Are there practiced religions in the wizarding world?

Question

The question of why is there religion in Harry Potter made me wonder as to whether wizards, any of them, do practice religion. Whether there be magic-person only religions or shared muggle faiths, I do not recall any wizards (born in the wizard world anyway) saying that they did practice a religion.

Many of them do celebrate Christmas, but as was commented on the above linked question, there are many non-christian muggles that also observe Christmas. So I am not sure that can be an accurate identifier. Answering this question may link into identifying what holidays the wizards celebrate.

Answer 1

There are, to the best of my memory, no instances of wizard-raised wizards mentioning religion at all in the books. As you stated, many of them do celebrate Christmas, and one might think that if there was some form of Jewish, Pagan, Muslim, or other Muggle faith with a winter holiday prevalent in the wizarding world, Harry would have heard about it. On the other hand, the only other people Harry interacts with a lot are Hermione - Muggle-raised - and Ron - raised by a nontraditional and Muggle-loving family. There are many fanfics and essays which explain Harry's ignorance, and therefore our ignorance, of wizarding religious traditions as being a side effect of him belonging to the most Muggle-associated house and having only Muggle-associated friends.

That being said, in Harry Potter and the Deathy Hallows, Harry finds two tombstones with Bible (New Testament) quotes on them. His parents' reads "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death" (1 Corinthians 15:26) while Kendra and Ariana Dumbledore's reads "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" (Matthew 6:21). Both Lily Potter and Kendra Dumbledore were Muggle-born, however, while it is possible the verses were placed on their gravestones for the mothers alone, their funerals were held by wizards, in the wizarding world, and I believe that if the Bible was not part of the culture of the wizarding world at large, the phrases may have stirred up trouble for the Dumbledores, and lessened the heroism of the Potters (if prejudice exists in the wizarding world - religious prejudice, that is).

Rowling's only direct quote on the religion of wizards was to say once, in 2007, that "Hogwarts is a multifaith school," never specifying what those faiths may or may not be. The presence of the New Testament quotes on wizarding tombstones in a church graveyard in a famous wizarding village, however, signifies to me that Christianity at least is a religion practiced by at least some wizards. Probably not all of them, but, then again, all Muggles don't practice Christianity either. People bring religions with them, and Muggle-born wizards have been around since before Hogwarts was founded. If there aren't any wizards who practice the faiths we are familiar with, well...I'd certainly be surprised.

Answer 2

According to a recent tweet from JKR, the Ravenclaw wizard Anthony Goldstein is Jewish.

@benjaminroffman - My wife said there are no Jews at Hogwarts. I’m a Jew so I assume she said it to be the only magical 1 in the family. Thoughts?

@jk_rowling - Anthony Goldstein, Ravenclaw, Jewish wizard.

Additionally, she stated that pretty much every other religion is also present at Hogwarts aside from (ironically) Wiccanism.

@jk_rowling - To everyone asking whether their religion/belief/non-belief system is represented at Hogwarts: the only people I never imagined there are Wiccans

---

As a point of interest, in the same tweet series she also confirmed that Hogwarts is a safe space for gay students:

‏@laracroftway - It's safe to assume that Hogwarts had a variety of people and I like to think it's a safe place for LGBT students

@jk_rowling - But of course

Answer 3

I wonder why noone mentioned that Sirius was Harry's Godfather. The procedure of becoming a godfather is very religious by itself. Both Sirius and James were purebloods, so it would be weird for them to choose this ritual if they were not accustomed to its meaning. It is possible of course that Lily being from a muggle family would insist on the act, but we do not see anyone in wizarding world to be surprised by the concept of godfather at all. More than that - being a godfather seems to be quite official in the wizarding world as Sirius is sure that his letter about allowing Harry to visit Hogsmeade will be legit to settle the matter.

Answer 4

Probably very late to the party, but it might be a useful addition to this topic that (monotheistic) religion and Wizardry do not contradict. Actually, being part of the Wizarding world makes religion more plausible, and not less so.

There are many people who think they don't need the concept of an intelligent creator, as they believe that the world is the result of a completely natural and random process. However, due to how spells work in the Harry Potter universe (requiring specific motions and chants), they don't seem to be the result of a purely natural and random process. Some omnipotent being must have designed the laws of the Universe and put magic into it.

Regarding Christianity, the prevalent religion in Britain (both in real life and in the Harry Potter universe), one might be tempted to say that the miracles of Jesus were just the works of a wizard, but there are things which no wizard could do: true resurrection and conjuring food.

Also, there are kinds of magic in the Harry Potter universe which seem to support the existence of souls.

