The Calvinist connection with the predestined, "innately good" (or more common innately evil) characters in the book really didn't register with me until some things I read recently. I actually go to a church that comes from the Calvinist traditions. Her concepts of these is so very far away from anything we teach, or probably any other modern Calvinists, that I don't doubt it's an influence, but I really wonder how it got so screwed up in her brain. (And I'm guessing that by "tripped-out Calvinist", you mean that her version of Calvinism is tripped out, rather than Calvinism as a whole.)
Going on a religious tangent, I can't speak for all Calvinist churches, but in mine, we don't really speak of predestination or the elect. What comes across (and this, not often), is that people don't really choose, and definitely don't earn, their own salvation, but that it's purely due to the mercy of God. Yes, this brings up a wide variety of questions (some of which I'm currently struggling with). Yes, this suggests that some people will go to heaven and some won't -- the elect, so to speak. Or, apparently, Gryffindors. This does *not* mean that they're better people, or more moral, much less "innately good". They rather specifically *not* better people. In more bleak terms, they suck just as badly as everyone else does, and they aren't worthy of salvation (no one is). Somehow, after the Sorting Hat has served as God, here, it's an indication that they really are better, more worthy, and more good.
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Date: 2008-03-12 06:14 am (UTC)Going on a religious tangent, I can't speak for all Calvinist churches, but in mine, we don't really speak of predestination or the elect. What comes across (and this, not often), is that people don't really choose, and definitely don't earn, their own salvation, but that it's purely due to the mercy of God. Yes, this brings up a wide variety of questions (some of which I'm currently struggling with). Yes, this suggests that some people will go to heaven and some won't -- the elect, so to speak. Or, apparently, Gryffindors. This does *not* mean that they're better people, or more moral, much less "innately good". They rather specifically *not* better people. In more bleak terms, they suck just as badly as everyone else does, and they aren't worthy of salvation (no one is). Somehow, after the Sorting Hat has served as God, here, it's an indication that they really are better, more worthy, and more good.