Holy Blasphemy

The Church of England filed a lawsuit against J.K. Rowling this Friday claiming that she stole ideas for her wildly popular and lucrative “Harry Potter” books from the Bible. A representative from the Church, Eugene Thackery, added Rowling as a defendant in the lawsuit it filed against Bloomsbury Publishing PLC for alleged copyright infringement.

The lawsuit, filed in a London court, claims Rowling’s books “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” copied substantial sections of the Biblical account of the Passion of Christ, including central motifs crucial to Christian faith such as the idea that Jesus died willingly and came back to life, triumphing over his enemies.

“Jesus Christ’s physical resurrection is unique in history” said Archbishop of Canterbury George Leonard Carey, “Rowling blatantly plagiarized the powerful story of Jesus for her own financial gain; even worse Harry Potter distracts and confuses people away from the glory of God.”

Church lawyer Tom Davis, who is representing the Church of England, said “I estimate it’s a billion-dollar case, although that’ll be the decision of the courts, obviously.”

Unfortunately for Rowling, unlike the previous lawsuit filed against her that Harry Potter was copied from “Willy the Wizard”, this case seems to have much more strength. First, Rowling cannot deny, as she did with Willy, to have previous and personal knowledge of the Bible story of Jesus. Second, Rowling herself has made several statements to the press after the release of book seven that she was, in fact, aware of the similarities between Jesus and Harry Potter, and openly discussed Christian parallels in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

“To me, the religious parallels have always been obvious,” Rowling said in one interview. “But I never wanted to talk too openly about it because I thought it might show people who just wanted the story where we were going.”

“It’s a pretty clean case,” said Davis. “The church did have the story first; the English language Bible manuscripts were hand-written in the 1380’s by John Wycliffe, an Oxford professor, scholar, and theologian; these writings became the basis of the scripture used by the Church of England, which has preserved and replicated them in modern times. If there are precise parallels between Harry Potter and Jesus, then Rowling owes the inspiration of the story to the Church for keeping the story of Jesus alive for centuries and available in the English language. It’s only fair that some of the profits should go to the Church of England to maintain its operations.”

***This is not a real news article; it’s a hypothetical reaction to the book, Jesus Potter Harry Christ, created for promotional purposes.***