Is it true?
Well, let's start with author Rowling's alleged comments about Christians and Christianity. One of the top myth-debunking sites on the Web, www.snopes2.com, checked it out and discovered something very interesting: she never made any of those comments.
Snopes also checked out the reports that witchcraft and Satanism among children had risen dramatically since the rise of Harry Potter. They also found out that these reports are not true.
Both of these accusations actually appeared in an online satire magazine called the Onion. This magazine makes fun of everybody, and it's the nature of satire to take something and blow it up into absolute absurdity. For a modest example, see my own "Sermon Diagramming for Uneducated Listeners" elsewhere on this site. The Onion was making fun of the way Christians tend to over-react to nearly anything popular, and they invented the quotes by Rowling, the statistics about Satanism, and all the rest. This is the crucial point: none of it is true. Nevertheless, some over-anxious Christian zealots picked up those statements, ignored their source and the type of literature they were in, and started promoting them as gospel truth.
Apparently, a lot of my fellow Christians don't understand the nature of satire. A lot of fuss could have been avoided if the originators of these accusations had bothered to do their homework. Once again, the desire on the part of some of my brothers to accuse someone has left us all looking like fools. Even worse, thousands upon thousands of other sincere Christians have passed these falsehoods along to all their friends and family without checking the facts.
Folks, this is inexcusable. Have we, the church, become so fat and lazy that we just take whatever we read on the Internet, or that someone passes to us by spam-style email, as absolute truth? What happened to the example of the Bereans, constantly checking the facts in our goal to sift truth from error? It's time for all of us to get off our big, arrogant holier-than-thou behinds and start checking things out for ourselves. We, the American Christian church, have apparently forgotten how to think for ourselves. This kind of laziness has got to stop. NOW.
Okay, I'll climb off my soapbox now and return to the topic at hand.
It's time to ask one simple question of each person who makes accusations about Harry Potter: have you read it?
Too many of the people who send me the anti-Potter emails are just taking someone else's word for it, and haven't actually read the books. When my youngest daughter won the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, in a contest at school, I decided it was time to check it out. I have now read all 4 books, and confess that I am on the edge of my seat waiting for the next one. To put it bluntly, I'm a big fan. I'm itching to see where the story goes from here. These are children's books, and I'm not a child (well, physically, anyway) and I devour them. I'm about midway through rereading the second book even as I type. For starters, these stories are excellently written. The characters come alive, the situations are believable within the bounds set up by the world Rowling has created, and there's a wonderful mix of drama and humor that has you biting your fingernails one second and rolling on the floor laughing the next.
One anti-Potter book that I was perusing yesterday complained that you often don't know who is a good guy and who is a bad guy. Well, of course you don't, because this complainer has missed one simple point: the Harry Potter books are mysteries. Would you expect Arthur Conan Doyle, Dashiel Hammett, or Ellery Queen to begin a story with a disclaimer that says "Joe Blow looks like a good guy, but he's really not; in fact, he's the one who did it"? How absurd is it to accuse a mystery book because it keeps you in suspense about "whodunit"? At the same time, in these writers' scenarios, there are clear indications of which characters are actually good and which are bad. In Patricia Cornwell's world, for example, you know that Kay Scarpetta is a "good guy" and Carrie Grethen is a "bad guy" while not being sure about several others who pop in and out. That's the nature of a good mystery.
Harry Potter is no different: we know, for example, that the lead "good guy" is Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts where Harry goes to school. We also know without a doubt that Voldemort is the very personification of evil: the entire story cycle begins with Voldemort, better known in the books as You-Know-Who or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (because the wizard world is afraid to speak his name) killing Harry's parents and trying to kill baby Harry. The killing curse backfires, leaving Harry with a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead, and nearly destroys Voldemort himself. From then on, the stories primarily involve Voldemort's attempts to regain his power and Harry's place in the plans to stop him. We also know from the start that Harry's friend Ron Weasley is a good guy. His other close friend, Hermione Granger, is on the side of good despite her frequent know-it-all attitude. Draco Malfoy is bad, along with his yes-men Crabbe and Goyle. His father Lucius is even worse. The battle lines are clearly drawn, yet there are those characters that you're never quite sure about. That's part of a good mystery, and Rowling is a master of this genre.
But what about all the magic? Don't these books teach kids how to cast spells and curses and dabble in the occult? Well, sure, I suppose a child could try some of the spells given in the books - provided they can find themselves a wand with the tail feather of a phoenix, or a hair from the mane of a unicorn, or some similar piece of a magical creature, embedded in it. From there, they can give the spells a try, even though nearly all the spells are nothing more than a sort of pidgin Latin. The spell to disarm another wizard, for example, is "expelliarmus." This is an obvious conflation of "expel" and "arm," in other words, "remove the weapon." A close look at the "killing curse" that Voldemort tries on Harry in the fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, reveals it to be a variation on the phrase "abra kadabra." Evil and terrifying, indeed!
Let's get real for just a moment. These are children's fantasy stories. There is a definite conflict between good and evil, there is mystery, and there is a protagonist who isn't perfect. Harry makes mistakes; he breaks school rules (let the one who is without this sin cast the first stone!); he jumps to false conclusions. Yet, it was his mother's love and her deliberate sacrifice of herself to protect little Harry that enabled Harry to survive Voldemort's curse and made the curse turn back on Voldemort himself. And when he first got to Hogwarts, Harry made a choice: he had the chance to go into Slytherin house, the house that has produced pretty much every bad wizard to appear since the school was founded. Slytherin emphasizes the character trait of ambition, desire to be great and make a name for oneself, and Harry chose not to go that way. He had to decide between good and evil, and it wasn't an easy choice. But he made it, and he lives every day with the consequences.
