Posted by
Jason Cunningham on Thursday, July 19, 2007 6:42:31 AM
Earlier this week I ventured out to see the new Harry Potter flick. For those looking for a traditional movie review, you’ve come to the wrong place: The only thing I’ll say in that regard is that the movie was, unfortunately, average, mainly due to the Herculean task of trying to cram an 870-page book into a two-and-a-half-hour film (I’m reminded here of Jesus’ “camel-through-the-eye-of-a-needle” story).
No, what I’m concerned with here is something else. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth installment in the famous series, introduces multiple new characters, one of whom is a teacher named Dolores Umbridge, a Ministry of Magic crony who is sent to Hogwarts school essentially to be a thorn in Headmaster Dumbledore’s behind. Umbridge is the typical yes-man, toeing the party line to a T with unquestioning loyalty, and her disdain for dissent from the official position is most evident in her interaction with Harry.
At the end of the previous book, Harry encountered the Dark Lord, Voldemort, who had come back from near-annihilation and was returned again to full strength. Problem was, out of the two “good guys” who were there to see it, Harry was the only one who survived, which meant that he was the only witness, and since the Minister of Magic didn’t want to deal with a possible return by Voldemort (who would, right?), he simply branded Harry a liar and tried to pretend that there was no problem. And new teacher Dolores Umbridge, being a good soldier for her Fuhrer, was consequently in the anti-Harry camp, so when Harry insisted – in the middle of her class, no less (the nerve!) – that Voldemort really had returned, she insisted to all the students that this was a lie.
And it was then that it struck me: There I was, watching a seated Harry being unable to deny what he had clearly experienced, and a standing Dolores Umbridge glaring down at him, speaking in a sicky-sweet voice that somehow failed to hide a cutting disdain for the truth: “The rumor that a certain dark lord has returned is a lie” (my paraphrase) – and I realized that I was watching Mr. Secular Liberal (of the Ultra-Fem variety, at that) talking down to the God-Fearing Proclaimer of Truth. Shouting over him is more like it – seems that’s the only defense Mr. SLUF has against the God-inspired truth, as Ann Coulter brilliantly illustrates in her most recent book, Godless, with the typical secular-liberal/religious-conservative conversation going something like this:
God-lover: “God is real.”
SLUF: “That’s a lie.”
God-lover: “God is good.”
SLUF: “That’s a lie.”
God-lover: “Church-state separation has been skewed to hurt Christians.”
SLUF: “That’s a lie!”
God-lover: “Scientific research is showing more and more that there really is something to this 'creator God' thing.”
SLUF: “THAT’S A LIE!”
I think you get my point. Liberals are so incensed at the truth – whether it concerns the First Amendment, the Bible, the Founders, or science – and so at a loss for a logical defense of their own positions, that they try to drown out opposition arguments with shouting (and with the help of liberal media and liberal judges).
Shouting (and twisted soundbites and awful jurisprudence). From the people who claim to be guided by logic and reason. Now why didn’t I think of that? … Oh. Right. Because I’m a “religious” person, and we don’t think.
(Read C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity!).