Basically, there are two main factors which would make religion not implausible in the Wizarding world:

• due to how spells work, there are more arguments (not fewer) for Intelligent Design in the Wizarding world than in the Muggle world
• there are feats in monotheistic religions which no wizard could do, like creating the physical laws of the Universe, resurrection, and an afterlife.

_{I specifically mentioned Christianity and monotheism both because it's the most prevalent in the geographical setting of the books and because the deities of ancient polytheistic mythologies do not look like being much more powerful than the wizards in Harry Potter: they are part of the world, not the creators of it.}

Answer 5

At least historically, Christianity was shared by Muggles and Wizards

We don't know his blood status, but the Fat Friar is an example of a fully-qualified wizard who practiced religion and even joined the church. Admittedly, that was several centuries ago and may not represent current practice.

Hufflepuff house is haunted by the Fat Friar, who was executed because senior churchmen grew suspicious of his ability to cure the pox merely by poking peasants with a stick, and his ill-advised habit of pulling rabbits out of the communion cup. Though a genial character in general, the Fat Friar still resents the fact that he was never made a cardinal.

-From the Pottermore article by JKR on Hogwarts Ghosts

More recent but less definitive examples from a generation or two ago are the inscriptions on the tombstones in Godric's Hollow from Deathly Hallows:

"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death" on Lily's tomb and "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" on the Dumbledores' tomb.

These show that these families had a familiarity with the Bible and liked those verses at least. It implies (but does not prove) a greater familiarity with Christianity in general because a Bible verse was chosen to memorialize their lives.

Current examples only include the celebration of Christmas but as OP states, Christmas is celebrated by more than just Christians.

Answer 6

I always think about religion in the wizarding world when the hospital is mentioned. It isn't something like London Memorial Hospital, it's Saint Mungo's. So there had to be a wizard who not only got canonised but also was proud of it. And he got canonised while still alive because he founded the hospital himself.

Answer 7

I really don't see how being able to do magic would constitute a conclusive argument against the existence of a higher power (although a lot of folks in the real world do), so yes, I'm certain that different wizards harbor different religious faiths, but it wasn't important to the tale so Jo Rowling left it out.

Bringing in any overt religious expressions, except in an off-hand way with no import to the story, would have distracted from the points that the author wanted to make.

There comes a point where putting too many toppings on a pizza adds only to the cost and not the experience. Same principle here.

Answer 8

A little bit late(r) to the party, but in addition to vsz's excellent answer regarding the rational nature of the world (both the Real World and the Wizarding World), and the laws that govern both, there are also several pieces of evidence from within the books & movies that indicate that the WW is most likely as religious as the Muggle World. If not more so.

In the books & movies, we see some practices that demonstrate at the very least a veneer of religious sentiment within the Wizarding World, if not an outright practice of religion. While many commentators have derided JKR's work as being little more than cleverly disguised Satanism, I find it interesting that what little evidence we see in the WW --- as always, through the eyes of 11 through 17 year old children --- indicates that the thin whitewash of religion is actually Christian, not Pagan, and certainly not the mix-n-match of modern neopaganism.

• One of the first things we see in the movies is the Christmas celebration at Hogwarts. We've got a proper Christmas tree and Christmas carols, kids greet each other with "happy Christmas".
• We also learn about St. Mungo's Hospital. In the WW, St. Mungo lived in the 16th century, but the name also applies to a much earlier saint.
• We learn that Sirius Black is Harry's godfather. The role of godparents is of Christian origin, which would have been introduced into England at a very early time.
• Lastly, we find several interesting names engraved on grave stones in the cemetery in Godric's Hollow, at the church of St. Jerome. Harry's parents are buried at St. Jerome's. Their headstone is engraved "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death", a passage from Corinthians. Since the Potters lived there, we can only presume that Harry was also baptised at St. Jeromes.

We also have Dumbledore's frequent disquisitions on what are essentialy Christian virtues, in specific, that of love. Not romantic love, but agapé love: the kind of love that most 16 year old boys don't have, the kind that sends them to sacrifice themselves bodily for their friends, schoolmates, teachers, and even the Muggles beyond the confines of the WW. Self-sacrifical love: this, in context, is a very Christian theme, making Harry almost into a type (theologically speaking) of Christ.

The Wizarding World is not a Pagan world, and certainly not a neopagan one! The Dumbledores and the Potters may not be openly & obviously Christian, but, more than anything, they are ethnically English, and that, historically, means Christian and specifically Church of England.

There's no doubt that in modern England, religious observance is low. Probably something like 10 to 12% of Muggles attend church regularly. With the 1692 Statute of Wizarding Secrecy, I'd actually expect witches, largely unaware of what's going on in the greater Muggle World, to be rather móre religious than their muggle counterparts as they seem to cling to tradition far more strongly than do Muggles.