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Harry Potter: What's the Big Deal?
A Sermon Given
by the Reverend Roger Fritts
on October 10, 2000
at Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church
Bethesda, Maryland
All of my life there have been fads. They are part of the glue that holds us together as nation.
Although I never wore a smiley button or a leisure suit, I have participated in many fads:
- In the 1950s, I had a Davy Crocket hat and a Hula-Hoop.
- In the 1960s, my sister bought a Barbie doll, and I became a Beatles fan.
- In the 1970s, I slept on a water bed, I went to see "Star Wars" and I took one lesson in
disco dancing.
- In the 1980's, I watched the Bill Cosby Show and I bought my sons a Nintendo video
game.
- In the 1990s, I bought my daughter Beany Babies and for the rest of the family I bought a
white mini van.
Last summer I participated in one of the latest national fads. Late one Friday evening in early July
I drove with my ten year old daughter to a local book store. We were there to buy the fourth
Harry Potter book. As I drove through the dark streets, I remembered that five years before my
wife had vetoed our two sons desire to go to a computer store at midnight to be the first to buy
the software program Windows 95. I believe her exact words were "You're crazy!"
However, in Leslie's mind, books are different. So as she was going to sleep that evening in July,
she encouraged me to drive our daughter, Rachel, to a bookstore. I picked Crown Books in a
Wheaton strip mall because they were advertising a discount. As I drove I thought: I bet we will
be the only people there. The other people who are crazy enough to do this will all go to the big
book stores in Bethesda and Rockville. People who live in Wheaton have more sense than to stay
up to buy a book at midnight.
When Rachel and I arrived at about quarter of twelve, there were already four hundred people in
line. I saw at least two members of this congregation ahead of me. Some of the children were
dressed in costumes and many had a lightening bolt drawn on their foreheads. There was a
festive exciting energy in the air. I have visited bookstores all of my life and I have never seen
anything like it. Even the time I went to get a book signed by former president Jimmy Carter the
energy had not been as intense.
The next day I flew to Michigan to visit my oldest son at music camp. Everywhere, at National
Airport, at O'Hare in Chicago, and in Traverse City I saw copies of the fourth Harry Potter book.
Some books were being read by children, but many were read by adults. According to news
reports over three million books were sold that weekend. Saturday morning Federal Express
delivered 400,000 books that had been ordered on the internet. In the words of one reviewer, for
one brief shining moment printed books were outselling McDonald's hamburgers.
My curiosity stimulated, I started to look into these books, to discover what was the big deal.
It is, of course, another cultural fad. Joanne Rowling, the author, is a thirty four year old English
woman who finished her first Harry Potter book four years ago. A college graduate, she had
worked as a French to English translator and been married briefly to a Portuguese journalist (long
enough to have a child). A single mother, Ms. Rowling lived on welfare in Edinburgh while she
wrote her first book. She wrote during nap times and in the evenings after her daughter had gone
to bed.
When her first manuscript was finished, Ms. Rowling had difficulty finding a publisher. Those
who read her manuscript told her that it was highly unlikely the book would sell many copies.
One publisher returned the manuscript saying that any story set in an English boarding school
wouldn't sell. They all told her that the first book, over three hundred pages, was much too long.
Children would not read a book of that length.
Rowling eventually did find a publisher. She says that nothing since has matched the moment
when she actually realized that the book she had written was going to be published. That was the
realization of her life's ambition, to be a published author. It was the culmination of so much
effort on her part. The mere fact that she would see her book on a shelf in a bookshop made her
happier than she could say.
According to news reports, at first information about the book spread by word of mouth. A few
children read it and liked it and told their friends and their parents. No doubt, as the book began
the sell, the publisher in Britain jumped in and helped sales by increasing the advertising budget
for the book. Pointing to the book's success in Britain, an agent held an auction and sold the right
to publish in the United States for an advance of over $100,000. All four books have been
heavily promoted in the United States, including book tours by the author, cover stories in both
Newsweek and Time, and many stories on television and the internet.
