Francis Bridger

This is excellent! A Christian theological professor from the UK writes about the positive, spiritual and encouraging side of the Harry Potter books. He invites Christians to take on board much of what they contain, and explains why it's unhelpful to condemn them, since the majority of the message from JK Rowling is not at all anti-Christian.

Written when just four of the books had been published, so some of the commentary is speculative - and of course was vindicated in the last book with its redemptive theme and many Christian symbols.

But still, despite being dated now, the writing is excellent and I would highly recommend this to anyone wanting to know more about the positive spiritual side of the Harry Potter series.

Longer review here: https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/2022/02/a-charmed-life-by-francis-bridger.h...… (mehr)

My first non-fiction for the year.

This is a fairly thin book (only 144 pages) written by an Anglican (Church of England) theologian. Bridger came across the Harry Potter books (up to Goblet of Fire) while helping out at a school, and sought to explore them. This was in part inspired by negative reactions by christians, including banning, dismissing and burning the books due to their 'dark themes' and 'sanitising of the occult'.

It's a good book, well researched and thought out, with thoughtful comparisons to Lord of the Rings and The Lion, The Witch and The wardrobe. Bridger focuses on Potterverse's worldmaking, morality, use of Christian themes (though admitting these are not explicit), and metaphysics. He concludes that the books are not 'dangerous' (in fact, he applauds the morality lessons available in the books), and could be used by some to promote ideas of Christianity.

Somehow, though, despite the good writing, and thoughtful ideas, something in this book was missing for me. It might be that it was written before Order of the Phoenix and Half Blood Prince came out, so he misses any wisdom that might have come from these (I would have liked to know how he saw Dumbledore's death), but it might be that he sometimes comes across as preaching to his readers, rather than having an interesting discussion.… (mehr)