Yes, the first HP book doesn't have much character development but there's plenty to be had in later books. Harry definitely develops as a character but it's more throughout many events during the series than any particular one book. Also, there is very little real occult practices in HP and those that do have a place in the books are either seen as silly practices or incredibly dangerous forbidden practices. Make of it what you will.

I agree with most of what you are saying in terms of the magic of HP. I have personally only seen movies 1-5 and not read any of the books. This is just heresay, so take nothing of it beyond that, but I have heard that Rowling wrote HP to introduce kids to the occult.

Independent of that, as Christians most of us should be able read into HP and discern what is good with it and what is bad. But take a look at what it happening with the non-Christians who are into it. There are some who just looking at it as entertainment, but others who take it too far. Last year (or maybe two years ago) we had an interesting discussion here about Phillip Pulman's His Dark Materials series including Golden Compass. Someone here posted that she actually believed she had a daemon (animal companion that was connected to the person) that she would talk to and listen to. That launched warning bells all over for me.

Another thing I dislike about HP is the rampant disdain for authority. The Bible teaches that we should respect and honor authority, good or evil, unless it violates the Word of God. Someone got on my case about this and defended HP because he rebelled against bad authority, but Harry rebels the regular rules installed by Dumbledoor. HP teaches that it is okay to rebel against authority if you have good intentions. I don't agree with that.

So is HP evil? My take is that if it leads someone away from God, I would consider putting it on that list. And I am seeing people being led away from God with Harry Potter. If you can discern the good stuff from the bad stuff, fine, but think about those who don't have that discernment and what kind of influences books like that have. LOTR and Narnia, while I could see people taking it way too far, because they were written by Christians I don't see those stories leading people away from God. Some won't see the Christian connections and won't be drawn towards him, but some will. We can use LOTR and Narnia as witnessing tools. Can you do that with HP? Not so sure. As a Christian, I can view HP for it's entertainment value but I won't recommend it to anyone who can't see what is good to take and what is not. And again, it's not about the magic itself, it's about what it is teaching to its readers.

Riella: Thank you so much for your responses. I do want to say before I go on something that is probably obvious but needs to be said anyway, should our conversation here ever inspire you to try out Harry Potter, you still need to honor your parents and wait until the time is appropriate for you to make choices independent of them. But I'm sure that won't be an issue.

F4J: I've actually read in an interview that Rowling has said that she never intended to inspire children to look into the occult or try to do magic.

Riella: Yes, I would say that Harry's magic is somewhat akin to superpowers. As for the things I mentioned that made me uneasy, I've thought a bit more about them and I think they are more or less treated with sensitivity. I'll put my thoughts in spoilers because there are some plot spoilers.

Fencer is right, Harry's rebelliousness is probably more concerning. He is constantly flaunting authority, getting in trouble and doing it again. Have I ever felt inspired by Harry to disobey my own parents? Nope.

Frankly, however, it's your second question that is more interesting to me. You're right, there isn't any kind of formula for what's ok to watch/read/listen to and what isn't. I think for you, your experiences with demonic activity have given you a much greater sense of the consequences. I have never heard of demonic activity being even remotely tied to the pop culture choices people make. This is clearly another discussion for another day, but all of my experiences with satanic forces have been when God was doing something really wonderful that would have been detrimental to their plan. For me, consequences of my book/movie/music choices have been more cerebral--they have been
things put in my brain I can't get rid of or impulses I wish weren't there. Yes, it's true, you will probably save yourself heartache by avoiding much of popular culture, but you may also live in fear and possibly miss out on some good things too. We are always safest when we live as far from "the line" as possible, but is that a healthy lifestyle of the freed children of Christ? That's for each person to decide and it is for each person to set their own standards according to His will and word. I commend you for seeking to honor God in your choices and want to encourage you to continue considering it.

Given that I think both Harry Potter and witchcraft are both just silly nonsense, I don't see any harm in it.

Honestly, it depends on the person, as when it comes to kids, the parents need to control the situation. If they have a gullible child, they should wait a few years before introducing Harry Potter. If they have a grounded child who knows there is a clear difference between reality and fantasy (like I was), there is no harm. I would be very careful saying anything causes someone to sin, especially a fantasybook - an entire genre a books that are not to be taken seriously.

Harry is not portrayed as a typical hero who does the right thing all the time. Throughout the series, he makes mistakes and we've definitely seen his rule-breaking blow up in his face. His is not the perfect protagonist and that's why so many people like him. He starts out as an immature little 11-year-old boy and ends as a courageous, wiser 18-year-old man.

Another thing to keep in mind, J.K. Rowling is a self-described Christian, so I highly doubt she wrote the Potter books to introduce kids to the occult.

