I was ten years old when I first heard of Harry Potter.
Prisoner of Azkaban had just come out, and there was an article about the books' success in our Weekly Reader at school. It seemed like their popularity exploded outward from that moment, and soon it seemed that nearly everyone at my private Catholic school was reading them.
I received all three novels for Christmas that year and quickly gobbled them up. Soon after, I began to hear some concerns from parents about the "witchcraft" involved in them. My mother read the books after I did and decided they were safe enough for me, and the school library kept them in stock, and all was well.
Looking back, the Catholic community in which I was raised was somewhat laid-back. We loved God and Jesus and were still able to enjoy popular culture without fear of the devil flying out at us at every turn. To us, stories were just stories, and it didn't matter if there were witches and wizards and house elves in them. (I can't speak for all Catholics; this is just what I saw from the ones I was acquainted with.)
Of course, I still heard stories of parents refusing to allow their children to read Harry Potter because of its "Satanic" nature. Even as a child, I knew that those parents hadn't read a page of Harry Potter themselves, because there was absolutely nothing Satanic whatsoever in them. After all, Voldemort was a bad guy everyone wanted to defeat! Those parents had simply heard rumors of the devil and panicked without taking a look at the truth for themselves.
Now let's fast forward twenty years.
It's 2019. A month ago, the screen adaptation of Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett was released upon the world. For those not in the know, Good Omens is the comedic tale of an angel, Aziraphale, and a demon, Crowley, who team up to stop the Apocalypse because they both happen to really love the Earth and don't want it to be destroyed.
Somewhat unsurprisingly, some religious groups took offense.
"Good Omens misrepresents God!" I saw one person worry online. This person had neither read the book nor watched the show, but was referencing the fact that God, the narrator, is portrayed by actress Frances McDormand.
"An angel and a demon could never be friends," another person complained. And, "A demon could never be a good guy. Demons are evil."
Since this is a free country, people of course have the right to object to whatever they want to. However, I prefer taking a more nuanced approach to analyzing fiction.
Having a woman narrating God's voice doesn't bother me because God is a celestial being, and celestial beings have no gender. I don't mind the fact that an angel and a demon are friends, because Good Omens is a work of fiction. Not once does it ever proclaim itself to be Truth. It's simply a laugh-out-loud story with enough tender moments that made me wish it was much longer than six episodes.
The thing about good stories is that they go so much deeper than surface level. I consider both Harry Potter and Good Omens to be allegories, which Dictionary.com defines as "a representation of an abstract or spiritual meaning through concrete or material forms; figurative treatment of one subject under the guise of another."
Harry Potter isn't about witches and wizards; it's about courage and bravery and self-sacrifice. It is a hero's tale that shows us that evil, no matter how powerful, can be defeated.
Good Omens isn't about angels, demons, and the end of the world. It's the story of people who love and care about each other despite their differences. It's the perfect example of unconditional love, and it makes me yearn for a world where people sitting on opposite sides of the fence can unite under a common cause, whether they're a witch and a witchfinder, a prostitute and a witchfinder, or a demon and an angel.
Some of Jesus's most effective teachings came in the form of allegories, like the story of the prodigal son, or the story of the good Samaritan, both of which demonstrated spiritual truths without ever coming across as instructional or preachy. And if it worked for Jesus, why can't it work for the rest of us?
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