Dumbledore's Vanishing Cabinet

First of all, in the excitement of Rowling's revelation, I cannot believe that I have not seen a single reference to the fact that, as a classicist, Rowling would have been more than familiar with the Greek ideal of mentor-tutor (the lover and the beloved) relationship. This relationship was not always sexual, though it still carries the term “pederasty,” a word which only holds negative connotations for us today–though it was not always so clear cut.

Harry and Dumbledore’s relationship have all the traits of a Platonic relationship: chaste, educational, protective, transformative. We forget that Socrates himself was a pederast (in the chaste sense of the word– remember his spurning of Alcibiades’ advances spoken of in “The Symposium”?). There is no one so like Socrates, to me, than Dumbledore. And Socrates, lest we forget, was “gay” (though we can’t really use that word, because, according to Foucault, the concept of homo- and hetero- sexualities were not birthed until much later–there was simply “sexuality”).

To not have spotted this model, or to deny it in retrospect, is pretty unliterary.

For a quick, though not necessarily authoritative portrait into the complexities of this issue, please see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pederasty_in_ancient_Greece I would most particularly point out the section on “Religious aspects,” especially this quote: “Mythographic material suggests that the initiate experienced ecstatic states of spirit journey leading to mystic death and transfiguration, analogous to practices still reported today in shamanic work.” [e.g., alchemical work] But it is apparent that it is causing other controversies. I would also like to say that the revelation that Dumbledore is “gay” is totally revealing, not of the character in a book, but of the character of our Christianity.

I was a bit hesitant, at first, when my school sponsored a free t-shirt giveaway for the “Gay? Fine by Me” campaign. I was afraid, not only being a Southern Baptist preacher’s son of some note in my small city, but as a now-regularly-practicing Catholic. I was also afraid of taking sides which may cause any of my students in the university to stumble in their faith beliefs. However, I went to the photo shoot and was amazed to see how many of the Christian leaders of our university, young and old, were there with their shirts on. I was ministered to by their courage to stick up for what they believed. Since then I have, on occasion, worn the shirt with the very large Benedictine crucifix that I received after some time in a monastery. So, here, the post-modern young Christian: “Gay? Fine by Me.” and the broken body of Our Lord. On these occasions I have received multiple comments on “how cool” it is to have such a witness–to be supportive of homosexuality and Christian, witnessing by not being bigoted. Imagine that. I think this is because the young people, in their struggle with sexual mores, but in great social concern, sense something profoundly different in the Christian message.

Please see this article: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-161075807.html Specifically: “Bolduc said the young Catholic students he studied are steeped in a national culture that often regards the Catholic sexual prohibitions against premarital sex, artificial birth control, abortion, divorce, women priests and homosexual behavior as anachronistic. ‘They live their lives squarely in the midst of the tension between individualism and the common good, and sometimes feel the tensions between the two extremes. It’s difficult to get them to be critical of the individualism that seems as natural as the air they breathe,’ Bolduc said.”

But here is a great summary of the positives and negatives: “Reported in the March 9, 2007 issue of the National Catholic Reporter, two longitudinal studies of U.S. Catholics ’show differences among Catholics that are not merely reflective of age and stage in the life cycle but mirror changes in both the societal culture and the Church itself.’ The study, “The Bookend Generations,” was co-authored by William D’Antonio and Vincent Bolduc. They express concern that the younger generations do not give the church and sacraments a central place and fear that this is a trend that is likely to continue through their lives. They are, also, more likely than previous generations to find the moral good in living the church’s social teachings. According to Bolduc, ‘Without a major transformation in the relationship between laity and church leaders, there is little in these studies to lead grandparents to expect their grandchildren to be joining them at Mass every Sunday.’” from http://www.emergingmodels.org/newsarticle.cfm?id=22

As to Harry Potter, having many gay friends and mentors, it seemed quite clear to me that Dumbledore’s infatuation with Grindelwald was not only apparent, but written very well, and that everyone is finding themselves caught in a huge blind spot, a blind spot that some people are examining, others are denying, and others are confused about. I myself suspected something very strongly in Book 7, but, again, one has to be aware of such things. The question really seems to be: How can I, as Christian, still look up to a beloved character who is not what we took him to be? And, subsequently, how do I, as Christian, treat other real life situations this way. I think the inability to deal with the former reveals a terrible inability to deal with the latter (and vice-versa).

It seems to me that so many of the Christian apologists are trying to digest some sort of argument while the rest of us post-modern young folk are simply saying, “What’s the big deal?” As you always say, John, we should be asking why these stories effect us? Now should we not truly be examining the prejudices of the metanarrative that Christianity presents: that to be gay is not to be Christian, and that to be Christian is not to allow homosexuality? For a post-modern understanding, this problem presupposes 1,500 years of dualism–and as post-moderns are returning to a holistic understanding of the body as a piece of
God’s immanence, the metanarrative of anti-homosexuality is one of the main targets, because many simply feel, in our intuitive bodily knowledge, that this is simply wrong. For many, the Bible’s language has been translated incorrectly, or is no longer valid (like the majority of Levitical law). For many others, raised in a more modern framework, the struggle simply is whether being homosexual is inherently right or wrong, a presupposition which then paints the rest of the “can Dumbledore be gay?” confusion.

And it is a confusion–I sense it in many posts here and elsewhere. To me, as many, the phrase “Neither male nor female, Greek nor Jew” also means “gay or straight”. If you read the plethora posts on Mugglenet, one gets the sense that the hoo-hah is being propagated by those over the age of 30.