Again and again, I am astounded that people who read LotR and Narnia could be anti-Potter (especially when I suspect, and I'm sure I can't be the only who, that J.K. Rowling's mythical elements are heavily based on the two series that came before). I find nothing wrong with LotR, Narnia, or Harry Potter. The magic they do is not based in reality.

There are several reasons that the Potter books are different from the Narnia or Lord of the Rings books.

First, the magic takes place in a world that is very like our own, making it that much easier to believe that the magic could be/is real and that they could do it. People can go off on searches for it as a result, and some people are led to real life witches and wizards, which are anything but nice. In Narnia and LotR, the magic all happens in a very different world.

Second, the magic is performed by the protagonist of the story, the hero-- the one we are meant to relate to. The fact that he is performing magic and the fact that he is meant to be likeable and emulate-able makes us desire to be like him. This can lead to us wanting to perform magic. In Narnia and LotR, again, magic is performed by all side characters and usually non-humans.

These things are what distinguish the series' from another and bring the magic in the Potter-verse closer to home. I don't mean to suggest that the Potter books are bad or wrong to read, because I've read them and believe that a protagonist who strives to do the right thing because it is right, and to help others is one of the most important parts of a book.

However, there ARE differences.

Rowling never wrote HP to introduce children to the occult, that Onion satire article has so much to answer for (and reveals how naive many Christians are). Good gravy!

I'm not going to say HP is less harmful than Narnia, LotR etc. but for most people it's not a problem. If we're realistic, there are people who've read the Bible and Narnia and have used their contents to get involved in the occult (it's true).

HP and his mates do break the school rules, and often. Yes, it's in the pursuit of good but Rowling isn't encouraging children to do the same. It's what children do. It reflects reality.

The magic in Harry Potter is sort of genetic--it passes through families and then sometimes a regular person is born with it, kind of like a mutation. Then that person gets to choose how to use it. I actually find it a very good example for our own choices. We have power for good and evil in us--or at least access to both through God and our sinful nature.

Ah, I see. So... it's kinda like superhero movies. Superheroes have "powers", but they're not anything Satanic. And the characters who have these powers (such as Spiderman) have the choice of using them responsibly, or abusing them. Would you say that's a good example of the HP stories?

I'll try to answer your questions, not just as a Christian and a Harry Potter fan but also as a librarian and as a parent. No I don't agree that Harry Potter is an example of law breaking or I'd have to say let the majority of boys under the age of maturity join him in the docks on that account, even your own little darlings. If you saw a boy carefully looking from right to left, and left to right and vice versa before crossing the road, you, despite your carefully thought out beliefs about rule-breaking here, might still say he is a wimp. But this is what he - or they - ought to be doing. Especially the little 'darling' who, riding his bike to school the other day, dived out on the road ahead of me, nearly getting himself killed if I had not been prepared to stop no matter what. Simply to keep up with his 'mates'. Not all that different from HHB's Corin, in fact, who behaved just as stupidly in Tashbaan.

What I am saying is that Harry Potter, magical abilities aside, is just as heedless, headstrong, idiotic and as prone to peer influence as the vast majority of young boys his age. Including in earlier times, his dad and his dad's friends and foes, such as Snape, himself. What is going for Harry Potter is that as a character he has a heart and a conscience. Unlike his nemesis, Voldemort, he isn't consumed by intentional malice, even though he, too, lost his parents at an early age.

Furthermore, what makes people relate to him is that he is not the 'favourite'. Dudley Dursley is, and it is easy to see that when brains were handed out, that Dudley, or Harry's foe, Draco, is no better than is Harry, himself. And that is all the difference that is needed for the series.

Talking to people who are pro-HP is fine with me. Because, really, pretty much everyone I know in real life hates Harry Potter. So much so that when commercials for the movies come on the TV, my parents tell everyone to look away from the screen. Keep in mind, though I feel very different about it all, I come from a household that believes fairy-tales are a sin, and that believed for years that Narnia was sinful as well; which is why I wasn't allowed to read Lewis books until after I was 15. And even that took a lot of talking and consideration. Talking to devout Christians such as yourselves who hold the opposite view, I think, provides a good balance. Although, it would probably be a better balance if the Anti-Harry-Potter crowd, who I've seen write articles on the subject, at least used more sensible arguments to prove their points...

Very good points you make, Riella. . Though I wonder what your parents would have done with Snow White, the Wizard of Oz, and other popular pre 1960's movie classics. Besides, I'm another who sees that JKR was heavily influenced by C.S.Lewis, in particular. These HP books positively scream C.S.Lewis in places, especially MN, VDT and SC. The difference I see between the two septologies is that the reading age for the Narnia series is upper primary, from age 8 to 11 and above, whilst the Harry Potter series is more secondary (high) school reading age, from 11 up to adulthood.

