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Clark's composite sketch of teenage beliefs in the supernatural—on a spectrum that comprises the Traditionalists, the Experimenters, the Intrigued, the Mystical Teens, and the Resisters—will make her research valuable not only to sociologists of religion and other researchers but also to parents and youth ministers.
Unfortunately, she is not as precise when it comes to describing evangelicals. Her provocative contention—highlighted in the material promoting her book—is that evangelicals have played a significant part in fueling teenage fascination with angels, aliens, demons, ghosts, and witchcraft. "Ironically," she writes, "by drawing attention to what they believe to be the consequences of such practices, evangelicals may actually be inciting more teens to engage in them." But the evidence she presents for this conclusion is surprisingly thin. Her list of evangelicals decrying the occultist influence of Harry Potter, Buffy, Charmed, and The Fellowship of the Ring, disappoints. The footnotes reveal idiosyncratic sources—a student publication at Regent University, for example—that are hardly representative of the majority of evangelicals. Absent are evangelical pop-culture gurus, university professors, and mainstream evangelical media reviews.
Yet while it's not true that mainstream evangelicals suffer from Potterphobia it is true that they believe—and therefore teach, tell their children, and claim in media interviews—that it's dangerous to dabble in the occult. What's wrong with that?
"The problem that I was trying to highlight comes in because evangelicals have access to the public stage and are able to create a culturally legitimate viewpoint that's taken seriously by journalists and by other people," Clark recently told me in an interview. "By saying, 'We know what's bad, and we're going to claim the cultural authority to say what's bad for everyone,' it becomes an issue that is more problematic."2
Hmm … Seems to me that Clark's problem with evangelicals is that they are sometimes taken seriously. Supposing that was a crime, what are they to do? Not articulate their negative opinions publicly for fear that it might incite people to do exactly what they're advising against? What if we applied this logic to any group wishing to express their negative opinions—the anti-slavery groups, the anti-abortion groups, the anti-war groups? Should they just shut up, in order not to draw attention to the very thing they protest against?
But even if evangelical prohibitions feed the obligatory teenage rebellion, steering kids toward the occult, that's not so bad anyway, at least on Clark's own terms. Evangelical watchdogs are merely providing a chance for teens—especially those from families alienated from the elite culture's norms—to question religious authority, something Clark sees as healthy. So, bring on the slumber-party and drinking-aided experiments with ouija boards, spells, séances, and legend tripping! Let the healing begin.
Unless, of course, we take the magic censors seriously—as if they were talking about something that's true. Wild and mysterious and far-fetched maybe, but true.
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