Looking for God in Harry Potter |
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John Granger
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Pages: 256 (Paperback)
ISBN: 1414306342
Pub: Tyndale House
Pub date: 2006-04
Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 205700
Reader Reviews:
Excellent work (11/12 people found this helpful)
While researching for my master thesis on Harry Potter and Christianity (I study Theology at the university in Copenhagen), I have been very fond of John Granger and Francis Bridger. They are the most structured and disciplined writers on this subject. John Granger is systematic, taking up almost all questions in the Christian debate on Harry Potter. He has good, constructive views on the use of the books when one is proclaiming the gospel, but he never gets emotional or loses the thread. I strongly recommend this book. I do disagree in his point of view on Harry Potter as a Christian book. I think he puts too much in it. But he is really trying to convince - and sometimes he is quite convincing. Especially his views on Christian symbolism and language in the books are original and challenging.
Don't let the title put you off! (22/24 people found this helpful)
Don't let the fact that this book is called 'Looking for God in Harry Potter' put you off.
Admittedly it is the best book I have seen for any Christians who are looking for an intelligent alternative to set against the less than totally convincing and intellectually sound argument that, as Stan Shunpike might have said, (had he been a fundamentalist), "Course 'Arry's evil, 'cos 'e's a wizard, inee?'
This book is not just for Christians, its much too good for that. Its for anyone who has read the Harry Potter books, anyone whose children have read them, and for anyone who is intrigued by the phenomenal success of the books, whether they've read them or not.
Even if you decide that the analysis in terms of specifically Christian symbolism, themes, and answers to questions about the meaning of life, love and death are a stretch, this book still provides an intriguing analysis, and one worth considering. It is by no means a Christian tract or an attempt to bend fiction to the cause of evangelism. It takes the books on their own terms as part of an English literary tradition, a tradition that has frequently made use of Christian symbolism and imagery, even while using the metaphor of magic as a means of making the transcendent tangible.
Of course if John Granger is right and the Harry Potter books are an attempt to smuggle a message past the watchful (C.S.Lewis) or sleeping (J.K.Rowling) dragons that guard us against such things, then maybe this book risks letting the kneazle out of the bag and putting the pixie among the pigeons, even before the complete series is written and published.
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Categories
Amazon.co.uk places this book into the following categories:
Books -> Subjects -> Religion & Spirituality -> Christianity -> Children’s Books -> Fiction
Books -> Subjects -> Religion & Spirituality -> General
Books -> Subjects -> Children’s Books -> Characters & Series -> Harry Potter
Books -> Subjects -> History -> Religious History -> Christianity
Books -> Subjects -> History -> Cultural History
Books -> Subjects -> Study Books -> Undergraduate & Postgraduate -> Arts & Humanities -> Literature & Drama -> Drama -> Criticism
Books -> Refinements -> Language (feature_browse-bin) -> English
Books -> Refinements -> Age (feature_two_browse-bin)
Books -> Refinements -> Format (binding_browse-bin) -> Paperback
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