Faith Works 7-15-07
Jeff Gill

Do You Know How To Get To Hogwarts?

Rev. Vicki Zust was rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Newark, and left us a few years ago at the request of her bishop to serve the Diocese of Southern Ohio.

She’s now “Canon to the Ordinary,” which is fancy Anglican-speak for “bishop’s assistant,” traveling the part of the state in her diocese on behalf of the bishop, visiting congregations and advising parish councils and clergy.

Our loss was the diocesan gain, as Vicki had served the Licking County Coalition for Housing and various downtown Newark task forces ably and energetically (though she will be back in Licking County next Sunday, July 22, to preach and lead worship at St. Luke's Episcopal in Granville).

She also put something together in her last summer at Trinity for a Vacation Bible School, designed to serve both the youth of the parish and the downtown locality.

Knowing that kids had been reading the J.K. Rowling books starting with “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” even as each successive volume got longer and longer (we’re talking “Gone With the Wind” length, pushing 1000 pages), and as a regular reading tutor with “Ohio Reads,” this seemed like an opportunity.

“When a series of books gets kids asking for the opportunity to read, without being assigned the reading in school, you really want to know what’s going on,” Vicki told me in a recent phone call from Cincinnati.

She read the books herself, seeing the distinct conflict between good and evil through Headmaster Albus Dumbledore of Hogwarts School and the dreaded renegade wizard Lord Voldemort. The focus steadily zeroed in on how even as a young boy, Harry Potter must choose in the simplest acts how to always fulfill the good, even while tempted with his heart’s desires by evil. Voldemort’s machinations are often hidden from plain sight, but the impact of his deeds always reveal the cold, selfish heart behind them.

“It seemed to me that the idea of transfiguration, the revelation of God at work in the world around us, was central to these books,” Vicki said. So she took the most recent volume, at that point, “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” and built a series of activities around the story.

“We wanted the children to see that everything around us is special, and we are called to use our gifts for good,” Vicki explained to me, and so the four “houses” became groups, and they wandered the church building and the neighborhood “finding signs of the presence of God.”

“Order of the Phoenix” is the book whose movie comes out this week, and the seventh and final episode, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” comes out next Saturday, or rather, Friday night at midnight. The Little Guy and I will be at an area bookstore that actually doesn’t want any more publicity because they’re expecting over 200 children with parents in tow as it is.

The early speculation focuses around whether or not Harry will die to save those he loves, and the smart money says yes: those arguing not are the ones with the burden of proof. Harry has been a Christ-figure in many ways through the series, and it is hard to see how author Rowling can avoid someone laying down their life for their friends . . . except that Dumbledore already has, so anything could happen (unlike, say, Tony Soprano, who had only one way to go in the end).

There are those who worry about the magic, benign or otherwise, in the Potter series, and there is almost oddly a complete absence of faith from the halls of Hogwarts. I’d remind those who find Harry insufficiently Christian that the second best selling series of children’s fantasy, Phillip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” stories beginning with “The Golden Compass,” is overtly and intentionally hostile to organized religion. Hogwarts may not have shown us a chapel on the grounds, but I continue to believe there is one, and there hasn’t been anything said that rules it out.

The Narnia Chronicles, Rowling’s Harry Potter, and Tolkien’s epic sequence of Middle Earth Tales can spark the Christian imagination. The reality of faith is not overturned by any imaginings, but waits for a compelling account to fill the gaps necessarily left by fiction. As Pascal might say, “a God-shaped hole” our preaching can properly fill.

(Oh, the answer to the title question? As any young wizard, or even mundane muggle can tell you, it’s Platform 9 3/4 at King’s Cross Station to the Hogwarts Express.)

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he’s read the Potteriad as far as this week’s release, and couldn’t be curiouser about how the saga will end. When you’ve read the last chapter and have an opinion to share, write him at knapsack77@gmail.com.