On Being Blog

Using Harry Potter to Explain My Religion

Still frame from “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.”

In addition to providing me with a least a decade’s worth of entertainment, J.K Rowling’s Harry Potter series has also given me a fresh and hopefully meaningful way to explain my not-always-easy-to explain religion to others. And given that practically half the world has either read or seen the last installment of this epic series, I feel comfortable doing so without fear of spoiling the ending.

But first a little background…

As a Christian Scientist, I’m often confronted, by others and within myself, with some pretty tough questions about my faith — questions like, “If you believe that God is all good, all-powerful, and ever-present, how do you explain natural disasters, famine, war, and violent rampages? What about sickness, disease, and death? Why do bad things happen to good people?”

In short, “How do you deal with the question of evil?”

Although I’m very far from having anything even approaching a complete answer, I can tell you that one thing I don’t do is close my eyes and pretend it’s not there. Simply avoiding evil or wishing, hoping, praying that it just goes away is not the answer.

On the other hand, something I’d like to think I am getting better at over the years is choosing between what I consider to be effective and not-so-effective ways to defeat evil.

And this is where Harry Potter comes in.

As every Potterphile knows, there comes a time in Book Seven when Harry has to choose between two courses of action in his quest to deal with the evil Lord Voldemort, aka “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.”

One path involves the acquisition of three “Deathly Hallows.” These include the immensely powerful “Elder Wand;” the death-defying “Resurrection Stone;” and the “Cloak of Invisibility” which, as the name implies, enables the one who possesses it to become completely invisible.

The other path — and the course Harry ultimately chooses — is to track down and destroy seven hidden “Horcruxes.” These are objects in which Voldemort has placed a part of his soul as a means of achieving immortality.

Now, I realize that any analogy between Harry’s strategy for defeating “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named” and the practice of Christian Science may seem a little loose at this point. But hear me out on this.

You see, Christian Science is all about getting at the root of the problem. No, not by tracking down bits and pieces of an evil wizard’s soul (if this were even possible) but by addressing the mental nature of all evil, sickness and disease included — not with magic, but through inspired prayer. In this sense, Christian Scientists like myself are in league with increasing numbers in the medical field who acknowledge the direct connection between mind and body.

By challenging long-held assumptions about God as unknowable and man as essentially biological — even the apparent invincibility and inevitability of evil itself — I’ve found that I’m able to confront and defeat evil in much the same way as many folks in the Bible did.

Although modest by comparison, the physical healings I’ve experienced include a wide variety of problems — everything from everyday aches and pains to more serious, life-threatening conditions. The result of this process, this battle if you will, is the destruction of at least some small element of evil that would suggest that man has separated himself, by choice or by design, from God’s care.

Getting back to Harry, perhaps the biggest lesson for him, and for us, is what these evil-defeating experiences can teach us about the presence and power of love — a word that Episcopal priest and Yale lecturer Danielle Tumminio in her superb analysis of the Potter books equates with God.

But still we’re left with at least one unanswered question: If what Christian Science teaches is true, how come we still have all this evil to deal with?

This is a question I continue to contend with. While I may not have entirely grasped the why of evil, I’m grateful to have caught at least a glimpse of the how of its destruction. And I have no doubt that there will come a time when we’ll all discover, as did Harry, that evil in whatever form it presents itself can and will be defeated once and for all.

Eric Nelson is from Los Altos, California. In addition to his work as a Christian Science practitioner, he also serves as the media and legislative spokesperson for Christian Science in Northern California.

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