CHILDREN’S literature and religion have a close but contentious relationship. The stories of Narnia, penned by the Belfast-born writer C.S. Lewis, have a Christian subtext which the author did not hide. Jesus Christ is represented by the character of Aslan, a powerful, generous lion who could compel human beings to be honest about themselves. In the seaside village of Rostrevor on Ireland’s east coast, tourists are encouraged to explore the nearby forests to see where the writer got his spiritual and literary inspiration: it is the nearest they will ever get to Narnia.

In fact, the Christian message in Narnia was too overt for the tastes of Lewis’s friend and fellow writer, J.R.R. Tolkien. The creator of the Lord of the Rings stories was a lifelong Roman Catholic, while Lewis switched from atheism to Anglicanism. Tolkien agreed that mythology, whether ancient or newly devised, could contain multiple layers of truth, but felt these truths should be kept well hidden. It seems that the two scribes had robust, enjoyable debates about this matter in the pubs of Oxford where they both lived.

What about a more contemporary children’s craze, the Harry Potter stories by J.K. Rowling? Religious people have argued passionately about whether their influence is healthy or otherwise. Before his elevation as Pope Benedict, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger expressed the opinion that there might be “subtle seductions” in the tales. On the American religious right, some have discouraged children from reading the stories by citing passages in the Hebrew Scriptures which forbid any recourse to witchcraft.

In interviews, Ms Rowling (pictured above) has described herself as a Christian who wrestles with doubt; she was brought up Anglican and later attended the Church of Scotland. Asked by a Canadian interviewer whether she was a Christian, she replied: “Yes, I am, which seems to offend the religious right far worse than if I thought there was no God.”

In any case, whatever her own intentions, there are plenty of people who feel that her stories contain spiritual messages, at least in a broad sense, all ready to be asserted and propagated, among grown-ups as well as children.

Take, for examples, one of the final scenes in the seventh and last instalment of the Harry Potter series. The title character walks through the Forbidden Forest to his presumed death in the hopes of defeating the evil Lord Voldemort (alas, for the select few who have not read the books, a spoiler is coming). The young hero feels buoyed up on this journey by four spirit-like people who walk beside him: his dead parents, his godfather and his professor at Hogwart’s academy. The quartet of beings say very little, but their presence gives him courage.

Contemplating this scene can reinforce people’s sense of a divine presence in their own lives, says Vanessa Zoltan, who has worked as a humanist chaplain at Harvard University. Her podcasts about Harry Potter have become one of the most successful religious messages (again, in the broad sense) now circulating in America.

Ms Zoltan penned an academic thesis on the possibility of treating secular text as though it were a kind of holy writ. Then she put her theoretical musings into practice by launching, together her collaborator Casper ter Kuile, a podcast entitled “Harry Potter and the Sacred Text” which is now regularly rated as one of the country’s five most popular spiritual podcasts. (Other top religious users of this ever-more popular medium include Joel Osteen, a Texas pastor, and the Southern Baptist Elevation Church, based in North Carolina.)

Ms Zoltan acknowledges that Harry Potter series, while certainly a cult of sorts, hardly rates as a religion in the full sense. It is far from accumulating the collective historical memory or shared culture which the world’s great belief systems can claim.

But she says there are important underlying themes and lessons in every chapter, and in her view they come in a more easily digestible and less divisive format than is offered by some of the more “mainstream” religious texts. Very few evil acts have been done in the name of Harry Potter, and that can’t be said for other religions, she argues.

She and Mr ter Kuile, who is training to be a non-religious minister, say they draw on traditional religious tools such as Lectio Divina, a type of intensive meditation on short scriptural passages which is practised in Catholicism. Ms Zoltan believes there are all manner of spiritual messages and lessons within the Harry Potter stories, pertaining to broad themes like friendship, hope, mercy, mortality, alliances and self-sacrifice.

For example, in the third book, Hermione wishes to mend her friendship with Harry and his buddy Ron. When she learns that Harry is planning a potentially dangerous excursion, she threatens to tell on him, in the hopes of keeping him safe. At one level the boys feel they have been betrayed, but Hermione’s effort to protect them reflects a bond of amity which goes even deeper, Ms Zoltan says.

At the current rate, Ms Zoltan and her collaborator have three-and-a-half years left of the podcast, if they are to plough their way through all seven books. And once they have done that, they hope to return to the first chapter of the first book to show listeners that there are still many layers of meaning waiting to be detected. It is a commonplace among all writers about religion to say that mankind’s spiritual quest is not so much a search for true-or-false propositions as a search for meaning. And the range of places where people can find meaning is broad indeed.