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(A Bit Less) Positive About Potter (A Bit Less) Positive About Potter

How Focus on the Family, Prison Fellowship, and others have—and haven't—changed their views about the books over the years.

Ted Olsen | posted 7/26/2007 08:30AM

"Harry Potter books and films have been attacked in the past by evangelicals for allegedly glamorizing the occult," say the papers. But Christians "are now eschewing condemnation for praise, embracing ...

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SHaggerty

Posted: August 08, 2007 1:13 PM

First of all, I don't let my 6 children even watch the Wizard of Oz, Sabrina the Witch, Mary Poppins or anything that glamorizes witchcraft in any way. I have studied the occult for years. I now know and understand how society through many means, tries to seduce our children in such subtle ways using monsters, witches, magic, fantasy and so forth. They make it look so appealing and "innocent" but in reality, is extremely dangerous. The occult's goal is to "de-sensitize" our children so they will become confused between what is write and wrong or good and evil. Rowlings does a fantastic job at this in these books. If you want to know the intentions of a book, study the author. JK Rowlings does not have the Bible in mind when she wrote the Harry Potter series. I've studied the occult, not just "witchcraft", but the actual occult, and I don't believe you should have a say whether you know the dangers of this Harry Potter series unless you know the entire realm that you're dealing with.

katy	Posted: August 07, 2007 10:16 PM

Our pastor had a sermon several years ago after the HP series came out that preached against the book. At the time I was not attending our church. But, man, I heard about it. It sounded very judgmental and frankly ignorant. It almost kept me from going to the church. It allowed several of my Christian friends license to judge me for reading the books and allowing my children to read them. This whole approach was dangerous. It scared people away from Christ instead of drawing them to him. After much consideration, I finally did go to our church. For six months I was worried something like the HP sermon would come up. Thankfully, it did not. Now, after being heavily involved in this large church and loving all of it...I am glad. But, let us just say, it was a close call. People, please remember what you choose for yourself and your family is one thing. You have all the right to do that. But, do not condemn until you are sure. A mistake could cost so much in terms of lost souls.

katy	Posted: August 07, 2007 10:14 PM

Austin Storm

Posted: August 05, 2007 1:55 AM


I have a prescription. Everyone who wishes to weigh in on Harry Potter must read Tolkien's "On Fairy-Stories" first. Is that too much to ask?

HRojas

Posted: August 03, 2007 1:41 AM

Telling children that witchcraft is real and dangerous is ridiculous and creates the potential for them to actually become interested in the wiccan religion. Why can't parents just instruct their children on the truth of Harry Potter - that it is make believe - and let their children enjoy it? I don't buy the argument about good witches being unbiblical. The Wizard of Oz has the fun twist of good witches and Christians never crusaded against it - probably because the Wizard of Oz became popular before this whole "culture war" fad. And besides, contemporay Wicca has nothing to do with the witchcraft mentioned in the Bible and is based on old European pantheistic religions. I read a news story awhile ago about the sudden rise in Christian teens becoming Wiccans and many sociologists think the recent trend in Christian parents denying their children fantasy type things like Halloween and creating the idea that witchcraft and sorcery is real is fueling the popularity.

Rusty

Posted: July 29, 2007 9:09 AM

I am not sure how we deal with the verses on Holy Living found in Deuteronomy 18:9-14 www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy%2018:9-14&version=51 as relates to the HP series. The best I can tell is we are not only to avoid, but to detest anything that involes or has to do with Fortune telling, sorcery, witchcraft, spells & mediums. It seems we are in a day where we say things like at least our kids are not doing....... and accepting the worlds teachings and practice into the Body to avoid conflist or the appearance of any sort of judgement. Even the church these days many times is turning it's nose up at, and back to people that want to bring the darknest into light. In the Word, we are not to judge the people not claiming to be believers, however, we do have the responsibility to address rejection and or defiance of the Word amoung professed believers. (www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20corinthians%205:9-12;&version=51;)

Sir Renoit

Posted: July 28, 2007 11:41 PM


I am really happy to see there are still somefolks out there who stand for the truth of the Word, even when the populace does not... Thanks to you out there who stood up for truth and didn't get caught up in whats popular and mold it into your Christianity. You stood firm!

