The Harry Potter Argument

I was raised in a fundamentalist home. Harry Potter was denounced from the pulpit. I knew nothing of the stories, except that "the world" liked them and they were forbidden. (A recurring trend in doctrine, actually.) I am extremely grateful that some friends and family members of mine encouraged me to read them. I know the Christian world has debated the topic for eleven years now, so in a way, I’m late to the debate. In another sense, though, Harry Potter is not going away from our society. It’s as popular now as it ever was, and a younger generation is starting to love it. As every new generation is born, a new set of parents will need to make the “Harry Potter decision”. So perhaps I’m exactly on time.

1.     YOU FEAR WHAT YOU HAVE NOT READ

The number one reason why Christian parents won’t let their kids read Harry Potter is that they have not read them. Personally, I think it’s a good rule of practice to read everything your kids read. (I say this as a single, childless adult.) I refuse to listen to any argument against Harry Potter from someone who has not read the books or at the very least, seen the movies. It’s basic common sense. You wouldn’t listen to a movie review from someone who hadn’t seen the movie. You wouldn’t go to a restaurant on the advice of someone who hasn’t been there. And you shouldn’t accept a book review from someone who has never read the book. All I have to say to people who are reading this, but haven’t read the books is: stop reading this and READ THE BOOKS. If you have arguments after you’ve read them, then we can talk. Until then, everything you say is hearsay and would not be upheld in a court of law. 

Take Alan Jacobs, for example, a Christian who was adamantly opposed to Harry Potter. He began reading the books to have fuel to feed his anti-Potter fire, but by the end of the second book, he was Rowling’s biggest fan. He went on to teach college courses (yes, college courses-like I said, they aren’t a passing fad that’s going to go away, folks) on Harry Potter at Wheaton and Baylor Universities. This has been the case with many Christians whom I’ve spoken with about Harry Potter. Once you read them, you understand that they are not evil. They are impressive.

2.     THE GREAT DOUBLE STANDARD

The double standard in the Christian world is that some witchcraft is okay, while some is not. Before you jump on the “hey-there-is-no-witchcraft-in-my-home” bandwagon, have your kids seen The Chronicles of Narnia? More often that not, the same parents who shun Harry Potter will rave about Lord of the Rings or The Chronicles of Narnia or The Wizard of Oz. (Okay, maybe less raving about Oz, but in most homes it still is not forbidden.) As someone who has read the books and seen the movies multiple times, let me assure you that the magic used by Rowling is no different from the magic used by Tolkien and (dare I say) Lewis. I have heard the argument that both Narnia and LOTR have Christian allegorical significance, but I would argue that there are plenty of books on the market showing Christian parallels in Harry Potter. I will speak more to the magic in the next point, but my question now is “why”? Why are certain magic stories immortalized and certain others seen as taboo? Even Disney movies use quite a bit of magic, and very few families ban Disney from their home. (Although I have known a few families who have, even their reasons were not about magic.) I don’t have the answer to the question, but perhaps you can help me with your opinion.

(Please note my use of the words “SOME” and “FEW” in this paragraph. Thank you.)

3.     SORCERY VS. FANTASY

To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, you cannot be tolerant (or intolerant) of something that does not exist. The sorcery and witchcraft of the Bible are real. The Bible commands that we are to be intolerant of any power that is derived from Satan. (To be clear, it is Satan that we are shunning, not any person who is under His control. Christ’s love and grace is to be shown to all people. That’s another blog for another day, though.) Satan does have power and his demons have power. There is no doubt that some of them use their power to carry out his work. This is not to be discounted, and is very serious issue. Modern day occult movements should not be confused with the fantasy magic that is used in Harry Potter, however. The magic in Harry Potter, the kind with wands and spells, is fictional and is meant as a metaphor for the power of choice we have within us. Rowling has borrowed from all the classic literature greats in creating her counterworld of magic for Harry Potter. The magic of Harry Potter can almost exclusively be attributed to classical literature. (It bears mentioning that Rowling has a degree in Literature.) Magic wands, spells, transfiguration, medium, etc, can all be found in respectable and fundamental literature. Homer's Odyssey, Sophocles Oedipus Rex, Virgil's Aeneid, Horace's The Satires, Physiologus, Aelian's On Animals, Arabian Nights,  The Book of Lancelot, Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britian, Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, Spenser's The Faerie Queen, Grimm's fairy tales, Shakespeare's Macbeth, The Tempest, A Winter's Tale, Hamlet, King Lear, Richard III, and A Midsummer NightÂ’s Dream, Marlowe's Faust, White's The Sword in the Stone, Bronte's Jane Eyre, Dickens's A Christmas Carol and "The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton", Tennyson's     "Idylls of the King", Carroll's Through the Looking-glass, Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera, Stoker's Dracula, Baum's Oz series, Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, James's The Turn of the Screw, and Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia (which Rowling admits had a huge impact on her as a child and which she still reads) all cover enough magic to account for most of the magical things in Harry Potter. I could list a few more, but you probably get the point. Modern Wiccans themselves have agreed that these books do not in any way portray their religion. (By the way, Wicca isn’t what you think, either.)

There is no reference to a higher power in Harry Potter-Satan, God or otherwise. To go back to the original point, since there is no worship of Satan present, there is no witchcraft of the Bible present either. You cannot be intolerant of a sorcery that does not exist.

