Ready Eddie? GO!

Just wanted to let you know that Eddie became a Christian at the weekend!

"All the nations you have made will come and worship before you, O Lord; they will bring glory to your name. For you are great and do marvellous deeds; you alone are God."
Ps 86.9-10

Harry Potter and the Mystery of Jesus Christ

NEEDLESS TO SAY - DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU HAVE NOT YET FINISHED THE LATEST HARRY POTTER!

And so it is finished, the epic journey has come to an end. The Harry Potter story arc is resolved and JK Rowling can begin to consider how she builds her career from here on in.

Before I get to "...the Deathly Hallows", there are some Christians who passionately think that Harry Potter is inherently evil and irredeemably occult laden. I've read their critiques but disagree with them; I think Harry Potter is a deeply Christian-friendly narrative, the last book in particular gets us there. It is not a Christian series of books, nor is it intended to be so (at least from what I've read of JK Rowling's interviews, that's what I understand) - so it is not akin to the Chronicles of Narnia, or (at a stretch) Tolkien's fantasy novels - but that does not make the books anti-Christian.

Harry Potter deals with the 'real world' - there are real moral decisions to be made, complex dynamics of truth and lies, dilemmas and quandaries: moral evil is seen as repugnant, moral good is seen as costly and 'anti-world' (against the majority). Sure it is a world of magic and spells, yet these spells and the magic are not the complex occult practices of wiccans and satanists: they are the magic of Narnia (actually less so occultic than some of the account in Prince Caspian). Rowling writes magic as children, as people in general, imagine it to be - you say a powerful word and the magic is done - rather than the way in which contemporary Wiccan's practice it (which i won't dignify with a description here).

What I do recognise and agree with is the rejection of the way in which the film merchandising has really emphasised the 'practical magic' side of the Potter phenomenon - that is more culpable in pushing children and adults into deeper interest in the occult. But this is not JK Rowling's writings, it is the imaginations and the greed of the the marketing world.

Dealing with the real world through story is something which we see consistently in scripture - the real is uncovered in the fictional: parables do it and do so powerfully. Themes of growing up, bullying, truth, love, loyalty, friendship, forgiveness, sacrifice and destiny are dealt with again and again. The books cause pause for thought. This in itself has great merit in a world of distraction - especially in a Christian world caught up in the escapism of books which encourage a retreat into a neo-romantic monasticism, reading the left behind series which has as much serious biblical content as does Harry Potter serious occultic magic (and you know my thoughts on the latter).

There are troubling things about the writing - but they are troubling because they reflect the real world. Bullying is often unhindered and underestimated by those in authority and cruelty by adults toward children sometimes goes unpunished. As the books progress they move to darker times - the last two particularly have a much less romanticised mood, more war like, than the first book sets up - but the journey is one of discovery of the threat of evil lying under the surface of a world which looks fine and wonderful.

As we've read the books as a family we've had many occasions to discuss values and truth, love and loyalty as well as the nature of evil and the cost of choosing to do the right thing. We have also enjoyed the thrill of the ride through plot twists and turns, discovering hidden mysteries and captivated by the sometimes brilliantly written narrative. Ines has often been frustrated by some of the poor editing - we both think Rowling is too powerful and author and, especially in the last 3 books, needed more severe editing.

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows brings many of the loose ends to resolution and does so, I think, very well. Harry Potter faces the final trials of tracing and destroying Voldemort's Horcruxes (soul carriers) so that Voldemort himself can finally be brought to confront death. He doesn't do this alone, of course, Ron and Hermione go with him.

The body count in the book is huge - it is hard to think of a chapter where there is not at least one death, and there are deaths of several well-loved characters. Death presses close at hand and is even personified in the search for the 3 Deathly Hallows. In this darkening atmosphere, and in the context of a graveyard, Rowling quotes Scripture:

"Where your treasure is, there will you heart be also" (HPATDH pg 266, Matthew 6.21)

"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death" (HPATDH pg 268, 1 Cor 15.26)

How is death to be defeated? How will the immortal evil of Voldemort be vanquished? What must Harry do? The truth is, he must die. Harry Potter must die. He must die to deal the final blow to the evil that cannot die. Harry himself, or rather his death at Voldemort's own hand, is the only way to vanquish the Master of the Deatheaters. And die he does. He walks to his destiny, alone, choosing death to save his friends, to save the world he has come to love, his only comfort are shadows from the past reassuring him that death is but a small step and not to be feared. This is Harry's great loss and Voldemort's great victory. And so Harry dies.

But his death is not the end. He is the great vanquisher of death. Voldemort does not understand love and loyalty, sacrifice and selflessness. In destroying Harry he secures his own demise. Harry comes back from death, twice defeating the death curse, mastering death and claiming life. Voldemort is ambushed in his moment of triumph and deals death out once more, only to himself. His followers, the death eaters, are themselves made to taste their own medicine.

Harry Potter ends with the vanquishing of death by the fulfilling of prophecy by a selfless hero, who gives his life willingly for his friends, in doing so death is defeated and the final enemy is overcome. This is a redeemer myth which relies on, rests upon and proclaims the selfless love of Jesus Christ.

