The Primitive, Disturbing Ideas of Harry Potter

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With the conclusion of her Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling has - to my mind - established incontrovertibly her place among the greatest authors available to Christian young people.

That she has been denied this accolade is perhaps an accidental gift to her from American Christians, who have so successfully created their own sub-culture that they marginalize nearly every artist they embrace.

The following are concepts championed by the Harry Potter series:

  1. Love is the most powerful force in the universe.
  2. Good and evil are real, and opposed to each other, no matter what perspective you take.
  3. Death is not the end of a person; the human soul is both undying and the most precious possession we have.
  4. Substitutionary death carries enormous power.
I could make the list longer, but these are some of the strongest messages Rowling includes. These concepts in particular are foreign to both modern and post-modern society. They are primitive, disturbing ideas that should be regarded as extremely dangerous to the contemporary worldview of blended materialism and relativism.

The beautiful subversiveness of these ideas is that they are woven into a story of amazing craftsmanship, where they slip past our society's usual filters and infect our imaginations.

Thank God for Ms. Rowling.