this really knocked me for a loop

[fpb]

And it throws an interesting light on JK Rowling's own understanding of Christianity. In this article, she claims that the HP series is basically Christian. But she also claims - read the last three paragraphs - that the current Pope belongs to "the lunatic fringe" of Christianity. I'm afraid that what we have here, however incredible it may seem, is a survival, in the twenty-first century, of that English pathology that led nineteenth-century religious writers to call Catholicism "sectarian"; the ecclesiastical version of the "Fog in the Channel, Continent cut off" mentality.

Comments

[dustthouart.livejournal.com]

She doesn't claim it. You'd have to read the actual transcript of the interview to know who she thinks is the lunatic fringe. Read it over carefully again. The Pope reference comes from the writer, and there's no indication whatsoever that it's something that Rowling mentioned or was even brought up in the interview.

[shezan.livejournal.com]

She *is* a Labour Luvvie.......

[fellmama.livejournal.com]

An American would certainly read Rowling's statement as a reference to fundamentalism. I'd agree with dustthouart here. You say "best known of all the negative views," but I suspect that's informed by your Roman Catholicism; an American who was not RC (offering myself as Exhibit A) mightn't automatically think of the Pope when thinking of religious condemnation of HP. And this is an article written for an American audience.

[rfachir.livejournal.com]

I'm not going to read the interview (since I don't care what JKR intended to write, and I didn't much like the end of the series since I couldn't finish the last book.) My impression as a reader is that there was a sad lack of religion in the Wizarding Word. (Christmas and the saints are traditions and historical footnotes, without any context in history or faith. Comfort comes to Wizards from faith in Magic and Greater Wizards.) So long as there is a Dumbledore to protect and explain, a child need look no further. It is unsatisfying to me as an adult - as is much of the extra-Hogwarts world. That's why I enjoy fan fiction so much.

essay on JKR

[dr-dgo.livejournal.com]

As usual, your insights are a delight to read. Makes wish that I had had a better education and spent more time on the classics of western literature. As it now stands, the only reason that I understand English (american style) as well as I do is the various languages that I have learned (and since forgotten) in the past. I have yet to read the last book of the series, and have had it almost since it became available. Someday.