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Today’s Buzz: Harry Potter; United Methodists; Fellowship’s Sewage Problem and More…

Orginally published on Monday, October 22, 2007 at 7:45 AM
by Todd Rhoades

Today, we'll talk about Harry Potter; United Methodists, Fellowship Church's Sewage Problem, and an Elvis Impersonating Priest; all without even mentioning the Cleveland Indians loss last night...

Harry Potter a Christian Allegory?
After all the abuse and boycotts from many Christians, it turns out that the whole Harry Potter series has a Christian element that comes out in the last novel. J. K. Rowling confesses to be a Christian herself. Regardless, I did like her quote: “I don’t take any responsibility for the lunatic fringes of my own religion.” I think many of us feel that way about one ‘Christian spokesman’ or two. SOURCE

One Third of United Methodists Live Outside the U. S.
One-third of the membership of The United Methodist Church now lives outside the United States. But the denomination’s structure remains decidedly centered both in and on the United States itself. Scott Brewer, director of research for the denomination’s General Council on Finance and Administration, reported that at end of 2005, the denomination had almost 13.8 million baptized and professing members, which includes children who have been baptized. While the U.S. baptized and professing membership stands at more than 8.9 million and continues to decline, “globally, the United Methodist Church is growing,” with most of the growth in Africa, he said.More commonly, United Methodists cite the church’s size in terms of professing membership, which stands at almost 11.5 million worldwide and almost 8 million in the United States, as of the end of 2005. SOURCE

Lake Hawkins Residents Think Fellowship Church’s Sewage Plan Stinks
Fellowship Church is building a lake-side retreat right here in East Texas. The 1,000 acre camp site is being built on Lake Hawkins. It’s expected to be a state of the art facility, but not everyone is happy with the plans to make it happen. Lake Hawkins is said to be one of the best kept secrets in East Texas with it’s pristine water and white sandy beaches, but some nearby residents are afraid it won’t stay that way for long. “You raise your kids on it, you raise your grandkids on it, so you’d hate to see potential disaster with it,” said lake resident Carol Blencoe. A potential disaster they said because of what Fellowship Church is planning to do with the treated wastewater from the campsite: Dump an average of 40,000 gallons of it into Lake Hawkins every day. “We’re quite frankly concerned that this is going to turn into a septic dump,” said lake resident Sue Tumbleson. SOURCE That really stinks.

Elvis Impersonating Priest
Romanian-born Antonio Petrescu believes you can worship God and Elvis at the same time: as a Catholic priest and Elvis Presley impersonator, he finds his spiritual inspiration in the late rock legend. Whatever. SOURCE

Have a great week!

Todd

This post has been viewed 2177 times so far.

There are 13 Comments:

Posted by Peter Hamm

Monday, October 22, 2007 at 9:28 AM

My sympathies to you on your great loss… I am wearing a hat with a red B on it today myself…

Thanks for not saving Elvis for Friday!
Posted by Camey

Monday, October 22, 2007 at 10:03 AM

We’re personally not into the Harry Potter books. A decision we made back when the first one came out. Never had a peace about the boys reading them. Still don’t.

I hope Fellowship will take seriously loving thy neighbors in this case.. after all, it is only a retreat site not their home.

Speaking of Texas.... how about them Cowboys?
Posted by

Monday, October 22, 2007 at 11:49 AM

On the subject of Harry Potter being a Christian allegory, has anyone seen the news this morning on the Harry Potter front? It would seem that J. K. Rowling has announced that one of the main characters (Dumbledore) is a homosexual who has been involved in an active homosexual relationship and is blinded by his affection for his gay lover who is evil. Her statements on the matter include the following remark made when the audience cheered at her outing of Dumbledore “if I’d known it would make you so happy, I would have announced it years ago!”

If this is a “Christian” allegory I wonder what part of a Christ like life she is referring to.

In addition Rowling’s states that she struggles with whether or not she believes in the resurrection of Christ. Scripture states that “if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain.” ( 1 Corinthians 15:14 NASB) and Romans 10:9 states that you can not be saved without believing that God has raised Christ from the dead. It would seem that the “Christian” confession influencing these books is shockingly lacking.

With allegories like these who needs enemies.

3 John 1:11 (NASB) Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. The one who does good is of God; the one who does evil has not seen God.
Posted by

Monday, October 22, 2007 at 1:17 PM

Oh, come on, Chris. Dumbledore WAS involved in a youthful homosexual love which blinded him to his true values 50 years previous. And spent the rest of his life atoning and putting right the evil done in his world by his actions, while apparently adopting celibacy. I’d say there’s even more of a message there than there was last week, myself.
Posted by Peter Hamm

Monday, October 22, 2007 at 1:25 PM

Chris,

First off, I think you can tell a godly story that includes sinful people. In fact, I think it’s impossible to tell ANY story that doesn’t include sinful people.

As far as Rowling’s struggles with basic Christian doctrines, you don’t seem to indicate that she said she disbelieves this, only that she struggles with it.

I admit to “struggling” with many basic Christian doctrines. I still believe them, but I struggle with them. I admit it.

I struggle with the idea from Scripture that God only gives us what we can handle. I’ve seen people go through what seems like a lot more than they can handle, at least to me, so although I believe what Scripture tells me, I struggle with it. I wrestle with it, like Jacob did with the angel, getting him a new name that reflects that struggle, a name that the entire nation that comes from him bears to this day.

