Dostoevsky Part 1

I am reading a book by the title of The Brothers Karamazov written by Fyodor Dostoevsky. I was pointed towards it by a prof at Bethany (where i went to school) and decided I should read it. This is the first part of my classic literature readings that I am wanting to do more of. However this book integrates a bunch of interesting ideas through the conversation of the characters. This is how Dostoevsky displays his mental process and his own ideas, through the conversation and dialogue of the different personalities that he has created. As I was reading I came across a very interesting one, and thought about posting a little bit on FB (facebook for those that aren't with the lingo), however I realized that this simply would not do the excerpt justice. So I decided that I would post it here and see what anyone who reads this thinks. This particular excerpt has to do with the justice system and the difference between state and church. To give a little backdrop, the conversation is talking about what role the Church community has in judicial matters, and how the Church and the state are separate. It is basically a Church and State discussion that talks about whether they should be integrated, or one should envelope the other, and this is flushed out through the discussion about crime and punishment (coincidentally the title of a famous work of Dostoevsky [next on my list]). With that I give you this dialogue:

"If everything were integrated into the Church, the Church would excommunicate the criminal and the subversive, instead of chopping off their heads,' Ivan went on. ' Just think- where could the excommunicate go? Why, he would be cut off not only from men but also from Christ, since his crime would be a crime not only against his fellow men but also against Christ's Church. Strictly speaking, of course, this is true now. But it has not been officially proclaimed, and our criminals today often compromise with their consciences in a number of ways. 'I steal,' one may say, for instance, 'but I wouldn't do anything against the Church, because I am not an enemy of Christ.' But while criminals often justify themselves in this way today, the moment the Church superseded the State, they could no longer appease their consciences unless they said: 'Everyone else is wrong; they have all lost God, and their Church is a false church. It is we, the thieves and murderers, who alone represent the true Church of Christ.' But it would be rather difficult for a man to say that to himself unless he was living under exceptional circumstances, during world-shaking events, and such situations do not occur very often. Now let us look at the Church's approach to crime: isn't it bound to differ from the State's approach today, which is an almost pagan approach - the mechanical amputation of the diseased limb for the protection of society? The Church would aim at the total, true regeneration of man, his spiritual rebirth, and the salvation of his..." ...
..."If Christ's Church did not exist today, there would be nothing to restrain a man from committing crimes, for there would be no real punishment... I'm not talking of 'mechanical' punishment, such as was described a moment ago, which in most cases only hardens a criminal, but of real punishment, the only effective one, that people fear and that can bring peace - the awareness of one's own conscience." ...
..." What I mean," the elder went on, "is that all this business of sentencing people to hard labor, with or without flogging, does not reform criminals and, more to the point, does not deter them from committing crimes. So the number of crimes not only does not diminish - it keeps increasing. Why, you must concede that at least. It turns out, consequently, that society is not really protected by this method because, even if a dangerous member is cut off and put far away out of sign, immediately another criminal will appear in his place, and sometimes even two. If anything protects society in our time, if anything can reform the criminal and make a new man our of him, it is only the law of Christ, which manifests itself in the awareness of a man's own conscience. It is only after a man has recognized his guilt as a son of Christ's society, that is, of the Church, that he will become conscious of his guilt toward society, that is, toward the Church. Consequently, today's criminal can recognize his guilt only toward the Church, and not toward the State...But as things stand today, the Church has no legal authority, only the power of moral condemnation. And so she refuses to take part in the punishment of a criminal. She does not excommunicate him, she only offers him maternal advice. Indeed, she tries to abide by the pledge made by Christ's Church to the criminal; to admit him to church services and to the holy sacrament, to give him alms and treat him as a captive rather than as a convict. And what would become of the criminal, O Lord, if the Christian community, that is, the Church, rejected him and cut him off as the law of the State does? What would happen if every time a man was punished by the State, the Church followed suit by excommunicating him? The answer is that there could be no deeper despair, at least for a Russian criminal, because Russian criminals are still believers. And who knows, perhaps the result would be truly tragic - in his despair the criminal might lose his faith. And what would be gained by that? 
"But a non-Russian criminal, I have been told, rarely repents, since many modern theories confirm him in his belief that a crime is not really a crime but only a gesture of protest against an unjust and oppressive force. Society cuts him off, as a matter of course, because it is stronger than he, and accompanies its ostracism of him with hatred... then it shows no interest whatever in the further fate of that human being and soon forgets about him. and as all this takes place, there is not one to take pity on the condemned man, because many countries there is not church any longer; all they have left is the clergy and magnificent buildings that used to be churches. For their churches have been long evolving from the lower form of church into the higher form of state, in which they will be completely dissolved and vanish..."

There is a lot more to this dialogue and I cannot even begin to give the full context for this. I do not assume that many will read the book (after all it is over 1000 pages long) but this brings up some interesting thoughts, as well as some interesting viewpoints that seem almost more relevant today than Dostoevsky could have imagined. Let me know what you think.

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?