The Gospel According to Harry Potter

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The Gospel According to Harry Potter? Not really. - Rated
Settling oneself down with a good book and a cup of tea on a Sunday afternoon is something I rarely have time for, so when the occasion arises I look forward to it with the same level of anticipation as a child awaiting Christmas. It never occurred to me that the book I was about to read would put me in such a bad mood. I confess that I am a huge ‘Harry’ fan and have read all four books more times than I’ve had hot dinners! As a result, I have also read similar books to ‘The Gospel According to Harry Potter’ and have loved them, so this book review was always destined to become a kind of comparison. However, from such a comparison, this book comes off very badly indeed.

‘The Gospel According to Harry Potter’ seemed like the perfect solution to combining Harry Potter with the Bible – short, ‘bite-size’ chapters that highlight a particular part of one of the four books and then refers it to one the Gospels. And it is a good idea – well, for about half an hour, and then the reader starts to feel rather frustrated because none of the ideas set forward are ever really expanded. Each chapter is set out in the same format for continuity: A quote from one of the books, followed by a short paragraph where the author explains said quote – I would not have minded this so much if she had an original take on any of it, but I am afraid to say that Connie Neal just states the obvious – then followed by rather more lengthy paragraphs on how this relates to the Gospels.

Whilst the bite-size nature of the book dictates quick reading, it also means that the author is able to make rather outlandish statements without justifying what she has said and by the time you have realised what has happened, the reader is on to the next chapter where the same thing happens all over again. It does not begin to dawn upon the reader that a large proportion of what she is reading is not qualified for about twenty minutes. After this point, the reader starts looking for unqualified statements and comes to the conclusion that the book is littered with tenuous links and concepts that any perceptive individual would notice by themselves. Connie Neal is not telling her reader anything new.

The link between the selected quote and related biblical context is often somewhat strained, as I have said already, but I do not think it gets more tenuous than in chapter 6. Here there is a quote from that lovable giant, Hagrid:
“D’yeh think yer parents didn’t leave yeh anything?”
-Hagrid to Harry, book One, p.63

The quote is then explained. In a nutshell, Harry’s parents left him lots of money that he never knew he had – but it is wizard money, therefore not redeemable in the ‘muggle’ world. Unbelievably, Neal manages to link this to the ‘riches available to us in the Kingdom of God that are not recognisable in the world we live in.’ Oh please. Spare us all. I appreciate that spiritualising Harry Potter has become necessary for some to accept it, but relating the fact that Harry did not have any money and then found out he was rich beyond his wildest dreams to the Kingdom of God, is for me, going too far.

I am not normally so cynical about literature but this book really is not very good. Nevertheless, to end this review on a lighter note, if you fancy reading about the spirituality of Harry Potter, may I suggest you read ‘A Charmed Life’ by Francis Bridger – a far more spiritually interesting, intellectually stimulating read.