Homosexuality is both a target for the poor state of our theology of the body (hetero- or homo-), and the gay community a Samaritan pariah created as a projection for our inability to deal with our own Puritanical upbringing. American Christianity as a whole has a terrible outlook on the body in general. No one ever asks the question, “Why is homosexuality wrong?” The Taoists, who I think have undertaken one of the most comprehensive studies of sexuality and sexual energies, have a great, alchemical answer, but without the moralization which leads to judgment, something which Our Lord warned about on countless occasions. But no one seems to look into that–they rely on Biblical literalism when convenient.

Though I am not yet married, I do sympathize with those having to explain to their children what this is all about. There is an appropriate time for everything. But I think we should be reticent to confuse our own cultural embarrassment and shame about sexuality, and explaining it to our children, with homosexuality in the world. If my niece ever asks me, I will have to consult my sister. But I would ask simply to say: “God loves everyone, and if you understand that, you will not live your life presumptuously doing what you want, nor will you live in constant fear.” Thank goodness for Brennan Manning and others for pointing this out to us. Sexual issues are all part of a piece, but for some, one of those pieces is something terrible. I personally think it should be more awkward explaining why mommy and daddy have such a nice house, while little boys and girls around the world don’t have clothes to wear, or food to eat, or houses to live in. But I am inculcated into the post-modern world….and feel successful in navigating in it, which is obviously very difficult for very many people, otherwise there would not be major news stories about a fictional character. It is the collision of the Classical, Modern, and Post-Modern realities.

So, to many, it’s pretty simple: they can still be Christian allegories with a gay character. Anyone that cannot be “sold” this is already stuck in a frame of mind and so we need to focus our energy away from an “apologetic” and stop wasting our time. In giving people like Fred Phelps a counter-argument, we are only giving him more power. I thought that Harry taught us to die from our agendas, especially ones that were so superficial, like Rita Skeeter; strangely, Jesus said the same thing, but I guess they killed him for it.

For ourselves, simultaneously whining about the “gay character” agenda in the media is a far cry from being tortured and beaten like the early Christians–it presupposes, as all of this does, a freedom to take ourselves way to seriously and too much leisure time as a society: you know, there are people who still die from starvation everyday, and we are worrying about a FAKE person’s outing and how that effects our argument for a “Christian allegory”. To be caught in the political (in the full sense of the word) game is to give power to it. The rest of us should simply read the stories and be transformed by them, and allow them to transform others. And ministers like Jay Bakker are doing just that, and claiming that everyone is a participant in the transformation–not from queerdom, but in humandom and humandom alone. God loves our bodies, our sexualities. It is a love which transforms them. I thought Harry taught us to embrace trials and taunts and become the Philosopher’s Stone; oh, right, Jesus did too.

As to the article about “Dumbledore is NOT gay”–this is preposterous. The author who creates the world reveals it. She can even change them in reprints of the books, as far as I am concerned. Tolkien did it with “The Hobbit” and no one complained about it–because we weren’t quite so selfish then, so needy for story that we cling to “our” version of it. Our “the story is MY story” revealed itself in Lucas’ decision to change “Star Wars” and now in Ms. Rowling’s revelations about her world. This “my right to read” which is far and beyond the Christian way of selfless behavior. And, since the story came from the infinite well-spring of eternal myth and infinite grace (or we wouldn’t be connecting to it so strongly; evil is never a connector) it belongs to that space in which we are a part. This “my story” attitude speaks more about how little spiritual reality we as a race currently have that we need to cling to our fictions so strongly–this sort of secular infiltration is much more egregious than loving gay people for who they, even in their sexual practices. It also speaks as to how thoroughly our religions are failing us — because, as Nietzsche pointed out, we hold to the veracity of myth without the ability to let them continue to change and develop to fit the times. This for him, and for me, is the symptom of the death of a religion. Arguing that there is a “canon” for Harry Potter is the same mindset as a fundamentalist reading of the Bible. We have failed to make the stories alive again–or have let our institutions squash them down to rubrics–and so we are all missing the connecting point; Rowling’s success around the world proves this: we need connection.

And, so, as a post-modern, I use one of the world’s greatest atheists to defend what I consider to be the world’s greatest message, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the myths that are written after His example, of which Harry Potter is the post-modern exemplar. I echo the aforementioned study: yes, Christianity is dying, but not because we don’t go to Mass every Sunday–the young are seeing a new and different way: how to love literally, and literarily, again, and to seek connection (there is a reason that Facebook and MySpace are thriving). The fact is is that Rowling speaks “our” language, and the adults need to learn to be receptive to it–or we wouldn’t be so blind-sided by this. And we really need to hear the message, and really, deep down, want to, or we wouldn’t be arguing about a story so veraciously, or love Harry Potter so much.

For us, it is simply “sexuality”–which is powerful and transformative if undertaken with wisdom–but never shameful or dirty, and that is difficult for many, raised under a different meta-narrative, to understand. To not allow Dumbledore’s pederastic life is to be caught in the same literalism as Phelps, the same literalism that we would criticize and even fight against in claiming Harry to be our literary ALLEGORY (NOT CANON). To claim that is “now our story” is to be trapped in the same literalism which heralds the death toll of our faith instead of letting it have its own room to change and grow without secular selfishness–especially as the Author would deem it.

People will cling to the shallow much more easily than to the transformative deep. May we always seek transformation–even for our friends, our enemies, and for our literary projections. To not do so is to resist being “born again”.

We are all stuck in a vanishing closet, between being-in-the-world and being-of-the-world. Dumbledore came out of the closet for us and taught us to chose.