That is why Harry Potter is Christian-friendly. It inescapably points anyone with ears to hear and eyes to read to the reality of Jesus. It is a long journey, through over 3000 pages of text, and Harry is no perfect saviour but his 'witness' is not a poor one, he is no dark hero but one who gives many more bridges into talking with our children and our friends about the Perfect One who truly defeats death in selfless love than those who cannot get past the 'abracadabra' nature of the magic in the books.

But if you find the books offensive, don't read them: yet don't miss the opportunities that the end of 'Deathly Hallows' (and much more in the other books) provides... ask good questions before telling your friends that Harry Potter is evil - there is more good in there than you might think. And who knows, Harry Potter may open the greatest and grandest of mysteries to be uncovered: that the God of the universe has made his greatest, boldest, most daring and scandalous revelation of himself in a child who grew to be a man, fulfilling prophecy in a death proclaimed as victory over sin and evil, death and condemnation - Jesus, not just a child of prophecy but the Son of God; offering life for all eternity - not from the pages of fiction, but from His own Word: a book more compelling and lasting than any of the Harry Potter novels.

more on Harry Potter and Jesus from Mark Meynell

Reaching Out from Within

One of my responsibilites at the moment is to be the contact point for Hamilton International Christian Fellowship, at Waikato Uni (about 120kms/75miles south of Auckland - a 4 hour round trip). This small group of students and graduates has been without a TSCF member of staff in their city, for a number of years. At the end of 2006 it looked like the group was going to finally come to an end, and that we were going to look to restart it as and when a small team of people came together to re-pioneer the work in Hamilton.

Then a PhD student, Shirley, contacted me saying that she would do what was necessary for the group to continue. She consistently made sacrifices of time and energy (at times to the detriment of her PhD) for ICF to continue. She is about to return to her home culture and a small team of students have stepped into positions of leadership, they are young, not very experienced as leaders and one or two of them are very recent converts. Shirley's passion and commitment has seen much fruit, a total of 8 students have come to faith in the last seven months: all international students and all from completely unchurched backgrounds/cultures.

I was at Waikato University on Friday to speak at the group. Seeing the new leaders, thinking about the fragility of this group in particular and of student work in general I got thinking about a few things relating to doing student mission here in New Zealand.

TSCF groups are not staff lead, but staff make a significant contribution to the group. The very first time I met with the Hamilton leadership (Sept 2005), 10 days after arriving here one of them said to me

"without TSCF contact we felt without a compass, without a rudder: we felt lostI"

The absence of staff in Hamilton has meant that the group has struggled, that the "Christian Fellowship" (the Kiwi group) disappeared and we have lost ground with church leaders and communities in the area. In places where staff are present, we are seeing students trained, supported and groups going well. Though the sobering reality and great encouragement is that (even without staff presence) with one or two students, well trained, focussed and motivated we see men and women turning to serve the Living God who revealed himself in Jesus, as has happened at Hamilton ICF through Shirley's input.

Confident evangelism on campus produces fruit. I've been thinking about evangelism a lot recently (IFES World Assembly's impact) and I think that there are two specific challenges in Kiwi culture which makes confident evangelism an extra effort.

1. Kiwi's are passionate people (rugby, cricket, netball... ANY sport really) and culturally they are very direct ("we call a spade a bloddy shovel") but where passion and directness do not meet is in the realm of personal belief. Personal belief (of any sort) is to be held dispassionately and quietly: meek and modest even. To hold a belief that would impose on anyone else is not perceived positively - discussing those things is difficult too, and sometimes too difficult. I guess I've seen this most in that Christians tend to be embarrassed in talking of Jesus ("God" is OK, less specific and personal) to the point that talking of him, becomes difficult even amongst Christians. Now, that's something I observed in the UK too - but here in NZ, it is more acute. I guess thrown into greater relief coming out of the IFES World Assembly and talking of Jesus much and often ("but that's a Christian conference" someone might say, but so was the TSCF conference the week before and there were not so many conversations about Jesus. If we struggle to talk to Christians about our love for Jesus, how much more tongue tied and embarrassed will we be in talking with our friends of no faith or other faith traditions.

2. Kiwi culture is family focussed and individualistic in 'mood'. This is harder to speak of, because it is about the feel of life here. Life is assessed in terms of what is good for me and my family - faith becomes an add on to the other lifestyle choices that people make. People talk a lot about their sport (Rugby vs Soccer; Hockey vs Netball), their hobbies (Yatchie vs Boatie) and their homes ("house prices have really gone up/down") and for Christians God becomes a factor to harmonise in with the rest of life. If there are competing factors; leisure will often win over inconvenience. Again this is no unique thing in world cultures, but it is a particularly strong current in Kiwi culture. There are good things in this (family is one of the key values to be honoured and furthered) but the negative often means a lack of commitment to church service and the wider Christian family is rationalised away. The individualistic mood impacts on evangelism and service in as much as it keeps cultural aspirations small, parochial and fractioned: if something is too challenging personally - it probably isn't worth the cost.

This is me thinking 'out loud' - I'm looking for thoughts from others, honing and refining what truth there is in these observations. I want to understand this all much better than I do right now. So, over to you... what do you think?