“Struggling to Believe”

Break a leg!

I thought, on a first reading, that the existence of an afterlife was clearly affirmed in Deathly Hallows. Harry’s soul goes to a place, King’s Cross, which appears to be a limbo, a way station, which is a stopover on the way to somewhere else. We can also see, in that way station, the effects of what Voldemort has done to his soul: he is a damaged, stunted child, whimpering and flailing and obviously in great distress.

Harry’s question “Is this really happening or is it all in my mind?” (or something like that) and Dumbledore’s answer, that it is both, at first seemed to confirm to me the absolute existence of an afterlife, some state of being we become after our bodies die.

But what is the evidence that this isn’t just a hallucination taking place in Harry’s mind?

The answer may be Dumbledore. He is definitely there as himself, and not a figment of Harry’s imagination. The things he tells Harry are previously not known to him, and not knoweable by him without an external source.

I think that Dumbledore confirms that there is an afterlife. And if there is an afterlife, that also confirms the existence of a soul which outlives the body, and which is affected by the decisions people make while alive. And if Dumbledore is speaking the truth (and we have no reason to assume otherwise), there is something else after the limbo, and King’s Cross is indeed a station on the way to somewhere else. We don’t know where that is, or what it looks like. Just that it exists.

She doesn’t go all the way, and doesn’t tackle the ultimate question, but she does put us on the road to it.

Reyhan-
I think Dumbledore qualifies the experience with that lovely line, “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why should that mean that it is not real?”

Trish-
I am not sure if the ambiguity is really necessary, per say. C.S. Lewis makes some pretty solid statements about the afterlife in “The Last Battle,” much of which followed a Mere Christianity-like understanding. Rowling obviously had ample opportunity to say more, and if she had, I’m not sure she would be claiming authority. But, many people would probably have taken it as if she were anyway.

Rowling sets up the audience for the afterlife in that scene at the grave stones in Godric’s Hollow, where Hermione helps Harry understand the meaning of that line, “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.”

As far as applying the moments with Dumbledore at King’s Cross with Rowling’s comments in the interview, I am not sure we can. Her comments seem very carefully worded to me. And, if I were in the public eye as much as she, I would too. The interview doesn’t really give us a whole lot to go one. I’d really like it if, one day, she chose to write about her faith. I think she’d have a tremendous audience for that piece if she did.

For now, I am afraid that we do not know much more than what we knew previously. She is obviously a beliver (or at the very least was), and she takes her faith seriously, however strong it may be.

Travis, I’m so glad you posted on this. I am in the midst of a very busy week of Vacation Bible School (today I was unsuccessful in my attempt to fix the problem with our sanctuary’s computer system and briefly considered digging out the overhead projector before jury rigging a portable projector so the kids could read the words to the songs we were teaching them — technology can be such an annoyance at times!) I haven’t read much of the post-DH blogging that’s been going on, nor have I had a chance to do any blogging myself. I have a whole 3 pages of notebook paper, college ruled, covered with cramped notes for when I finally get a chance to write something. But I intend to head back to this post and read all of the links and comments when I finally get some breathing room. Good luck at Prophecy, I can’t wait to hear all about it.

We are not a very religious family. I’ve explained to my six year old about God and Jesus Christ, and the death and Resurrection of Christ. He knows that Jesus is God’s son, and died, and came back. When he asks “Is God real?” I tell him “That’s a question we all have to answer for ourselves.” He’s decided that God is the best person in the world.

We also talk about Harry Potter, and Voldemort and Sirius Black, and Harry’s parents, and life and death. Today he asked me “Does Harry Potter die in book 7?” I answered “Yes, but he comes back, a little bit like the Resurrection.” I tried to explain why Harry had to die. He then wanted to know if Harry meets his parents when he is dead. I explained to him, my voice cracking, that his parents and two other people whom he loves walk with him on his way to death. He wanted to know who they were, and I told him Sirius Black, and reluctantly, Lupin. He was upset about that death – like many others, he loves Lupin – and also disappointed that Sirius Black was indeed dead and would not come back. I asked him “Guess whom he meets when he’s dead?” He thought for a second, and then said “Dumbledore.”

