XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien, alt.fan.tolkien, alt.fan.harry-potter   
   From: dthierbach@usenet.arcornews.de   
      
   Troels Forchhammer  wrote:   
   > In message  richard e white   
   >  spoke these staves:   
      
   >> If a spiritual vision is the center of the idea, then JKR's books   
   >> don't fit.   
      
   > Right, I quite agree.   
      
   I'm actually not so sure. Critics thought for a long time that   
   the LotR was completely devoid of any reference to Christian themes.   
      
   > And Rowling's books also doesn't have the same fundamental Christian   
   > basis to them that do Tolkien's books and the Narnia books -- there   
   > is, in my honest opinion, no sense of providence in Rowling's work,   
      
   Just because Tolkien worked in the "providence" theme doesn't   
   mean that Rowling should, too.   
      
   > none of the 'trust in God' that I get both in Lewis' Narnia books   
      
   Well, Narnia is in many places a very thinly veiled Christian   
   allegory.  If Lewis just built in the "trust of God" theme, the Narnia   
   books would be a lot less annoying in this respect.   
      
   > and, far more subtly, in Tolkien's work. In both the Narnia books and   
   > the Middle-earth books, the Christianity of the author is worked into   
   > the causal basis of their sub-created world:   
      
   But Harry Potter is also about the fight of Good against Evil, and   
   about the fact that power corrupts, and that sometimes people have to   
   make sacrifices to be able to save others.   
      
   I have not read the HP books often enough to be able to draw a clear   
   parallel to Christian ideas, but I wouldn't rule out that some   
   closer inspection would find the one thing or the other.   
      
   Maybe I should do a re-reading :-)   
      
   - Dirk   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)