I personally think that our enemy is very very powerful (even though we have power over him) and that the enemy has influence over those books and many of the readers. I think the enemy wants people to read them… draws them closer to the occult and him. That is MY opinion, and you may disagree. I just think A LOT of people don’t think about the spiritual side of things and forget that we are in a WAR.

I would NEVER reccoment Lord of the Rings to children. It is much more detailed, it was written by a superior writer, and it written in a way that most kids won’t understand or would get bored. Adults can distinguish between real and unreal (most anyway). The reason why I felt convicted long ago against Harry Potter and not LotR is because it is about a fellowship set out to destroy evil - values such as love, cooperation, and respect are promoted throughout the movies. Evil, greed, etc. is looked down upon and punished. Harry Potter and his classmates get AWAY with breaking rules, even when they aren’t trying to “save the school” or “defeat evil” but simply because they are being mischievous.

You have a point when you say that someone saying “You shall not pass” is similar to someone waving a stick and saying “Wingardium Leviosa” or whatever. However, I would say that Harry Potter fans are much more known to “pretend” to do witchcraft. It is much more common to find children whose hero is Harry Potter and they run around in a cloak waving a stick than children trying to be Arwen or Gandalf and saying “You Shall Not Pass”. Does that make sense?

As far as I am concerned I really don’t really think Chronicles of Narnia should be a part of this discussion because its a completely different series altogether. While it is a childrens book, it promotes good values over bad ones and the bad is always punished and good always wins. There is a moral to each book.

I’m at work so I have to go…

People take LOTR and Narnia just as seriously as some people take Harry Potter. The “You shall not pass” line IS a spell (I’ve read the LOTR and the Simerillion multiple times, as well as the unfinished tales). And there are other evidences for this as well. In europe, there are entire academic cultures that consider Sindrian to be a real language and converse in it often. They treat the history of middle earth as real history. And let us not forget that Narnia and LOTR have always been known as “Gateway fantasies” in that they were the books that, for years, children got their first taste of fantasy in and if they liked it, they moved on to other titles (including some that are FAR darker than Harry Potter will ever be. HP is NOTHING compared to some of the stuff out there, stuff that IS popular with fantasy readers)

With any fantasy, the problem IS NOT what the story is about. The problem is with the reader, and if they are able to distinguish between reality and fantasy or not. If they are, they could read R.A Salvatore (considered by many to be the master of dark fantasy) and get something meaningful out of it. Fantasy was NEVER intended to be for everyone. It is a challenging genre, which is why pulp writers (people who write mass appeal books) generally steer clear of it. Fantasy is about clashing worldviews, problems blown out of proportion to an epic scale so that you can clearly see what the two sides are.

I don’t get where you say that evil triumphs more often than not in HP, as the books are almost always lighter and leave you with a more precise sense of victory than other fantasies do, especially LOTR. In LOTR, it seemed as if there was no hope whatsoever, and even when they did win, it was at great cost and there wasn’t the celebrations that you would expect from “happy” stories. Fantasy, especially good fantasy, is by its very nature Bittersweet because Life is bittersweet. Again, I fail to see how you draw the distinction between HP and any other popular fantasy novel, save that it comes from a different worldview.

Which brings me to the problem of book burnings. I think this is the WORST thing group (especially Christians) can do if they want to draw people to their cause because of the stigma associated with it. When people think of book burnings, they think of Hitler burning anything he deemed ‘Inappropriate’ for germans to read. This included fantasy, philosophy, fiction, and non-fiction. Basically, he said “Anything that doesn’t line up with my worldview, and anything I deem to dangerous for others, I will destroy rather than have it question my power.” If they do think of book-burning in a religious context, they’ll think about the Christians who burned the library at Alexandria, destroying hundreds (if not thousands) of years of human thought in mathmatics, philosophy, science, and the arts. An act that helped plunge us in the Dark Ages, putting us centuries behind where we could be if those manuscripts had been aloud to survive.

Our actions as Christians are supposed to draw people to the Cross, not drive them away. But participating in an act that pretty much everyone rightfully sees as negative will drive people away from any message that we want to present. Disagreeing with a book is fine, and even deeming it evil and banning that you or your family should read it is acceptable, but BURNING a book, pokemon cards, rock records/cds , a piece of art, or anything that you deem unacceptable or dangerous, ALWAYS will send a negative message.

You can think what you want about Harry Potter, fantasy, rock music, etc. But you have to carefully think about how you (especially if it is with a group of people) will react to your thoughts, and how those actions will affect those who observe them. As christians, we will always be misunderstood, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do what we can to remove ourselves from being compared to the Nazi’s, Over-Zealous Crusaders, and other groups that will make people immeadietly ignore what we have to say because we partake in evil actions.

Seems like magic.

I fail to see how a child saying “you shall not pass” can be compared to a child trying to cast a spell on a person. I understand that children have imaginations, believe me, but do you honestly think a seven year old has the ability to come up with a spell, as well as the way they need to move their hand in order to cast the spell? What I described was something that a child mimicked directly from the pages of Harry Potter, and I highly doubt that, without prior influence, a child could come up with something like that on his or her own.

By reading the books, you now say that you “know quite a lot about the subject.” This is the goal I expressed for reading the books — to understand them, to be knowledgeable about their contents so that if a non-believer brings something up you are prepared to discuss it.