In fact an acquaintance thought I should write a book about it . There is also Tolkien, but whilst The Hobbit is still children's fiction, LOTR is more young adult, even university standard. I don't know what parents are thinking of when they let quite small children in to see such movies. And I really insist that the tale of Turin is too dark and tragic, in my opinon, for anyone less than an adult. Harry Potter, at least, does not discuss the possibility of incest, which horrifies me.

I'd have no problem with most of you reading HP if you wanted to do so. But I have a deep seated problem with a primary school child being expected to read the later HP books if he or she did not want to do so. And I have a problem with parents who do not take the trouble to read whatever they see their children reading and are not prepared to discuss the issues of the story with them.

In fact, most of the people I know who hate Harry Potter have not read a single sentence of the books. They go by the fact it has wizardry in it (Which they believe means it's Satanic, no questions asked.), and they go by stuff they've heard from other people -- usually people who claim that the author is into the occult, and whoever buys the books will have demons enter their house....But seeing as most of these sources also bash LOTR, Narnia, Bridge to Terebithia, rock music, Christmas trees, and basically... everything, I don't find their anti-Harry Potter opinions that worthy of my time. Which is why I came here instead. I have found the people here to have a good head on their shoulders, which is why I often trust you guys's opinions.

So, what about all the other stuff in HP? Like the palm reading and mind-reading? That is a bit closer to the real thing. Do you think that's enough to make it off-limits to Christians?

I have to admit there is little difference in the kind of thinking you describe to the sort of thinking which led to the fatwa directed at Salman Rushdie's Satanic verses. The stupid part of that fatwa was that the book in question would not have been all that interesting to anyone who did not know much about Islam or Mohammed the Prophet's life. All that the outraged Ayatollah did was to give the book a lot of undue publicity and make a rather boring book an object of curiosity among the 'infidels'.

As for the 'palm-reading', the 'mind-reading' and the other stuff as you call it, JKR does ridicule much, as has been already pointed out. But then there are real prophecies, such as in Daniel, Ezekiel and elsewhere. JKR is at pains to point out that even the seemingly real prophecies she allows for only come true when people are so convinced by them that they in effect put these prophecies into operation. Much like HHB's Lord Bar determined Shasta's destiny by trying to prevent his being able to save Archenland.

As for 'mind-reading', tell me, if you dare, that one's experience as a teacher and as a parent doesn't make some people's thought processes all too predictable. Including adults in high places. And as JKR points out in the HP series, including the victims of bullies such as Voldemort, who find it all too easy to 'push their buttons'. Not to mention the study of so-called 'body language'.

Really, what I'm wondering about goes deeper than just Harry Potter. I want to be able to find a mindset, or belief system, or something that I can go by to tell if something is off-limits or not. Otherwise, a bunch of things will always have a question mark hanging over them. And I don't want to make guesses when it comes to right and wrong. I want to be sure. The Bible is the standard, but it doesn't really say anything overt when it comes to fiction, and a few other things.

Of course you are right. And yes, the Bible is a good guide. Especially the Ten commandments and Jesus' summary of the same. Which was, and is, to love God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your strength. To worship him and give him thanks for his great glory.

And secondly, but no less importantly, to love your neighbour as yourself. Which is what HP was all about. Life isn't really about 'us' and 'them', as Vernon Dursley would like to believe.

Getting back to a real life issue, I was reading a movie review on our church magazine 'Eternity', yesterday. The movie was 'Oranges and sunshine', about the mass emigration of British children to Australia, Canada and elsewhere, also related in the Leaving of Liverpool. It is a horrific movie in which the various church organisations who took part do not come off very well.

Eternity (an Australian Anglican monthly news sheet) makes an excellent point, in that like the Pharisees of old, who prayed from a position of privilege in their society, the monsters who made those children's lives so miserable, were often those who put a distance, including the physical and geographical distance, between their own good fortune and those whose children were born into less fortunate circumstances. Looking down on others from a position of strength.

These children were often those whose parents had split up or who had not been born in wedlock. Eternity went on to say that by entertaining the Pharisees' attitudes, it is all to easy to fail those under our noses, neglecting our own responsibilities, and thinking that serving God is in the flashy superhuman things. That 'charity' is all too often merely giving clothes etc to the needy without really caring about their predicament. Or mouthing platitudes about orphans etc, whilst neglecting members of our own family who need help, or helping others only begrudgingly. Do you agree with Eternity's point of view? And isn't this what the HP series was also saying?