The books have been accused of promoting a relativistic morality, and I frankly don't understand this. In the first book, Voldemort tells Harry that there is no such thing as good and evil, only power and the determination to use it. Harry rejects this idea and chooses to believe that good and evil really do exist and one must choose between the two. How exactly is this relativistic? I can't see it. It actually refutes the popular notion that there are no absolutes and that morality is a matter of individual choice. Far from promoting a religion of self, Harry Potter promotes the idea that there is such a thing as objective truth: certain things are inherently good, and certain things are inherently evil. One reviewer tried to say that the books promote relativism because Harry is constantly breaking the school rules and defying adult authority. How nit-picky is this? Again, whoever has never - and I do mean never - done such a thing may cast the first stone. Any takers?
I thought not.
I am constantly amazed at Christians who will rail at Harry Potter, yet rave about Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia and C.S. Lewis' space trilogy. Let me say this for all to read: there is no difference between Harry Potter and these works. I saw an anti-Potter book that tried to make distinctions, but the supposed differences are fanciful at best. In the interest of space, I'll only comment on one.
This person tried to say that the Ring Cycle and Narnia are different because they take place in other worlds: the Ring Cycle in Middle Earth and Narnia in a different dimension (or some such), while Harry Potter takes place in "our" world. Well, yes and no. If Harry Potter takes place in this world, perhaps someone can explain why Muggles (ordinary non-magic people) can't see the entrance to Platform 9 3/4, can't see the Hogwarts Express train, and have no idea that the huge Hogwarts castle even exists. Perhaps they can also explain why the wizarding population has strict rules and prohibitions about interfering with the lives of Muggles, with severe penalties for those who violate the rules. Hogwarts students are forbidden to do magic outside the school. In the second book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry and Ron get in trouble for using a flying car to get back to school. Their major infraction is not that they used magic or that they were late getting to school; it is the fact that they were seen. Some Muggles saw the car flying and their world was disrupted. This is a serious offense that nearly gets Harry and Ron expelled from school.
The fact is, these wizards live in their own world. In other words, the wizard world of Harry Potter is only superficially different from the magical world of Narnia. And contrary to that reviewer's assetion, Middle Earth in the Ring Cycle is really nothing but an earlier form of this very Earth on which we live, before Man gains dominance. So in that sense, Middle Earth is actually closer to "this" world than Hogwarts is. Therefore, the Ring Cycle must be evil and Christians should avoid it, correct? Forgive my bluntness, but this kind of hypocrisy is not only annoying, it gives Christians a bad name.
Why is Harry so popular? Well, for starters, he's a child without parents who is brought up in a bad, not to say abusive, foster family situation. That strikes an immediate chord with far too many of today's children. For the first 11 years of his life, Harry has been told that he is just a fraction of a step more significant than dryer lint. Suddenly, he learns that there is something very special about him, and he has both a phenomenal history and a phenomenal destiny. How many abused foster children haven't wished to learn such a thing about themselves?
For another thing, Harry is uncertain of himself, makes mistakes, misjudges people (especially the enigmatic Professor Snape) and really isn't sure he wants all the attention focused on him. Again, who among us can't identify with this scenario? Harry's uncertainty and his sometimes-fumbling attempts to fulfill what is expected of him are all part of what makes him believable, and makes kids identify with him. But through all of it, Harry is a faithful friend to those close to him such as his best friend Ron, his other friend Hermione, and the big loveable klutz Hagrid.
Another reason for Harry's popularity is simply the fact that these books are terrific writing with great stories. As I mentioned, they are mystery stories, and I have yet to figure out "whodunit" before it was revealed. The clues are planted so expertly that, once the antagonist is revealed, it's clear that I should have known all along, but missed all the hints. That's another mark of a good mystery.
Parents tend to love the books because they get kids reading. My household has never had a problem with that, all 3 of my children have been voracious readers all their lives. But they tend to be an exception in our entertainment-happy society. Harry Potter hits the scene and suddenly kids who have never cracked a book willingly are devouring page after page and loving it. Christian parents, this is a golden opportunity: let your kids enjoy the story, then discuss it with them! Talk about the lessons that can be learned. In the chess match near the end of Sorcerer's Stone, ask what your child thinks about Ron's willingness to sacrifice himself so Harry can go on and keep the stone from being stolen. Depending on your child's age, you can even discuss the fact that Ron, in Goblet of Fire, apparently realizes for the first time that Hermione is a girl, and a rather attractive one at that. This could lead to an extended and profitable discussion about the way the world sees boy-girl relationships, as opposed to what the Bible says about love and marriage. The possibilities are endless. You can laugh together at what a phony Gilderoy Lockhart is in Chamber of Secrets and then discuss how his lies were finally his undoing. Do your kids love Harry Potter? Love him with them and seize the moment. Don't criticize, but rather discuss and point out the good things. Your kids will remember it forever.
So, to sum up, what evil ideas does Harry Potter teach our children?
Yup, teaching anti-biblical and anti-Christian values such as these is inexcusable, so I guess Harry Potter really is the antichrist after all! (Note for those who didn't catch it: that last statement is satire, kind of like what you might find in the Onion, and not to be taken literally <g>)
For further reading and a very balanced review, see A review from the folks at the Back To God Hour