What to Learn From Harry Potter?

    You have got to be kidding right? One of the most controversial book/movie series to Christians cannot by any means have something to actually teach Christians! Well, I think that this is where we would be wrong. There is an interesting story in the Bible where Paul is in Athens and he is talking with philosophers and other Greeks, and says that the altar to the 'unknown God' is actually to the God of the Israelites, and is the God he knows. He uses the altar that is setup, something that is a part of their society, to point towards God. This is something that seems to happen less and less in our society, and comes with the belief that society has a lot wrong with it so we cannot trust anything. However, this is wrong, we need to be careful about how far we take these things, and how much we look into, but we also need to be ready to see God in societal or 'secular' places, he is there.                  
    So with that long and probably overdone introduction, I want to look at some aspects of the Harry Potter series and how they correlate to the Christian Faith. I think this first came up when I was watching the last movie, 'The Deathly Hallows: Part 2'.
    Oh and by the way there is a lot that is going to be spoiled if you have not seen these movies and are wanting to, or don't know the storyline. So if you are wanting to watch/read them then I suggest reading this after you have.    
    I was watching the last Harry Potter movie and there is a point in the last movie where Voldemort thinks he has killed Harry and goes to Hogwarts carrying Harry's seemingly lifeless body. He comes to all of those that were fighting against him, and says to them, "from this day forth, you put your faith... in me". Cue the chills down my spine, not only because it is an eerie thing to say and a scary concept but also because this scene, to me, captures the Devil's mindset that came with the death of Jesus on the cross. In my mind I could almost carry over the meaning to the story of Jesus being crucified, and seeing Satan coming forward to the believers in Jesus saying, "from this day forth, you put your faith... in me". It is a possible small glimpse into what Satan could have been thinking with the death of Jesus, and is quite a humbling concept when you think of how the followers of Jesus must have felt in response. Needless to say that this came to my mind, and I started to see even more parallels between the biblical story and the story of Harry Potter.
    It's the story of a boy who grows up with unheard of expectations from everyone on him. Who has the confidence of his peers and those above him that are expecting great things, while there are also those such as Malfoy who would rather stick to traditional wizardry and do not like the special treatment that seems to come to Harry and because of such treat him poorly and pick on him more than anyone else (*cough* Pharisees *cough*). In doing so they side with Voldemort, even if they are not really consciously doing so. Now in order to not risk taking things too far, I don't want to really push any other things, but Harry Potter has many parallels to the gospel story. It's a story of a boy who dies to rid the world of the most evil person the world has seen. Who chooses to sacrifice himself for the sake of those he loves, because he knows it's the right thing to do even when he knows he could probably save himself. Also he comes 'back to life' and through doing so destroys the 'evil one'.
    I heard somewhere that many stories that come out of Hollywood have a subconscious parallel to the biblical story in the hero that seemingly dies and comes back to save the day. This is in countless movies, so what makes Harry Potter different, and am I not just reading into it a little too much? Possibly, but the same could probably be said for Paul when he was in Athens talking about the 'unknown God' and the fact that he knows who that is. After all how does Paul know that that is the God of Israel? He doesn't really, but he makes it into that from whatever they meant and changes the meaning to redeem it for God. This is the same sort of thing I want to do here. There is an undeniable parallel that exceeds the normal hero dying routine, and has many more parallels (even though this hero dying routine still makes an appearance). Yet, when I watched this and saw this scene with Voldemort telling others that they need to realign their allegiance, I got chills and could not ignore the incredible insight that this gave to the biblical story. Whether this is done on purpose or by accident is completely irrelevant. As Christians it is cool to redeem things and give them new meaning, and finding purpose whether it was intended or not.
    These are my thoughts on the Harry Potter series, and there are a lot of trivial things that us Christians tend to dismiss right away as 'wrong' when in fact they might not actually be that bad. It is a matter of the heart and the mindset. By no means do these things take the place of the biblical story, or even sit on level ground as the biblical story, but they can help in understanding the biblical story and be used as a tool for Christians to evangelize to those who would dismiss religion and religious language. Who knows maybe these parallels could bring someone to Jesus Christ, through the story of Harry Potter. We never really know where we can redeem things for Christ, that doesn't mean we stop looking. So what else do you learn from Harry Potter?