To blindly believe in something, or say that you do merely because you have intellectual assent to it but don’t actually “wrestle” with what it means, is no kind of faith, or at least no kind of biblical faith, at all, imho.

For instance… I struggle with the idea of Hell. I admit it. The thought that a loving God will send people I love to Hell is very hard for me to accept. I believe it, but anyone who says they believe it and it doesn’t “hurt” to, is either lying or heartless. I know all the scriptures and all the reasons, I’ve heard arguments from both sides, and it is more a struggle for me to believe that there is a Hell and reconcile how I live my life in front of people because of that… than to just not believe in a literal Hell at all, which is far easier…

I think it’s GREAT that she struggles with the resurrection, at least becasue it is better than not believing in a literal resurrection at all…
Posted by

Monday, October 22, 2007 at 5:16 PM

Pastor Chris,
Are you serious??? It is some how acceptable for a “Christian” author to prominently feature a homosexual character, to revel in the publics joy over the character being gay, and expressing the sentiment that if she knew people would be so happy about her flaunting of sin she would have announced it years earlier.

You excuse her actions by the “celibacy” of the character in later years, yet there was no need for her to even put this in a children’s book. How can we ever in good conscious label such unbiblical things as a Christian allegory?
Posted by

Monday, October 22, 2007 at 5:18 PM

Peter Hamm
When you read the article from Christianpost.com (which is hotlinked in the buzz) it describes that she struggles with whether or not she believes in life after death.

First ask yourself this question, if there is no life after death why is salvation even necessary or possible?

Second, Salvation is not a halfway proposition. Either you fully receive Christ (part of which is accepting by faith that Christ is raised from the dead [life after death]) or you are lost on your way to hell. The apostle Paul states that without this fact (resurrection/ life after death) our faith is in vain.

Paul, I understand that there are some issues that we can argue over and struggle with doubts over (although I would never include hell in that category [and yes, the really of hell does hurt that is one of the motivation to evangelism]), however the core requirements of salvation are non-negotiable nor open to debate they require that we (just as Paul was) know in whom we have believed and are persuaded.
Posted by Daniel

Monday, October 22, 2007 at 6:29 PM

Harry Potter is not a Christian allegory Chris. Anyone who reads the series knows that much. If we wanted a gospel paraphrase, we’d read the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.
The fact that Dumbledore may have been gay in his youth was a revelation--that is, you wouldn’t know it from the books. It’d be like Tokien revealing that Gandalf had once been married, and then divorced his wife to become a wizard. It may be interesting, it may even be morally questionable, but it isn’t relevant to the story as it’s found in the books.
As for Rowling being a Christian… well, she’s certainly got some kind of spirituality there--she claims to believe in God; but I don’t think she’s ever claimed to be a full blown evangelical. Which means we can pray for her and leave it at that.

As for so-called ‘hell’… well notice that even CS Lewis couldn’t stomach the doctrine traditionally formulated--he makes hell be locked from the inside rather than the outside, and makes it self-imposed punishment rather than divinely-imposed punishment.
As one who denies the doctrine of post-mortem divinely sanctioned torture, I’d like to highlight that ‘hell’ is a post-biblical concept. In Scripture, you may find Sheol, Hades, or Gehenna (perhaps Tartarus?), but you sure as heck won’t find hell (nor all the medieval imagery associated therewith). So do a word-study on ‘gehenna’ in the old and new testaments, and then try to reconstruct hell. That should get you somewhere.
Remember, we’re Protestants. We think tradition is a good thing, but we also think that it always must be subordinated to the story of Scripture. Here’s one instance where I think Scripture trumps tradition.

Peace,
-Daniel-
Posted by

Monday, October 22, 2007 at 9:28 PM

Daniel,
First I am not the one who was making HP an allegory, I was reacting to the topic at the top of the buzz which reads (and I quote) “Harry Potter a Christian Allegory?
After all the abuse and boycotts from many Christians, it turns out that the whole Harry Potter series has a Christian element that comes out in the last novel.”
My point was that HP can not be a Christian allegory and that there are some serious problems with the statements made by the author of the series.

Second, I never introduced the hell subject, I simply responded to what Peter wrote in response to me. As for your dismissal of hell and other statements, I am not going to follow the bunny trail here. I have seen these comments before and they are the stuff of another conversation. The point of the original post was Rowling’s statements from the article that Todd posted concerning HP as a Christian anything, if you want to discuss that fine, if not then I’m sorry it’s not rabbit season and I’m not chasing rabbits.
Posted by yellow croaker

Tuesday, April 08, 2008 at 12:31 AM

Harry Potter,i very like..
Posted by

Tuesday, August 05, 2008 at 11:14 PM

all harry potter’s books and movies were all good.

just as this: Movie Trailer | Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Posted by 642-524

Monday, April 20, 2009 at 5:58 AM

It may be interesting, it may even be morally questionable, but it isn’t relevant to the story as it’s found in the books.
As for Rowling being a Christian. 642-373 - 642-845 - 646-363 - 642-642 - 70-294 - 70-536 - 350-018
Posted by Online Bookstore India

Friday, August 07, 2009 at 2:04 AM

Hey thanks for sharing this nice information about the Harry Potter Series. I was unaware of this things earlier.

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Hi... I'm Todd Rhoades. I'm a Christ-follower, husband, father and I love to connect leaders with other leaders. Hopefully you'll find something here at MMI you like and will return often. If you want, you can find out more about me or follow my every step on Twitter.