bread and fellowship

bread and fellowship are quite similar.

you can mix the flour, sugar, milk, butter, salt, and water together and knead it until your fingers fall off. you can even glaze the dough and bake it in the oven. but unless you have added yeast and let the bread rise once or twice, you will not end up with bread.

in the same way, you can take christians, organize them in some sort of way. maybe they have talents that are useful for building each other up and teaching each other. they might even get put through hardship and trials together.

but unless God is with them, being the catalyst for their actions, leading them in the same direction with His goal in mind, it will not be a fellowship.

so let us remember the yeast when we meet, constantly looking for signs of its presence, letting God change us and transform us into something we couldn’t be by ourselves.

Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. 16 How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?

exodus 33: 15-16

finished!

After an entire Saturday morning of reading, I finally finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows! The book is by far my favorite in the series and it is, to sum up briefly, brilliant.

But more importantly, this last book will finally shut the mouths of all of the paranoid Christians out there who protest against Harry Potter and ban it from their homes and churches, saying that J.K. Rowling is evil and she drinks goat’s blood inside graveyards at midnight.

If these zealots would actually read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, they would find a staggering number of Christian references, some so blatantly obvious that it makes Tolkien and C.S. Lewis’s epic works seem allegorically tame. Spoilers ahead so stop reading here if you have not finished reading The Deathly Hallows.

Death and Resurrection
The most obvious reference to the Gospel is how Harry willingly let himself be killed, nary raising a wand, by Voldemort for the sake of both the muggle and wizarding world. After Harry’s death and resurrection, Voldemort’s powers are vanquished in the same way that Christ’s death conquers Satan.

Outcasts
Just as Jesus reached out to lepers, prostitutes, and tax collectors, Harry Potter befriends elves (Dobby and Kreacher), saves the lives of goblins (Griphook), and rescues muggles (Ministry of Magic scene).

Crosses
There were numerous mentions of crosses in this book. Harry draws one over Moody’s grave. The Sword of Gryffindor looked like a silver cross to Harry. Harry goes to “King’s Cross” after dying and I don’t think that the location has that name by happy coincidence.

Scripture
Kendra and Arianna’s graves have Matthew 6:21 written on them (where your treasure is, there your heart will also be). Also, on James and Lily Potter’s grave is written 1 Corinthians 15:26 (the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death). Percy returning to his family is a pretty straight forward reference to the Parable of the Prodigal Son and the revealing of Snape’s true identity and purpose is a redemption story.

Temptations and the Hallows
I read this idea here but I wish I had been clever enough to see this on my own but I’ve expanded on the original concepts. The three Deathly Hallows are a good analog to the three temptations of Christ in the desert. The Resurrection Stone corresponds to the “stone to bread” temptation. When the Resurrection Stone is turned in the hand three times, the dead come to life. Likewise, Christ is tempted by Satan to turn the stones in the dessert into bread, which gives life. The Cloak (given to Harry by his father, James) corresponds to the “chuck yourself off the roof of the temple” temptation. Satan tempts Jesus to rely on his Father’s protection just as the Cloak could have allowed Harry to escape from Voldemort and his “fatal” end. Alastair puts it better than I can:

The Elder Wand corresponds to the final temptation (rule over the kingdoms of the world on condition of worshipping Satan). The Elder Wand gives the greatest power in the world to its owner, being the means by which the owner can rule over all others. Jesus is tempted to grasp at rule in the wrong way.

Christian objections to Harry Potter have been rendered flaccid by this last book and for that I am glad. But even more encouraging is how explicit Rowling made these allegories and how many copies of the book have been sold worldwide.

So to all those Christian naysayers who find conspiracy at the bottom of a bag of Doritos, there you have it.