In the first book in the series, Harry learns that he is a wizard who, as a baby, defeated the killer
of his parents, a terrible evil wizard. At the age of eleven Harry escapes his abusive aunt and
uncle (who make him sleep in the cupboard under the stairs) by going to a boarding school for
the training of witches and wizards. At the school he makes friends, learns about magic,
discovers that he is a special, powerful wizard, and does battle again with the evil wizard who
killed his parents. The second, the third and the fourth books have similar plots: a good child at a
boarding school does battle with evil dark forces, using the tools of magic. The books are written
with fast paced dialogue, vivid descriptions and lots of adventure. The characters are well
developed and many children and adults easily identify with them. I have enjoyed the two that I
have read.
However, not everyone is pleased with the success of the Harry Potter books.
This summer The Wall Street Journal (a well know authority on children's literature) hired
Harold Bloom, a Yale professor, to review the books. Bloom wrote:
I will keep in mind that a host are reading it who simply will not read superior
fare, such as Kenneth Graham's The Wind in the Willows or the Alice books of
Lewis Carroll. Is it better that they read Rowling than not read at all? Will they
advance from Rowling to more difficult pleasures?
How to read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone? Why, very quickly, to begin
with, perhaps also to make an end. Why read it? Presumably, if you cannot be
persuaded to read anything better, Rowling will have to do. Is there any redeeming
educational use to Rowling? Why read, if what you read will not enrich mind or
spirit or personality? For all I know, the actual wizards and witches of Britain, or
of America, may provide an alternative culture for more people than is commonly
realized.
Perhaps Rowling appeals to millions of reading non-readers because they sense
her wistful sincerity, and want to join her world, imaginary or not. She feeds a
vast hunger for unreality; can that be bad? At least her fans are momentarily
emancipated from their screens, and so may not forget wholly the sensation of
turning the pages of a book, any book.
However, it is not only intellectual snobs who commented on the Harry Potter books last
summer. The humorist Dave Berry offered his own perspective on the books. He wrote:
I AM NOT JEALOUS of the woman who writes the Harry Potter books.
It does not bother me that her most recent book, Harry Potter and the
Enormous Royalty Check, has already become the best-selling book in world
history, beating out her previous book, Harry Potter Purchases
Microsoft.
It does not make me bitter to know that this woman's books are
selling like crazy, while my own books-some of which took me hours to
write-have become permanent nesting grounds for generations of bookstore
dwelling spiders.
More serious objections came from other sources:
- In England a Headmistress banned the books from the library at St Mary's Church of
England Primary School and suggested parents take similar action at home, warning that
the stories expose vulnerable young people to aspects of the occult.
- The editor of a British Christian magazine wrote: For some young people it could fuel a
fascination that leads to dangerous dabbling with occult powers. So what starts out as
spooks and spells can lead to psychological and spiritual damage."
- Christian protesters have vowed to sing hymns and wave banners to disrupt filming, if
plans to make the first Harry Potter movie in Gloucester Cathedral are given the go-ahead. In the words of one protester "This is defiling the cathedral. Witchcraft is rebellion
against God."
- In Canada a school board near Toronto required parents to sign a consent form before
allowing the books to be read in class rooms, because the books glorified witchcraft.
In the United States the book has made the list of the one hundred most challenged books of the
last ten years. A challenge is defined as a formal, written complaint filed with a library or school
about a book's content or appropriateness. Complaints about Harry Potter generally focus on the
belief that if children read these materials, they are going to become believers in the religion of
witchcraft.
- In Zeeland, Michigan students were required to get written parental permission to check
the books out of the school library.
- In Conn County Georgia a teacher was forced to stop reading the books to her students
because parents expressed concerns about the themes of magic and wizardry.
- In California parents transferred their son to another elementary school because a teacher
was reading the book in a class.
- In South Carolina a group asked the state board of education to ban the books because
witchcraft is a religion, therefore having the books in schools violates the separation of
church and state.
- And in Fairfax, Virginia, a group called Family Friendly Libraries said it is against the
book being used in classrooms. They warn that Harry Potter, because he makes and takes
potions, encourages children to take drugs.
