I wonder what you would have thought of Harry Potter.
In a few weeks, Part I of the last of the Harry Potter movies will be in theaters at the same time as The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (book three or book five depending on how you order your Narnia books).
And I really do wonder what you would have to say about Harry Potter if you had anything to say at all.
The Christian message in your Narnia books has never been in doubt despite the fact that they are books of fantasy, that magical creatures such as unicorns and centaurs, dwarves and witches, dragons and mermaids populate every book. In the Narnia books, centaurs read the stars and even Aslan is subject to the deeper magic that rules the land.
On the other hand, many have viewed the Harry Potter books as being completely unchristian, as leading small children astray with the false hope that spells and incantations can cure all the evils in the world.
I wonder what you would say.
Author Madeleine L’Engle said that the chief ingredient to any work of Christian Children’s fiction is love. Love must be the central theme. Aslan shows his love by sacrificing himself to the witch at the stone table. Meg, in L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, defeats the evil IT by a simple declaration of love.
So is there love in the world of Harry Potter? Well, there would be no Harry Potter at all if it weren’t for the love of his mother. Central to the books’ plot is sacrifice, specifically the sacrifice of Harry’s mother. When Harry was still a baby, his mother sacrificed her life and that single act of ultimate love shielded him and protected him from Voldemort.
It is that love that carries Harry through all the books. It distinguishes him from his enemy. It’s the reason why he will always win and why Voldemort must always lose.
Mr. Lewis, I grew up on your Narnia books. I devoured them again and again and again. I’ve read them more times than I can count. I actually stopped counting when I reached twenty times for each book.
Your books made me a reader. I had read before that and I had always liked to read, but your world of Narnia was the first to pull me in, the first to surround me, the first to feel as real as anything else in this world.
Your books made me a believer. Your books made me a believer in things that were totally and completely outside the realm of my imagination.
At a time when most children begin to let go of childish whims and fancies, at a time when most children stop accepting things at face value and begin to doubt in things they cannot see, your books cemented my beliefs, gave them strong roots and allowed them to continue to flourish and grow.
I was an adult when I read my first Harry Potter book so I don’t know if those books have the same effects on children today that your books had on me.
But I do think, and I do think you’d appreciate this, that the Harry Potter books do have something in common with your Narnia books. They fill a need all children have, not the need to believe in magic, but the need to know that there are things out there that are unexplainable and even in the face of the greatest of evils, good, unexplainable and pure goodness will always triumph.
Happy Birthday, Mr. Lewis.
You are missed.
