J. K. Rowling - Religious Views

Religious Views

Over the years, some religious people have decried Rowling's books for supposedly promoting witchcraft; however, Rowling identifies as a Christian. She attended a Church of Scotland congregation while writing Harry Potter and her eldest daughter, Jessica, was baptised there. "I go to church myself", she says, "I don't take any responsibility for the lunatic fringes of my own religion." She once said, "I believe in God, not magic." Early on she felt that if readers knew of her Christian beliefs they would be able to "guess what is coming in the books."

In 2007, Rowling described her religious background in an interview with the Dutch newspaper the Volkskrant:

I was officially raised in the Church of England, but I was actually more of a freak in my family. We didn't talk about religion in our home. My father didn't believe in anything, neither did my sister. My mother would incidentally visit the church, but mostly during Christmas. And I was immensely curious. From when I was 13, 14 I went to church alone. I found it very interesting what was being said there, and I believed in it. When I went to university, I became more critical. I got more annoyed with the smugness of religious people and I went to church less and less. Now I'm at the point where I started: yes, I believe. And yes, I go to the church. A Protestant church here in Edinburgh. My husband is also raised Protestant, but he comes from a very strict Scottish group. One where they couldn't sing and talk.

Rowling has occasionally expressed ambivalence about her religious faith. In a 2006 interview with Tatler magazine, Rowling noted that, "like Graham Greene, my faith is sometimes about if my faith will return. It's important to me." In a British documentary, JK Rowling: A Year in the Life, when asked if she believed in God, she said, "Yes. I do struggle with it; I couldn't pretend that I'm not doubt-ridden about a lot of things and that would be one of them but I would say yes." When asked if she believed in an afterlife, she said, "Yes; I think I do." She further said, "It's something that I wrestle with a lot. It preoccupies me a lot, and I think that's very obvious within the books." In a 2008 interview with the Spanish newspaper El País, Rowling said, "I feel very drawn to religion, but at the same time I feel a lot of uncertainty. I live in a state of spiritual flux. I believe in the permanence of the soul." In an interview with the Today Show in July 2007, she said, "...until we reached Book Seven, views of what happens after death and so on... would give away a lot of what was coming. So... yes, my belief and my struggling with religious belief and so on I think is quite apparent in this book." In a 2012 radio interview with Mark Lawson she said she was a member of the Episcopalian Church.