Simon Travers

Posted: July 28, 2007 7:15 AM

I think that there are 2 often missed lessons for the evangelical christian from Harry Potter (& Star Wars, LOTR, Dr. Who (i'm british) add a hero here) Lesson 1 is see the hunger. 11 million people in the UK bought ...the Deathly Hallows on its day of release. That means 1 in 5 people in this country want to know more about a story that pits 'normal' people against an undying evil. People are hungry, hard-wired for legend. Lesson 2 is that we mustn't forget that we're about a story. So often we get sucked into a scientific-sermonised type of faith that we forget/neglect/distrust story. We often want our faith to look rational to the world, make it look persuasive. We pick the wrong fight. We forget that it's not how you live, it's are you a part of the story, are you included in what God is doing. The gospel lesson is that what JK Rowling dreams of, I live for real because Jesus lives in me. As I sang when I was 4 'I may never march in the infantry..., but Im in the Lord's army.'

sb, again

Posted: July 27, 2007 2:06 PM

Just to be clear, I don’t “believe” HP—and neither do my kids—as if its world view is somehow right (but I can say this because I’ve read it). I don’t believe Star Wars or the Simpsons either. I do believe that engaged xians should understand such things—as Paul understood the Athenians. “Harry Potter is worldly and… unbiblical…” Of course it is—at least some of it. But so is the daily paper. And the evening news. And just about every radio station on the planet. Do we lock these away from our kids too? Do we expect that having been sheltered through middle and high school, they’ll just wake up on their 21st birthday and be sophisticated adults? What we need to do is help our kids interpret what they hear in light of biblical values—the foremost of which is that they are ambassadors for X (II cor 5) and as such need to understand BOTH the xian message of grace AND the (evil, hostile...) culture they live in, which their King, in his love and wisdom, has sent them into.

Christina Rothman

Posted: July 27, 2007 1:03 PM

I am not a fan of HP and I often disagree with the editorials on CT. I am a writer on the West Coast who lives among many cultures and atheist. I read lots of books. Many people say they are Christian, but the Holy Spirit is not alive in them. Money propelled this book along with people’s fascination with evil. I think some Christians are so lost in themselves that they justify such entertainment to release them from any guilt or responsibility. To say it’s just a story is Naïve, to say it’s of God is Blasphemy. HP distorts the truth, another sign of the times; Not everything with a so-called “message” is of God, that is an insult to our Lord. A few years ago I began a "Family Library" to introduce Christian Literature to my 2 brothers and 5 sisters and their children. Christian Fiction has had an enormous Positive impact by seperating lies from truth in powerful entertaining stories. Try The Ted Dekker series, Black, Red, White or Frank Perretti's "This Present Darkness."

sb, redux

Posted: July 27, 2007 11:04 AM

HP’s been out for years, but I have yet to meet the kid who “draws pentagrams on his floor” because he’s read it. Such claims of dire consequences are likely nothing more than speculative hyperbole. “Moral rot fills every media source out there…” That's the challenge. Given this reality, there are a lot of xians who believe we win by circling the wagons and stridently denouncing the evil influence du jour. This hardly seems like a response that’s teeming with “COURAGE.” But sadly, it’s also ineffective. I myself am grateful for the genuinely courageous xians who waded into the culture I lived in and engaged me, as a teenager, with the msg of grace. See I cor 9:19ff—note Paul’s goal to become like someone to win someone. Read the text: He became LIKE them. In Acts 17 Paul was familiar enough with Athenian poetry to quote it. The challenge: engage the culture AND (not or...) hang on tenaciously to X and his values. This is what I want for my own kids and the kids I work with.

T.J.	Posted: July 27, 2007 8:40 AM

safe cultural ghetto...this is where we are retreating to? LOL the culture IS THE GHETTO....moral rot fills every media source out there and if our kids are not being raped, molested, indoctrinated with the occult on every front or brainwashed into the "group think" mentality. they're being entertained to death in our youth groups!! My kids are being taught to STAND FOR GOD in a society that mocks, rejects, sneers at Him and reduced Him to a BOBBLE HEAD DOLL....on THANK YOU....cast your spells, plant your seeds of darkness in your own children thru HP but don't come crying to me that your daughter has built an alter in her room and is reading about wicca....don't wring your hands and say Billy was such a good boy and now he likes Marilyn Manson and drwas pentagrams on his bedroom floor.... YOU ARE THE PARENT.......YOU ARE THE GATEKEEPER...YOU OPEN ThE DOOR TO THE DARKNESS YOU"RE GONNA REAP WHAT YOU HAVE SOWN you're the uptight ones for you have no COURAGE to STAND !!