On the web I found several sites that warned about Rowling and her books. For example:
- A web site called Freedom Village USA writes that to suggest that the world of
witchcraft can help children find happiness "is an evil lie." The Harry Potter books are
designed to be recruiting tools for Witchcraft. The lightning bolt on Harry Potter's head is
said to be "one of the most IN YOUR FACE stunts Satan has ever had the audacity to
attempt, and he's proceeding with virtually no opposition."
- The Focus on the Family internet site warns that with the growing popularity of youth-oriented TV shows on Witchcraft such as Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Charmed and Buffy
the Vampire Slayer, along with Harry Potter, a generation of children is becoming
desensitized to the occult.
- A web site called "Crossroad" ties the books to today's pagan movement and sees the
books as the work of Satan, quoting Corinthians 11:14, "For Satan himself transforms
himself into an angel of light. . . . . This is spiritual warfare" writes the authors of the web
site. They say "God's enemy fights as hard as ever to win the hearts and the loyalties of
our children . . ."
Periodically in my ministry I have encountered people who tell me that Satan is real and that he
is trying to take over the would. In response I do not argue that what they fear is impossible. I
argue that what they fear is very unlikely. It is unlikely, I say because in my experience there is
no evidence that Satan exists. There is no evidence that the Harry Potter books are inspired by
Satan. There is no evidence that people who are active in pagan religions are evil or part of a plot
by Satan.
Yet I am not very effective at changing the minds of people who are convinced that the Harry
Potter book are inspired by Satan. For these people reality is based on what is possible, not on
what is probable or likely. Their understanding of reality does not include the examination of
realistic probability. Therefore, reality for those who see the work of Satan in children's books
comes mainly from the fears that exist inside them.
So if people are not reading the Harry Potter books because they are under Satan's spell, why do
millions read them? What is the big deal anyhow?
I have my own theory. I think the book touches us in three ways, each of them important. First
the stories remind us of the experiences many of us have had or are having in school. As I read
the descriptions of Harry's school of magic, I am reminded of my own years as a student and a
graduate student. When the book describes the trust that Harry Potter places in his white haired
teachers, I remember the trust that I placed in my own teachers. As he describes the difficulties
that he had with some professors, I remember similar experiences. When the author describes the
intense, close, trusting friendships that Harry Potter develops with a few fellow students, I
remember the close friendships that I developed with a few of my fellow students. Some of those
close friendships are still alive today. And even his descriptions of sports and of intense feuds
between students bring back memories of my own educational experiences.
Second, I believe the stories appeal to the belief in each of us that although we feel at times
small, clumsy and powerless, we are special and we are at times capable of exercising enormous
power. We all feel that we are at times abused, as Harry is by his aunt and uncle, and by some of
his teachers. Nevertheless we all have faith within us that we are special and that given the right
set of circumstances we can be strong and powerful.
Third, I believe the stories are symbolic representations of the struggles in our own lives. To use
Joseph Campbell's language, the stories are modern mythology. In Harry Potter's world there are
mysterious dangers that he tries to learn to overcome by mixing various elements together, or by
saying the right words or by using the right tools. Our real world is also filled with dangers that
we struggle to overcome: West Nile Virus, AIDS, cancer, heart disease. We build giant
institutions like the National Institutes of Health, aimed at gaining power over these dangers by
mixing various elements together to make pills to heal, or by saying the right words, or by using
the right tools. As I read the Harry Potter stories I see in his search for magic powers my own
search for power to get me through the challenges of my life.
Throughout human history, in all times and under every circumstance, the mythology of our race
has flourished. These popular stories are a continuation of that tradition. It is impossible to say
whether they will be remembered in fifty years or a hundred years as classics in children's
literature like Grimm's Fairy Tales, or as just another cultural fad like my Davy Crocket hat and
my Hula-Hoop. But for the moment they do strike a cord in both children and adults. In a world
filled with so much anger and violence, the stories give people pleasure and they harm no one.
And for me that is enough.
Rev. Roger Fritts
cluuc@his.com
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