4.     GOOD VS EVIL

Many Harry Potter nay-sayers will say that the lines between good and evil are not as clearly defined in Harry Potter as they are in Narnia or The Lord of the Rings, and in some instances, they would be right. The truth of the matter is that Harry breaks plenty of school rules while saving the wizarding world from Voldemort, and the headmaster Dumbledore turns a blind eye. Harry is often faced with the choice of saving his entire world and the lives of everyone loves or following Hogwarts curfew. Spoiler alert: he chooses to save the world. Admittedly, this is pragmatic. Sin is sin. I am aware of that. I hope you look at this, not as reason to ban the books from your household, but as a stepping stone to having real world conversations with your children about right and wrong. Newsflash: the real world is complicated, and it’s going to be full of complicated choices for your child. Renowned child psychologist Bettelheim put it this way: "More can be learned from [fairy tales] about the inner problems of human beings, and of the right solutions to their predicaments in any society than from any other type of story within a child's comprehension." Fictional stories, or fairy tales (which Harry Potter essentially is) are an excellent catalyst for opening difficult conversations. One of the things I love about Rowling is that she allows certain characters, even Harry, to question good and evil. No character is only good or only evil. In life, I want my future children to be empathic to those who may not be the same as them or as nice as they are sure to be (Draco Malfroy, Luna Lovegood). Rowling presents an excellent way to help them begin to think that way about people by showing the struggle within all characters, good and bad.  I love that we see the main antagonist’s struggle with evil, and how he eventually (spoiler alert) overcomes it. I believe that Alan Jacobs sums it up best:

The clarity with which Rowling sees the need to choose between good and evil is admirable, but still more admirable, to my mind, is her refusal to allow a simple division of parties into the Good and the Evil. Harry Potter is unquestionably a good boy, but, as I have suggested, a key component of his virtue arises from his recognition that he is not inevitably good. When first–year students arrive at Hogwarts, they come to an assembly of the entire school, students and faculty. Each of them sits on a stool in the midst of the assembly and puts on a large, battered, old hat—the Sorting Hat, which decides which of the four houses the student will enter. After unusually long reflection, the Sorting Hat, to Harry’s great relief, puts him in Gryffindor, but not before telling him that he could achieve real greatness in Slytherin. This comment haunts Harry: he often wonders if Slytherin is where he truly belongs, among the pragmatists, the careerists, the manipulators and deceivers, the power–hungry, and the just plain nasty. Near the end of the second book, after a terrifying encounter with Voldemort—his third, since Voldemort had tried to kill Harry, and succeeded in killing his parents, when Harry was a baby, and had confronted Harry again in the first book—he confesses his doubts to Dumbledore.

"So I should be in Slytherin," Harry said, looking desperately into Dumbledore’s face. "The Sorting Hat could see Slytherin’s power in me, and it—"

"Put you in Gryffindor," said Dumbledore calmly. "Listen to me, Harry. You happen to have many qualities Salazar Slytherin prized in his hand–picked students. Resourcefulness . . . determination . . . a certain disregard for rules," he added, his moustache quivering again. "Yet the Sorting Hat placed you in Gryffindor. You know why that was. Think."

"It only put me in Gryffindor," said Harry in a defeated voice, "Because I asked not to go in Slytherin. . . .”

"Exactly," said Dumbledore, beaming once more. "Which makes you very different from [Voldemort]. It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." Harry sat motionless in his chair, stunned.

Harry is stunned because he realizes for the first time that his confusion has been wrongheaded from the start: he had been asking the question "Who am I at heart?" when he needed to be asking the question "What must I do in order to become what I should be?" His character is not a fixed preexistent thing, but something that he has the responsibility for making: that’s why the Greeks called it character, "that which is engraved."

5.     RUMORS, RUMORS, RUMORS

There are plenty of rumors associated with JK Rowling and her motivation for writing Harry Potter and (not surprisingly) most of them have to do her views on witchcraft and whether or not she herself is a witch looking for young, impressionable converts (as was preached from my childhood pulpit). The facts about JK Rowling are actually rather boring in comparison to the rumors, which is often the case. JK Rowling is not, in fact a witch. She’s a ….wait for it…Presbyterian. (Technically, church of Scotland, which translates as a Presbyterian in America.) Many rumors about the books can be answered simply by reading them, so I will not address those rumors. (Refer to Point One.) Below is an article revealing what JK Rowling has actually said about the occult.

http://www.angelfire.com/realm2/oracleofdelphi/Rowling_interviews.htm

In conclusion, I would like to acknowledge the fact that this has not been a very unbiased view of Harry Potter. One of my weakness is that I tend to have very strong opinions and I tend to become frustrated when others don’t share them. I hope that, with me, you will see this issue as a I Corinthians 8-10 and Romans 14-15 “meat sacrificed to idols” issue. It’s okay for some Christians but not others. Either way, it is not an issue which should cause discord in the body of Christ.

Another disclaimer that I would like to take the opportunity to make is that I have mentioned that I do not have children. This being the case, I would never presume to tell you how to raise yours. You know your child. You know what works in your home. There is no judgment from me if you decide not to allow Harry Potter into your household. I am only trying to convey my opinion (laced with a facts) in order to give you more information, and perhaps a different perspective. I only know that as I was reading Harry Potter, a distinct thought that I had was, “I can’t wait to read this to my kids one day.”