Oh, I’ve had kids *in church* come up to me and block my way declaring “you shall not pass!” and expect me to be unable to get past them. The imagination of kids is not limited to Harry Potter, and I fail to see how such imagination with one mythology can be considered harmful while with another it’s okay.

Having been a Harry Potter “fanatic” since the eighth grade, and only just recently turning away from it, I feel that I know quite a lot about the subject. I hope to inform you about what Harry Potter is, and why I take a stand against it. (I burned my books and movies at the same bok burning Laura mentioned.)

First of all, let me share what I feel about Harry Potter. Not only do these books portray witchcraft, but they are simply a bad influence, especially on children. Harry Potter is a young boy who is rewarded for breaking rules - ALL the time, not just occasionally - and that is hardly harmless. By allowing children to read these stories, we are saying, “Oh go ahead, do whatever you please. We are going to make rules for you, but you don’t have to follow them. You just do what YOU want to do, and nothing bad will happen in the end - in fact, you will be rewarded for your wrong behavior!” This is the message children are being sent by these books, not to mention the occult side of it.

Another reason I am against Harry Potter is because of the good vs. evil side. Evil triumphs more often than not in these books…even though it appears that good wins in the end of each. In a way I guess you could compare Harry’s struggle against voldemort to our struggle with Satan…except we have power over Satan that Harry doesn’t have over Voldemort. Truly saved Christians have the power of Jesus’ name - we can call upon it at anytime and demons are beaten. So what power does Harry have against his enemy? In all the time I read the Harry Potter books, I did not once see him call on someone’s name and wipe out the enemy…in fact, he has not succesfully stopped his enemy yet. I wonder why.

I also wanted to comment on something Jason said about the spells and other witchcraft-related things in these books. He said that Harry Potter doesn’t encourage children to do whitchcraft because of the way it is portrayed in the books. However, I think he is wrong. JK Rowling may have written the books so that it seems like the magic is a genetic trait to adults, but children do not have the ability to see that. This is what children see when they read the books:

“Ooh, ooh, magic! I love magic! I want to be just like Harry Potter and do magic and go back in time and ride flying horses and make Billy’s teeth grow really fast!”

They don’t see the harm in it, just the fun. And that is where the trouble lies. I was able to read the books and not think that i could become a witch, because I can think abstractly. I can see that this is a world of makebelieve - children can’t. In fact, children think that the books are teaching them the magic - I have had children walk up to me with a stick, say “swish and flick - leviosa!” and expect me to float off the ground. And they weren’t just playing, either. Children’s minds simply cannot see what ours can - that Harry Potter is not real, nor is it something that can become real.

OK, one more point than I’m done. Jason also said that we are discriminating Harry Potter because the author isn’t Christian - I say that’s ridiculous. I persona;;y feel that there is a huge differnece between HP and the CHronicles of Narnia. That difference is that there is a Christian theme in Narnia - that theme is no where close to being in HP - and that means a lot. You can see the good in the Narnia books, wether they are fantasies or not. It is easy to see how good wins in these books, whereas you are left unsure in HP.

I hope that this has cleared some things up for some people…and I hope it hasn’t sounded like I am arguing what Jason said - I am merely giving my opinion.

Harry Potter does not encourage children to practice witchcraft, it presents it as “You have it” or “You don’t” and NOT something that can be learned, sacrificed for, or attained through worship. This is quite different from the modern occult in many, many respects. In fact, the ability to do magic is treated as a NATURAL ability, which would put it in line more with the X-Men than it does any book on magic. The kids, for lack of a better term, are mutants who, through birth, are able to control their surroundings in a way that others (normal humans, or in HP language, ‘Muggles’) are unable to even know the existance of. This is NOT magic. In fact, if you read the books further on (specifically book 6) you will see that the spells are more “focusers” and not incantations. They are a mental aide so that the person can focus their inborn power (again, it is not some external force) and control the reaction, just as an “x-men” would need to practice for a long time before they could master their abilities.

I am not saying the series is without danger, but there is no more danger in that series than there is in LOTR, Narnia, or any other fantasy novel that we grew up loving as children. So if you are burning books to keep you mind pure, you must add the following to the list, or risk inconsistancy:
The Divine Comedy: Dante’s vision of Hell is not what Hell truly is, and it pays homage to several greek figures and mythological creatures.
Narnia: Borrows heavily from Greek Mythology, going so far as to pull whole gods/goddesses out of context and placing them in the story.
LOTR: HEAVILY related to Norse Mythology, with references to gods, places, and struggles that are found throughout the Norse and Druid Faiths.
ANY Other Fantasy, really: Every fantasy, in one way or another, references other mythologies and does so in a way that makes them real and gives them power.

See the problem? We are condemning Harry Potter, not because of the plot or research, but simply because the author doesn’t share the same faith as we do. Is that truly noble? Is it right? Is this form of bias to be admired, one where we will accept or reject anything, not on it’s content, but on who pens it? If you want to avoid fantasy because it causes you temptation, then by all means do it, but be consistant with your boundries.

I don’t want to start a huge argument over this, as flared tempers accomplish nothing. But if anyone has any questions, feel free to leave a note on my site.

This verse tells us that we should keep our minds on what is holy, not things of the world. I know some people do take this too far and become isolationists, but I do not think I am such a person.