Elizabeth

Posted: July 26, 2007 6:14 PM

Mechanical, naturalistic philosophy? Do you mean to say, power comes from the creature rather than the creator? If it's wrong to worship the creature over the Creator, why isn't it wrong to give the creature powers that turn the creation to itself and away from the Creator? It seems so simple....oh....it IS so simple. Narnia in it's simplicity, clearly states where power comes from and unabashedly the author points to Christianity as the metaphorical model for the Chronicles. Clive was very clear about this. Who claimed the Wizard of Oz held a Christian 'imprimatur"?

wait	Posted: July 26, 2007 5:55 PM

Mixing different substances in the book gave rise to controversy amongst Christians, splitting opinion. Dan 2:43 "And just as you saw the iron mixed with baked clay, so the people will be a mixture and will not remain united, any more than iron mixes with clay." Lev19:19 " 'Keep my decrees. " Don't mate different kinds of animals...Don't wear clothing woven of two kinds of material." This a metaphor for Potter. St Augustine in "City of God" contrasts the worldly city of Cain with the godly city of Abel. The two are mixed until the end times. He writes end times will see the separating out of the godly from the ungodly into two separate components, leaving the city of God separate from the ungodly. Paul writes that Creation groans in expectation, to see the Sons of God, i.e. the good city of godly people. Now, why do we not then pay heed to God's decrees when assessing a book for godly content? This series by Rowling mixes fortune telling and spell-casting with the scriptures and Jesus

Af-UK

Posted: July 26, 2007 5:25 PM

I remember watching The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe as a child of 5 and somehow in my very early teens connecting the dots that it was an allegory of the Gospel. No one told me and I was not saved nor was i looking to get saved. Christians who embrace Harry Potter and use it as Ive often heard as a means to evangelize are clueless. Most Christians the world over are embracing post modernist thinking. Its in worship, teaching, preaching etc etc. These same Christians and pastors who condone their children in watching HP more often than not do not teach their children to read their bibles,pray, share their testimony etc etc . Rather than lead we follow trying to match what the world throws at us. Before i became a Christian here in the UK i disliked White people and often looked down at black people that did not hold my views and called them Uncle Toms. As a Christian Ive found true "Uncle Toms" in Christiandom. Crazy right? Please lets get off the band wagon and love Christ

sb	Posted: July 26, 2007 1:58 PM

When Dobson and others say things like "...it's difficult to ignore the effects such stories... might have on young, impressionable minds," the same could be said for Narnia and the Wizard of Oz, which even the most conservative critics have endorsed for decades. In my work with teenagers, I have seen exactly zero negative effects from a kid reading HP. What I do see is that the kids who do the best are the ones whose parents and other xian mentors help them interpret the things they see and interact with in the larger society--the whole spectrum of age-appropriate material. These are the ones who are able to influence and even reach their friends because they can articulate an understanding of the culture (they’re in the world) AND offer a real alternative (they’re not of it). How cool is that? On the other hand, the ones who retreat to a "safe" cultural ghetto end up relegated to an up-tight, fearful, irrelevant periphery. I know which one I want for my kids.

JohnJT

Posted: July 26, 2007 1:52 PM

In retrospect, as a pastor I should have urged parents to approach the Potter stories by asking their children up to a certain age (13? 17?) to earn the right to read each volume and to see each movie by producing an age-and-ability appropriate report on biblical teaching regarding an issue chosen by the parent, negative issues such as sorcery, magic, fortunetelling, ghosts, lying, cheating, or profanity, and positive issues such as courage, resurrection, love, sacrifice, or friendship could be included. There would then be a family discussion of the report before the parent would render decision on the child's request. If the child chose to read all seven books and see all seven movies, this process would have resulted in fourteen reports. What a learning opportunity! Perhaps a publishing house could produce a curriculum for this project. I will note this for future situations.

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