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Perhaps the most insightful discussion of the Potter books comes from Wheaton College professor Alan Jacobs in the bimonthly Mars Hill Audio Journal. In the September/October volume, Jacobs defends the books as promoting "a kind of spiritual warfare. ... A struggle between good and evil. ... There is in books like this the possibility for serious moral reflection ... [and] the question of what to do with magic powers is explored in an appropriate and morally serious way." Furthermore, Jacobs notes that contemporary Christian unease with magic is somewhat recent:

In sixteenth-century Europe you would find Christians who were deeply involved in astrology largely because they were Calvinists. And it was understood at the time that there was a close connection between a predestinarian theology and astrology because astrology confirms or supports a predestinarian theology by suggesting that the outcome and direction of our lives is fixed before our births ... Other Christians at the same time who dismissed astrology as being a bunch of hogwash but who were very much engaged with magic. ... Magic was not thought to be any more at odds with Christianity than experiemental science. The big question then is to what use do you put magic? Now we see magic as an intrinsically dangerous thing. Our focus now is on experimental science and technology, and we tend to have the same kinds of debates about technology now that Christians had about magic several centuries ago.

Jacobs and Mars Hill host Ken Meyers then discuss how Star Trek technology, as imagined as Potter's magic, is treated differently by Christians, even though the two have similar ends: "If we imagine somebody stepping on to a little circle and then suddenly dissolving, and then reappearing instantly somewhere else, and we call this a transporter, and we're told that it is a device that is created by technology, then we go 'oh, that's cool.' But if we imagine someone waving a wand and then disappearing and reappearing somewhere else, we're much less comfortable.

"I'll give the final word to Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, in a quote from a CNN interview: "I have met thousands of children now, and not even one time has a child come up to me and said, 'Ms. Rowling, I'm so glad I've read these books because now I want to be a witch.' They see it for what it is. It is a fantasy world and they understand that completely. I don't believe in magic, either."

Ted Olsen is Online and Opinion Editor of Christianity Today.

See today's related Harry Potter stories, "Parents Push for Wizard-Free Reading," and "Why We Like Harry Potter | The series is a 'Book of Virtues' with a preadolescent funny bone."

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December 6 1999, Vol. 43, No. 14