I have a confession to make, though it’s not a very dirty or juicy one:\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 I read the 7th Harry Potter book within 48 hours of its public release.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 Furthermore, I confess that I enjoyed it.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 And no, I’m not about to run out and join a Satanic cult, wear black eyeliner, or start casting silly spells.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 (I know at least one of you wondered about that!)\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 In fact, I learned several lessons about the Bible while reading Harry Potter.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 Raised your eyebrows, have I?\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 Well, follow along as I share the lessons:<\/p>\n
1. How to read in context<\/p>\n
In ‘Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows,’ the characters talk about a book that’s been written regarding their friend, Albus Dumbledore.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 The book is largely lies, and it’s excerpted for a few pages of the larger work, the Harry Potter book.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 If you would pick up the book and read those few pages, you’d get a totally inaccurate picture of the overall plot.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 Similarly, if you read the Bible carelessly enough, you’ll find that it says there is no God.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 A glance at the context, though, will tell you that this message isn’t the intent of the author.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 What he really said looks more like, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ (Psalm 14:1)”.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 I wonder how many people are savvy enough to pick up the context clues in the Harry Potter book but still insist on cherry-picking the Bible to make it match their pre-conceived notions?<\/p>\n
2. The power of narrative<\/p>\n
I read the Harry Potter book on the first weekend it came out.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 That means I read all 784 pages in two days.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 I wanted to finish the story before I went back to work on Monday, so I read it all day Saturday and Sunday.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 This left me in the interesting position of going to church Sunday morning, right in the middle of my Harry Potter weekend.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 The worship and the story of Christ and his sacrifice for me were so much more meaningful, and it’s because I was tuned into another deeply-felt narrative.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 The themes of sacrifice, struggle, quest and the search for truth were close at hand, since I’d been treading those paths with J.K. Rowling’s novel all weekend.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 It was easy for me to turn those thoughts to the cross and the ultimate struggle of good and evil.<\/p>\n
It’s true that these themes are more read into the text than read out of it.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 But such is the result of reading with a redeemed mind.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not what Harry Potter brings to me, but what I bring to Harry Potter that shapes my conclusions.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 That’s why I’m not scared to read Harry Potter or any other controversial material: because I read it with a redeemed and, hopefully, informed mind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have a confession to make, though it’s not a very dirty or juicy one:\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 I read the 7th Harry Potter book within 48 hours of its public release.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 Furthermore, I confess that I enjoyed it.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 And no, I’m not about to run out and join a Satanic cult, wear black eyeliner, or start casting … Continue reading What Harry Potter taught me about the Bible<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,14,18,20,10,2,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible","category-book-report","category-culture","category-fiction","category-philosophy","category-religion","category-thoughts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdZlL-5K","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}