Some Christians have taken a strong stance against the Harry Potter series. Somehow they’ve become convinced that the Harry Potter series is somehow tied to evil and witchcraft. I think if you are going to declare war on Harry Potter because it is about wizards and witches then you need to toss out your TV, your VCR, your DVD Player, any Gaming systems, your magazines, your newspapers, your computers, your radio’s (including in your car), and any other thing that may contain something that the Bible speaks against. You will also need to close your eyes while you are driving to work so that you don’t accidentally see a billboard or bumper sticker that is Evil. The arguments against the Potter series seem a bit ridiculous to me. I think the controversy surrounding these books is not as much about the fantasy of witches and wizards. I am convinced there are people out there that just want to jump on a bandwagon. Anything they can do to draw attention to themselves is worthy doing.
The other thing that I have a problem with is the fact that almost all of the people who are haters of Harry Potter do not have a problem with Lord of the Rings. Maybe they don’t realize there are a couple wizards in Lord of the Ring and the elves perform magic! I wish people would get some consistency in their lives for a change. Some have even tried to justify wizards in the LOTR series by saying, “Well, Lord of the Rings is written by a Christian author.” Does that make sense? Harry Potter is a wizard and the movies and books about him are labeled as evil, yet Lord of the Rings also contains some wizards and hints of magic, but because it is written by a Christian author it isn’t evil? This begs the question: should we really band together as Christians in our blatant inconsistencies?
In my lifetime I have watched a good many cartoons that contain some form of magic, violence, or other things that we like to blame for our children’s problems. Where were the angry Christians then? No one ever spoke up and declared poor Merlin the WIZARD from the sword and the stone to be evil. Yes, as a small child I watched such retched filth as Wizard of Oz, The Sword and the Stone, and I even watched Wile E. Coyote trying to blow up the Roadrunner BEEP! BEEP! and not to mention bugs bunny dressing up like a girl. But funny thing is, I never wanted to grow up and be a wizard. Watching Merlin the wizard never put the thought in my mind that I too can become a wizard, watching bugs bunny never made me want to dress up like a girl and I have yet to attempt the destruction of my enemies by knocking them off cliffs. Why? Because I knew it was make-believe. Never once did I learn karate and kick booty like the teenage mutant ninja turtles, nor did I ever run off into the forest looking for the Smurfs to protect them from the WIZARD Gargamel. Even as a child I knew that those things were not real. Harry Potter is fantasy, just like these other cartoons and shows that I watched, and it won’t take long for your child to figure out that their broomstick does not really fly and their pet owl will not really deliver any mail.
Being a Youth Minister and being a youth not to long ago, I know that there are far greater things, other than Harry potter, that we should be worried about. Our kids don’t need as much protection from Harry Potter as they do from the things they are getting ready to get into as they go through school. It’s the drugs, the alcohol, and the sex that is killing our kids, not Harry Potter. When these children who have read Harry Potter reach High School they will not be trying to ride to school on their broomstick, but instead they will be riding to school with their friend who just stopped off in the alley to buy a bag of weed so that they can smoke it before class. While they are smokin’ their pot they will be listening to the latest song on the pop station that is basically about having wild sex. This is real life. I get the privilege of seeing kids in Jr high who get stoned and drunk and are involved in sexual conduct and their parents are so clueless that it isn’t even funny. This is the environment kids live in today. Why don’t we quit wasting our time arguing over such a futile thing and start preparing our kids for the nasty world they are forced to live in. I have lived almost 24 years now and not once have I meet a wizard and not once have I been pulled into some witchcraft group that glorifies evil, but I can’t count the number of times I have been in contact with drugs, alcohol, and a number of other harmful and evil things.
Amen. I tend to think folks pick on the whole Harry Potter craze because it’s an easy target…. and they try to push the stuff that’s difficult to deal with under the rug. I think most folks would be surprised how many adolecents there are that struggle with sex, drugs, alochol and such…. and folks would rather point fingers and assign blame rather than help the struggling.
Hi, I just stumbled across this site and figured I would respond to this conversation.
I am a father of 4 and have had to ‘educate’ my kids about many dangers in the world.
I must say, we have to choose our battles when it comes to our kids. If we always say no to everything bad, then our kids will rebel all that much more.
I am against Harry Potter because in my area of the country there are active witchcraft cells.
My oldest son has done the drugs thing (amongst other stuff) and is currently in jail on non-related stuff. He is starting to be open to the LORD now. He has discovered the error in his ways.
Witchcraft is a very powerful thing, and can (like drugs) suck kids into it for life.
Now, the world is full of dangers. For a 2 year old, under a kitchen sink is full of dangers. No, we don’t go through and say “don’t play with the soap, the drain cleaner, the clorox,” etc.
We just say, “Stay out of this cupboard, there are lots of chemicals that will make you sick or die”.
To harp on our kids about all the dangers in life is a bad idea.
BUT, to warn them of them and leave it at that, unless you notice that they are flirting with those dangers later on, then revisit the issue.
The problem is not that we point out the dangers with Harry Potter, the problem is when we beat them over the head with the fact that they are not to read it.
I guess, time is about up for all of here on the earth, and I would like my kids to spend as much time as possible ‘in the presence of the LORD’, so that they grow up getting close to him, NOT Harry Potter, or things associated with him.