Travis has pointed out that Chapter 34 is not an allegory in the style of CS Lewis and Aslan’s death and resurrection because Harry is not without sin, unlike Aslan. Well, we have read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. And it did not resonate half as much as Harry’s walk through the forest. The reason is because Harry and all the others are almost like real people to him, people he thinks about, and tries to understand.

Let the sceptics and the critics and cynics and nitpickers say whatever they wish. JKR has made real to a generation of children an age-old truth: the love we bear for each other will help us to transcend death.

About your presentations, Travis: she’s kind of made you a present of two of them, hasn’t she?

Or is that you chose wisely, going for the heart of things: the nature of evil and love’s victory over death?

Good choices. Go out there and wring some heartstrings.

Travis, good luck at the meeting.

Thanks so much for posting the Spencer essay. It was really helpful to me and I immediately emailed it to several other doubting/longing Christians I know.

I empathize with Jo for hanging in there in her desire to be faithful, even in the face of death of her dearest loved one. I think her experience is testimony to the fact that no amount of earthly success or wealth can provide answers to the biggest questions about our mortal/immortal fate. The fact that she is still struggling to work this out — that she has emphatically not walked away from the need to do so — indicates to me that she’s on the same page with many, many Christians in whom the need to believe and the plague of doubt are in daily coexistence. It is true that for many of us the struggle to keep believing is a primary aspect of our Christian walk — worse on some days than others. What I like about the Spencer essay is that he manages to convey that the doubt, for many of us, is inseparable from the journey, given our state as fallen/mortal beings on an immortal path.

Harry’s ability to see past mortality into the life of immortality — and a specific kind of immortality where souls/personalities continue to exist, and love also continues — is a huge Christian theme, and anyone who can’t see it for that just can’t be looking very closely or honestly, imo….

Julie H, chicago

Michael Spencer’s essay is just wonderful and great. It is so honest and it very much resonated with me. Thanks for the link, Travis, and good luck for your presentation! You’ll do fine!

I’ve read DH twice now, and am thinking more & more about how Calvinist its theology appears to be — in terms of, for instance, the “bad guys’ ” apparent inability to change much, and the glorification of the Gryffindors as a real “elect” type of group. I was really looking/hoping for at least a few “good Slytherins” (beyond Slughorn and Andromeda Tonks and good/bad Snape) — the fact that none of the students apparently chose to stay and fight LV at the end is pretty telling. LV himself really seems to be the proverbial “bad seed” — yes, he could’ve theoretically remedied the soul-split by “remorse” but was he really ever pictured as capable of such? Given his genetics and his environment, is it not equally possible to view him as damned in the author’s view from the get-go?

Do your choices really “define” who you are, or do they just “show” who you are? I need to go back to all those DD summing-up scenes and look at the language again. The latter interp would of course be a lot more Calvinist than the former interp.

After a couple readings and several weeks of pondering, I remain convinced that JKR’s Christian path has strongly influenced her work — but also that her Calvinist flavor of Christianity has had a pretty strong influence. For sure, “hooray, good guys whomp the bad guys” seems to be a stronger thread than “even bad guys can repent & reform.” Even among some of us who always believed Snape was Dumbledore’s man, the “ick factor” of the “Prince’s Tale” chapter seems pretty high. The memories presented do depict him as a nasty piece of work, with the one saving grace of having devotedly loved Lily P. Certainly one could argue that his choices to serve the good side were more motivated by obsessive love than by a true conviction that the good side is better, intrinsically. There IS some ambiguity in this in the text, so you can argue the other way too. (Ambiguity I mean in the portrayal of Snape, not in the question of whether good is better than dark!) But in interviews JKR did repeatedly refer to Snape as “horrible” — is this obfuscation/misdirection, or is the reader really to see him as “horrible?” As someone who might do some good, but for all the wrong reasons? Is Harry’s ultimate honoring of him justified, or is it just more evidence of Harry’s own magnamity/goodness? Did Snape ever actually make it onto a train at King’s Cross? (Lewis, I’m sure, would’ve let him get on — JKR, I’m not so sure!)

It is interesting to ponder, at any rate, since a Calvinist interp would certainly illustrate a different flavor of Christianity (and thus a different world view) than Tolkien’s ardent Catholicism or Lewis’ evangelical Anglicanism (which sometimes got too close to universalism for the tastes of more conservative Christians….)

Julie H, chicago