wizards,witches, and spells oh my!
i think its time once again for the church to recheck themselves. Why is Harry Potter satanic because it has witchcraft and what not, but the Lord of the Rings is okay, even though it was wizards, simply because it was written by a christian author, and it can be compared to a battle between the good angels and satan? Long question, i know, but why is that? is it only because LOTR was written by a christian author? But even more, he wasn’t a “christian”writer, but a writer who had christian beliefs. He has never been known to say that it was a christian book, but since he is a documented christian, it was automatically assumed that he put christian undertones in his book. So what makes Harry Potter witch craft? This isn’t a rhetorical question, so if anyone has the answer, please comment!
Part of the reason that Tolkein wrote LOTR was out of a dicussion that he and C.S. Lewis had regarding a deartho ficiton written by Christians. The overall tone of the series was intended to draw people into a discussion that would lead to sharing the principles of the faith.
I think that in and of itself is why LOTR gets the pass and the wizard prince gets nailed. Rowling didn’t write the books with the intention of moving people into a discussion that would lead to Christianity, so it gets pooped on. The irony is, that if Christians would take the time to examine the books carefully, they could find some way to use the content to bring about a discussion of the faith. But fear and laziness in thinking gets in the way.
Comment by Jason — December 4, 2008 @ 3:30 pm
You’re such a good thinker, my friend. Your question takes me to several places that could occupy a lot of space. I’ll pick only one for now:
It’s an easy bandwagon to jump on.
When I was a kid, a similar outcry came as a result of the TV series “Bewitched.” I even recall having a flier put on our car when I was a kid that basically said that if you watched the show, you were doomed to hell. So, folks trying to be dutiful Christians, if not very thinking ones, jumped on that and railed against that one TV show. Ironically, there were other shows that I think were more damaging to our culture that did NOT get the same bashing.
I think that in some ways, the Potter scenario is similar. And the assault comes from two sides. There are those who don’t like Roald Dahl’s works because they tend to paint adults as bad, greedy, untrustworthy, etc. You’ll find this element in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, The Witches, etc. Then, you have that portion of the Christian population that tends toward the “anti-Bewitched” crowd. These groups joined forces against Potter from the beginning - it was somewhat anti-adult, and certainly had magic in it.
LOTR gets off, I think, because, in large part, it’s been around long enough that people don’t think about it not being around. The Hobbit was written in the 1930s for Tolkien’s sons. It took him another twenty years to get LOTR “finished-enough” for publication. In many ways, LOTR began the entire genre of modern fantasy literature.
Potter on the other hand is quite new. Came on quickly, had a lot of children reading it, and was a great target!
To me, there are so many other things in our culture that you can legitimately battle, Potter is very small. In fact, there are many things about the Potter series that are quite noble: love, friendship and loyalty being three themes that Rowling develops to a high degree. Harry’s courage in the face of evil is a lesson in itself.
I agree with Jason, though. Fear and laziness are key answers to your question.
Comment by Emmett — December 31, 2008 @ 8:04 pm