Harry Potter

This is a piece of an article Kim has linked on her blog. I think it is an interesting debate. I have heard parents who support books and movies like Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia, and Star Wars condem Harry Potter. I don't know what thats all about. Gandolf, if you remeber was a wizard and there is plenty of magic in Lord of the Rings. I'm not intending to start a fight with any well meaning parents!! I certainly believe it is responsible for parents to censor what their children read or see. (and I'm pretty sure that I would not let my child read Harry Potter until he is old enough to handle it) However I think it is important as parents and Christians to be careful not to fight the wrong battles and to be careful not to send our kids contradicting messages.

Is there a place for magic in the imagination of a Christian child?

'Magic' is activity not obedient to naturalist law and material quantities. Rowling is writing a broadside, Christian attack on 'the reign of quantity', error, evil, and ugliness in the modern world; what better place to cast the counter spell to the enchantment of modernity than in a technology free world of magic alongside our own? And, yet, because of the poetry of magic she uses in her defense of the greater view, she has drawn fire from the very community she defends.

The irony of Christian objections to Harry Potter is that they are uniformly made against their magic and 'occult elements.' There is a real danger in the occult, and I protect my children from any exposure to it, even in 'popular culture'. Objections to the magic in Harry Potter, however, mistake the edifying use of magic in literature for actual invocational sorcery condemned by Scripture which it clearly is not.