Harry Potter: A Christian allegory?

I'm really enjoying this discussion, with Margaret's and Franklin's contributions, because both of you made me see the Harry Potter story in new ways. Reading Rowling's comments, I didn't see them as evidence for anything as heavy-handed as an allegory. But, clearly, she was deeply engaged with Christian themes. Or, to put it a little differently, age-old themes that, in our culture, have been viewed primarily through a Christian lens.

Every story is a dance with invisible partners, a dance with all the other stories that have gone before. The best stories incorporate those ancient patterns into their own, yet still create surprise and fresh delight. It seems to me that people who are excessively concerned with whether a story endorses specific Christian tenets are mistaking the power of story for the power of propaganda, which is like trading warm, sustaining bread for a Krimpet. In a sense, no story that comes out of this culture can avoid being a Christian story, even if the apparent message of the story is one of opposition to the Christian canon. That's the ironic thing about Philip Pullman. The His Dark Materials trilogy was conceived as a cry of outrage against the evils of organized Christianity. And yet, the themes of love and sacrifice, and even the metaphors and images he uses, are imbued with life from the same source. I think a Christian child would learn a lot about her own faith by reading Pullman's books.

But Franklin's point of view made me look again, and ask myself if it's possible that stories imbued with the Christian mythos also inhabit a yet older world from which they, in turn, draw some of their life. I think it's no accident that part of the Narnian enchantment and beauty lies in its incorporation of pagan themes--fauns and talking animals, winged steeds, spirits of trees and waters. As Aslan says in The Magician's Nephew, "Narnia, Narnia, Narnia, awake. Love. Think. Speak. Be walking trees. Be talking beasts. Be divine waters." Thus he brings into the Christian world the old pagan sense of everything being alive. (I speak as an outsider and hope Franklin will correct me if I'm wrong.)

It's an old joke that there are Catholic atheists and Baptist atheists, Christian agnostics and Hindu agnostics. Because, even if you reject the specific dogmas you were taught as a child, it is far more difficult to escape the shape your world was given then. Your old stories will be with you for the rest of your life, like shadows dancing at the edge of your vision. Here is Harry's story, a story of love that is stronger than death, and power given to the service of love. Does it really matter if it has a brand name stamped on it? As Jesus said, the householder brings out from his store treasures both old and new. Or as Gerard Manley Hopkins said, " . . . for Christ plays in ten thousand places,/Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his/To the Father through the features of men's faces."

Actually, Franklin, you're not even a Salieri. Maybe it's the paganism.