If war is ever lawful, then peace is sometimes sinful. —C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock

Kirk Honeycutt, writing for the Hollywood Reporter, echoes the complaints of a number of critics that the Harry Potter films are becoming darker as the series progresses. This would be a valid point only if there were a consensus that fans (particularly adolescents) should be protected from the darker things in life (or in fiction that has real-world parallels). And though I think the criticism overwrought—the throngs of people who showed up for midnight screenings of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on Wednesday night certainly enjoyed the film—embedded in critiques of this kind is the belief that the hallmark of Harry Potter films should be fun. Inadvertently, such critics fall into the same mindset as that of J.K Rowling’s arch-villain Dolores Umbridge: deny the existence of real, malevolent evil and it can’t hurt you.

Oh, but it can.

J.K Rowling’s arch-villain Dolores Umbridge

(Note: I know that some Christians believe that any mention of witches and wizards in literature and film makes such works automatically unsuitable—even as allegory. They will say I am ignoring the spiritual warfare represented by the existence of such books. In the space of this column I can not rehash all of those arguments—but instead point the reader to a balanced essay in the MovieMinistry article archive written by Dr. Todd Lewis, chair of the Communication Department at Biola University, titled “The Holy Harry Potter Wars.”)

In the latest installment in the saga of the boy wizard and his friends from Hogwarts, Rowling and director David Yates have constructed not only a captivating film, but a primer on how to—and how not to—respond to transcendent evil. In other words, this movie is about spiritual warfare. By making allusions to World War II—notably contrasting the rhetorical strategies of Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill—Rowling reveals, in her fiction, timeless principles that must be invoked in battling evil. C.S. Lewis—battle-hardened during the trench warfare of World War I (and no slouch as a fiction writer)—also knew a thing or two about fighting dark forces. What both of them could agree on is that spiritual warfare involves recognizing a threat, effectively training for battle, and engaging the enemy.

Recognizing the Threat of Evil

In most stories, the threat of great evil immediately clarifies the participants in a conflict: those fighting for evil, those fighting for good, and those who turn a blind eye to the threat. Evil is represented by Lord Voldemort, along with his assorted Deatheaters and other minions. Good is represented by Professor Dumbledore, Harry, Hermione, Ron and certain members of the faculty and students at Hogwarts. One of the theologically astute elements of Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix is its refusal to assign absolute goodness or evil to its characters. People thought to be good can be lured into betrayals, or make immoral choices that put them in spiritual peril. Others, once allied with the evil Deatheaters, apparently repent and go over to the other side. You cannot choose to “become” a wizard in Rowling’s world—you have to be born one—but we are not defined solely by what we are. As Sirius Black tells Harry, his godson, “We all have dark and light within us. What matters is the part we choose to act on.” Or to put it another way, “You will know them by their fruits” (Matt. 7:20).

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