I’ve been turning this particular issue over and over in my head for quite a while. You see, I’m something of a fan of the Harry Potter books; not an enormous, rabid fan, but I confess I enjoy the stories a great deal. But I am also a Bible-believing Christian, and I often find I have to keep my enjoyment of Rowling’s works to myself when around some of my friends. An article on the a BNET site sums many of the problems some Christians have with the books, but the main charge is that the books promote, encourage, or “desensitize” children to the occult.
I have often asked myself, “Have they even read the books?”
Yes, there is magic in the stories, and it is portrayed as a good thing. And yes, the Bible speaks against magic. But the disconnect here is that the magic spoken against in the Bible is real people calling on spirits to aid them in some way. Rowling’s works are fiction. Like any other fictional work, the entire world Harry Potter lives in is made up by the author. Parts of it resemble the world we live in, but much of it does not. The key point is that when you make up a world in your head, to some degree you make up the rules that operate in it. In Rowling’s world, she made up a rule that human beings can act on things outside their own bodies by some innate ability. In the real world, this is impossible. In the real world people call on higher powers to do such things: either they call on God, or they call on some lesser spirit. What the Bible speaks against is the latter, calling on anything other than God for help. Harry Potter doesn’t do this; his “magical” talents are no more sinister, within the framework of his fictional world, than my ability to type on this blog and present it to the world to see.
Christians don’t seem to have a problem with this in other fictional works. There is magic in the worlds of C. S. Lewis; the difference there is that Lewis has an unabashedly Christian message in his Narnia stories. Peter Pan had magic, and I’ve never seen the book decried on that basis. So do the vast majority of Disney stories, traditional fairy tales, and any number of children’s stories. You see, people recognize them as make-believe … even the children reading them, who are generally far more sophisticated than people give them credit for. They know it’s not real. And such tales are generally not accused of encouraging children to take it as real, and calling on some evil power to grant them such abilities.
The biggest problem, it seems to me, with Rowling’s works is that she chose to use words like “witch” and “warlock”; her characters ride flying brooms and use magic wands; they study things like arithmancy and astrology. Her terminology sets off alarm bells, because some of those terms are also used in real-world occult circles. But they most definitely do not mean the same thing as the anyone in the real world would mean them. I’m sure if you ask any Wiccan how much similarity a there was between what they believe and what is portrayed in the Harry Potter books, you will get a resounding, “None!” After all, how much could there be? It’s a made-up world, with made-up rules and made-up characters in made-up circumstances.
But the Harry Potter stories are also very much about bravery, devotion to the ones you love, standing up against evil, no matter the personal cost, and caring for others. Those are all good, solid Christian concepts. Sure, there are some things any good Christian will wince at: casual lying and rule breaking are frequently portrayed as “OK.” But you will find that kind of lapse in any work of fiction; an astute reader can seperate philosophies they don’t agree with, and still take something good away. If you strip away the magic and occult-sounding terminology, most Christians would have little trouble with the overall message of Harry Potter. They are simply overreacting to mere elements of the story, and they are reacting so strongly they can see nothing else.
Now I won’t go as far as to say the books are harmless. But what book is? Any author you admire might slip something into a work you don’t like. But you don’t usually throw the book in the trash because of that; much less do you get on a soapbox and denounce it to the world.
So I’m going to go on enjoying Harry Potter. I see no conflict with my fatih, none at all. I recognize the things done in the stories that I don’t agree with; I have enough skill in discernment to not embrace those things just because they are in a book I enjoy. But the magic part means less than nothing to me … it’s a prop, a device to put the story in a more interesting setting. I don’t believe for a minute that any well-balanced person would be led to real life occult activities by it, any more than they would jump out their window hoping Tinkerbell would make them fly. There are some who might do either, but then again, anyone so inclined is going to be caught up in any number of bad things; they won’t need Harry Potter to lead them astray.