So what can the church learn? Well, we also have a fantastic story, full of people and things so astonishing that you have to have faith to believe them. We have stories about people who lived in the desert, or inside of a fish, or on a lone boat in a world covered in water, and the most fantastic story we have is that the greatest Being in the universe chose to come to us as a baby and teach us and die for us.

We have a great story, but we get caught in the logic and forget that what it really takes is imagination to make our story come alive.

Second, Harry Potter can help us see that we don’t need to sugarcoat the world. As Rowling’s novels increase in number, they increase in intensity. They become darker, but as in all good things, the darkness does not snuff out the light. The Harry Potter novels aren’t afraid to admit that there is evil in the world, a lesson most of us have learned by now, with terrorist attacks and war lurking at every turn.

As the characters of Harry Potter will tell you, it is not just adults who face death and darkness in the world, even teenagers and young people must make adult decisions and face the darkness. When we deny the existence of true darkness in the world, we deny the reality that people live in. Then we become the opposite of stewards; we become irrelevant.

And in Harry Potter, as in the Christian story, good does defeat evil, but it is a long hard battle usually championed by unexpected and sometimes unwilling people. Yet we remember that our own story also has several unwilling and unlikely characters, like Moses, Jacob, John the Baptist, and a young girl named Mary.

Another surprising twist in Rowling’s latest novel (don’t worry, I won’t give away any secrets) is that Harry’s only weapon to defeat the evil in the world, much to Harry’s dismay, is love. The greatest of all is love.

Finally, at the suggestion of my friend who wanted to steal Rowling’s secrets, Harry Potter teaches tolerance. Good people of the world come in all shapes and sizes. In Harry’s world, those who ask to be respected come from parents who aren’t magical. Since they don’t have a legacy in the magical world, they are sometimes called names or excluded. But the good people in Harry’s world accept those without magical heritage.

In our world, we are called to love, respect, and ask for help from those who don’t usually fit our mold. And perhaps we can even cull the depths of popular icons and discover the secrets behind what our culture loves.

Do I think Harry Potter should replace the Bible? Certainly not! But perhaps it can teach us something about relevance and the culture we live in. It, and other popular icons, can teach us what society longs for, and what it needs. Magical possibilities lie within our own sacred book, and the Bible can speak to the needs of society. The church just needs to learn the language.

—Laura Lehman Amstutz, Harrisonburg, Virginia, is a seminary student at Eastern Mennonite Seminary. She has been a long-time fan of fiction of all types, but is particularly interested in fantasy/sci-fi and the critique it can provide for culture and the church.