Anything we put before God, becomes a GOD. Harry Potter is a very big fad. My youngest boy would read Harry Potter all day long, and have nothing to do with God (if it were up to him), fortunately, it is not totally up to him.
We are to train up our children in the way that they should go, NOT in the way that seems popular to them.
I do not always keep up on all the dangers of the world… so as far as the people that warn us, then we ‘jump on the bandwagon’… Thank you… We as a group of parents, help each other become aware of things that we would not otherwise be aware of… EVEN the ‘insignificant’ stuff.
YAY! YAY! YAY! Three cheers for your intelligent input!!! I couldn’t have said it better myself…..thanks.
SOme thoughts on how LOTR AND Chronicles of Narnia are different than Harry Potter:
To do this I qoute Steven D. Greydanus in his essay located at http://www.decentfilms.com/commentary/magic.html
In this essay Steven descirbes seven “hedges” or differences between the (Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia) and Harry Potter.
1. “Tolkien and Lewis confine the pursuit of magic as a safe and lawful occupation to wholly imaginary realms, with place-names like Middle-earth and Narnia — worlds that cannot be located either in time or in space with reference to our own world, and which stand outside Judeo-Christian salvation history and divine revelation. By contrast, Harry Potter lives in a fictionalized version of our own world that is recognizable in time and space, in a country called England (which is at least nominally a Christian nation), in a timeframe of our own era.
2. Reinforcing the above point, in Tolkien’s and Lewis’s fictional worlds where magic is practiced, the existence of magic is an openly known reality of which the inhabitants of those worlds are as aware as we are of rocket science — even if most of them might have as little chance of actually encountering magic as most of us would of riding in the space shuttle. By contrast, Harry Potter lives in a world in which magic is a secret, hidden reality acknowledged openly only among a magical elite, a world in which (as in our world) most people apparently believe there is no such thing as magic.
3.Tolkien and Lewis confine the pursuit of magic as a safe and lawful occupation to characters who are numbered among the supporting cast, not the protagonists with whom the reader is primarily to identify. By contrast, Harry Potter, a student of wizardry, is the title character and hero of his novels.
4. Reinforcing the above point, Tolkien and Lewis include cautionary threads in which exposure to magical forces proves to be a corrupting influence on their protagonists: Frodo is almost consumed by the great Ring; Lucy and Digory succumb to temptation and use magic in ways they shouldn’t. By contrast, the practice of magic is Harry Potter’s salvation from his horrible relatives and from virtually every adversity he must overcome.
5. Tolkien and Lewis confine the pursuit of magic as a safe and lawful occupation to characters who are not in fact human beings (for although Gandalf and Coriakin are human in appearance, we are in fact told that they are, respectively, a semi-incarnate angelic being and an earthbound star.) In Harry Potter’s world, by contrast, while some human beings (called “Muggles”) lack the capacity for magic, others (including Harry’s true parents and of course Harry himself) do not.
6. Reinforcing the above point, Tolkien and Lewis emphasize the pursuit of magic as the safe and lawful occupation of characters who, in appearance, stature, behavior, and role, embody a certain wizard archetype — white-haired old men with beards and robes and staffs, mysterious, remote, unapproachable, who serve to guide and mentor the heroes. Harry Potter, by contrast, is a wizard-in-training who is in many crucial respects the peer of many of his avid young readers, a boy with the same problems and interests that they have.
7. Finally, Tolkien and Lewis devote no narrative space to the process by which their magical specialists acquire their magical prowess. Although study may be assumed as part of the back story, the wizard appears as a finished product with powers in place, and the reader is not in the least encouraged to think about or dwell on the process of acquiring prowess in magic. In the Harry Potter books, by contrast, Harry’s acquisition of mastery over magical forces at the Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft is a central organizing principle in the story-arc of the series as a whole.”
The BIG difference between Harry Potter and other childrens literature is:
” The Harry Potter books bring the practice of magic imaginatively far closer to the personal condition and experience of the young reader than other stories of magic and fantasy, including The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia. To a far greater degree, they encourage and exploit a personal identification between the reader and the wizard.” (http://www.decentfilms.com/commentary/magic.html)*under the title Hedge 7*
Sincerely,
Tim
i found this on another site
In Tolkien, the great wizards Gandalf, Radagast, and Saruman are maiar, angels. The heroes, hobbits, are homey creatures who like nothing more than a good meal, a warm fire, and friends to share tales and songs with, but rise with great courage when confronted with evil.
people still don’t get the hint!
Hi I am 17 year old and i have just stumbled upon your website and started to read it because I couldn’t believe that some people are so cluless. the only person that makes any sense on this website is Matt Baker. he is seemingly the only person on the site with any sense at all. you cant make a child not do drugs they are a separate person whether you want to believe it or not they will make their own decisions.
I am a 18 year old girl. **(I have a filthy mouth and a dirty mind and therefore my comment has been edited. Because I am not an adult and I still act like a little kid and because I cannot carry on a civil conversation without blurting out filthy language my comment was not worth wasting your time to read it. So therefore everything I had to say has been deleted. I realize I am only 18 but I know more about life than the rest of the world and everyone else does not have the slightest grip on life as I do. I decided to go around to other websites and sport my brilliance but unfortunatly this website is a dictatorship and the owner has deleted my comments and added his own. What a bummer.)**
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