As a Christian, I have often heard the phrase, “God meets us where we are.” In fact, a pastor at a previous church I attended said it a lot, particularly in the midst of sermons about difficult topics. There was another form of this saying I heard, though, in an episode of my favorite Harry Potter podcast that made me really think about this: “finding God in all things.”

The person who said this, Father Jim Martin, goes on to say that this means God invites us to encounter Him in all we do: “if you’re introspective and you like books, that’s where God is going to meet you.” Why should "Harry Potter" not be included in that?

Type “Harry Potter scholarly articles” into Google and you’ll find 377,000 results. Change that search to “scholarly studies in Harry Potter,” “Harry Potter research topics,” or any other academic-like phrase, and it’s clear that academics have tackled characters, themes, and ways to teach this beloved series.

In college, I wrote a final course essay on Harry Potter and the morals and symbols in the story — yes, covering all seven novels — but it wasn’t until recently that I began to see potential connections to faith in the series. (Side note: type in “Harry Potter and faith into Google and you’ll be provided 10,400,000 results. Clearly, I’m not the only one making these connections.)

In most of my classroom discussions on these novels throughout my undergraduate and graduate studies, and there were a few (how else should a university instructor relate to his class except through pop culture?), the discussions focused on Harry as not only embodying the hero’s journey but also as a Christ-figure. It’s not hard to see why.

The obvious reasoning is Harry eventually finds out his destiny is to be killed by Lord Voldemort in order to save the wizarding world. When he is killed, though, he ends up returning (i.e. coming back from the dead) to defeat Voldemort once and for all. It is a mirror of the resurrection of Christ.

But I found notes of faith in the smaller things, from the way Harry’s friends stand by him, even in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" when he jumps down everyone’s throats at the smallest slight; to the way he loves and trusts Dumbledore even after Dumbledore’s death; to the way Harry seeks truth in the final novel.

Community

Church stresses community, and it’s not difficult to see why. When you come together with other believers and people who care about and support you, great things can happen. Ron and Hermione, and eventually Dumbledore’s Army (the D.A.) in the fifth novel, serves as Harry’s community. Throughout "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," Harry tries and fails repeatedly to tell the truth about his encounter with Voldemort from the previous year.

Not only is he punished by authority figures, but his classmates ostracize him. Although he is eventually able to share his message, leading to additional punishment but also acceptance from his schoolmates, I can imagine the feeling of betrayal didn’t immediately disappear. Even though they were not present during Harry’s graveyard battle with Voldemort, Ron and Hermione chose to believe Harry, defending his experience as truth. This shows their commitment to Harry, always ensuring he has a safe place to turn.

Later, the D.A. becomes Harry’s extended community, where he teaches others how to fight the regime of Professor Umbridge at Hogwarts, but also the coming regime of Death Eaters and dark magic that awaits them outside the walls of the school. This feels similar to the way we, as Christians, congregate together, whether at church or in small Bible study groups, to speak our truth and to learn about God and Jesus and what our faith means.

Through the D.A., Harry learns what it means to have a group to escape to, and he turns to thoughts of meetings when he is trying to maintain his composure, much in the way we may return to conversations with our community when we need a gentle reminder that we are doing the right thing.

If it were not for the community surrounding him, Harry probably would have come out of his 5th year at Hogwarts in much worse shape, even given the betrayal he felt from Dumbledore and the death of Sirius. The community and the friendship and support Ron and Hermione constantly and unfailingly offered reminded him he had something to fight for and that there would always be someone who believed him and would fight next to him.

That’s a good reminder for a lot of Christians.

Knowledge and Trust

Community can help us gain knowledge and find ways to trust what we cannot see—our faith. You have probably heard “trust God” more times than you can count when you are going through a struggle. If you’re like me, you have wondered what that looks like. Have you cried out, I just want to know…?

After Dumbledore’s death and a biography on his life is released by the unscrupulous Rita Skeeter in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," Harry begins to question the man he had admired. Elphias Dodge and Hermione encourage Harry to choose to believe and trust the Dumbledore he knew.

Harry, though, struggles with this, wanting to not have to choose what to believe but rather to just know the truth. While prayer is our direct connection to God, we don’t often hear His voice as clearly as we hear the person standing next to us. It can be difficult to trust someone when we cannot see or speak to them directly, and that includes God.

The truth is, we have to choose to trust God. I don’t say this as someone who doesn’t have any problems and who can say, “yes, I choose to trust God, and all my prayers have been answered.” I say this as someone who struggles every day, but who knows that when I do choose to trust God, I seem to be more at peace and more capable of handling my anxiety and depression.

Even if we trust God completely, we can encounter doubt, especially when others begin to question our belief. In the film adaptation of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," Harry tells Aberforth “I trusted the man I knew.” Aberforth responds strongly, “that’s a boy’s answer!”

When we encounter others who question our faith, or faith in general, often all we can say is “I trust God” and point to our experiences. Our experiences are our own, and they are how we share our story. We have to trust the God we know, the God that has been by our side, the God that has given us promises unique to who we are.

In the end, Harry willingly walks to his death because he trusted Dumbledore and the process that much. He came to terms with his destiny. He trusted who he was in the process to defeat Lord Voldemort. This is much the way we must be willing to know who we are in Christ. While we may not be asked to walk deliberately toward death, we are asked to trust God’s process and who we are in Him. We have to trust He has plans for us, and, while that may be hard to do at all times, we have to be willing to walk in those plans.

Believe me, that is something I am still working on.

Conclusions

The "Harry Potter"novels are rife with symbols and moral messages. It’s not far-fetched to look for Christian symbols or even for God, and I think I've only scratched the surface of that research. I believe God finds us not only where we are, but that He can also be found in all things if we are willing to look and dig deep.

There are non-believers out there who argue that faith and prayer are phony, that it’s just in our heads, just something to make people feel better. Prayer can often feel... maybe not useless, but perhaps weird, like it is just in our heads. (I can’t be the only one who struggles with this.)

Are we really talking to God? Is He really listening? Sometimes I feel like the little voice I hear, my conscience, is God telling me something, and that’s usually when it’s something I may not typically figure out on my own or something my anxiety would overrule.

But Dumbledore offers us one last great piece of advice: “Of course it is happening inside your head, but why on earth should that mean it isn’t real?”