I would have liked to have reported some interesting finds in the latest volume of Biblical Archaeological Review, which discusses discoveries which might prove the historicity of David and Solomon, but I have already raved on too much.

A certain NarniaWeb friend of mine is dragging me back in again. So if I spend too much time here, or write far too many essay-length replies, it's not my fault! And that leads me to comment briefly on the last few topics.

On sin: sin isn't an outside Thing. It's what we, humans, do, often abusing Things, chiefly "whatever does not proceed from faith" in Christ (Romans 14), using the junk we come up with in our own hearts. A key passage on this is Mark 7, in which Jesus opposes the Pharisees' notion of "if I avoid bad Things, I'll avoid sin." Someone said it wouldn't be a sin to be exposed to a smutty pop-up add. Indeed, because not even being, er, undressed is a sin. What people make of that, however, could be.

On speaking in tongues: I used to think speaking in tongues had "ceased" because we now have the Bible. But that's difficult to prove from the Bible itself. However, Paul is clear in 1 Corinthians 8-10 that:

1) Speaking in tongues should be done in an orderly way. Get an interpreter if someone will speak in tongues. That way people will glorify God and not think church is a bunch of people getting together to go wild.

2) It's never said to be a "private prayer language." Instead the apostle encourages speaking, only with interpretation, in church.

3) Disconnecting the voluntary will or the conscious mind from one's spiritual experience may match some people's anecdotes, but it's also hard to square with what Scripture says. It also leads to some especially dangerous territory of claiming "the Holy Spirit speaks to your spirit, and not the mind," which leads to anti-mind attitudes and strange practices.

4) Never did any apostle say speaking in tongues is essential to every Christian or that you can't be saved without it, or that every true believer must have this gift. I've heard this claimed, but it's not supported in Scripture. In fact, Paul explicitly opposes this when he reminds the Corinthians that people have different gifts, but they're all part of the same body. Someone who says (as I was told recently, and angrily) "Because you are not a tongue, you do not belong to the body," is directly contradicting both Paul and the Spirit in favor of an opinion.

On Harry Potter: I haven't time to read everything written here as I usually do, but for those curious about this I've most recently come at the issue from a new angle, in last week's column on Speculative Faith. Next month I'm considering new material, due to the film's release.

Imagination: for God's glory and others' good, part 4

Here's the hook:

Should Christians read a fantasy series that doesn’t include God or an equivalent character? Should we bother with stories about wizardry and magic? Yes, it’s only a story, some may say, but what about all those people who use those stories to get into bad stuff?

In this fourth installment of the Imagination … series, I’m not trying to prove all that is fine and can be glorifying to God. One does not even need to. Instead we find, directly in Scripture, that one can glorify God and even be gifted by Him to study and master even actual pagan beliefs, far worse than those found in a Harry Potter novel.

Hope that doesn't seem too self-promotional.

I think we should remember, there are plenty of other non-fiction books out there specifically targeting children and teens to get into real paganism. We should be worrying about that.
Not about some fake world where you can snap your fingers and appear on the other side of the world.

wagga covered everything better than I could have, so I will just throw in my two cents:

First off, I was never allowed to read HP as a young child (until I was about 14). Keep in mind, I still did read them, but it was under the covers at night by flashlight, much like Harry doing his homework, because my 'muggle' parents wouldn't allow me to read them. Honestly, I think that is the very reason I had such an unexplainable obsession growing up not only with Harry Potter but magic in general. Parents who refuse to allow their children any unhealthy food will often cause eating disorders in them, and I think it was something like that. Right now, I'm just a casual fan looking forward to the premier of the final movie, but for a long time I had some sort of strange un-fulfillable interest in the books, probably because my parents gave them a mystical power in my mind. To quote Ithilwen, "In fact, most of the people I know who hate Harry Potter have not read a single sentence of the books. They go by the fact it has wizardry in it (Which they believe means it's Satanic, no questions asked.), and they go by stuff they've heard from other people -- usually people who claim that the author is into the occult, and whoever buys the books will have demons enter their house."

Also, I've been around real magic a bit in my life; there's a large pagan population here, sometimes extending to my friends, and even to myself for a brief period of time. The magic of Harry Potter is no closer to the real thing than Narnia is; both are far from it.

As one who has been both a magician and a materialist, and much of what lies in between, I will close with a quote from our beloved C.S. Lewis, "There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors, and hail a materialist or magician with the same delight."

“You must make allowance for each other’s faults and forgive the person who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.” Colossians 3:13 (NLT) Learning more every day... "Amen"

I know you meant this for yourself, but I needed this today. I'm finding it hard forgiving my parents for their flaws and mistakes and ways they failed me.

I published my testimony on Aslan's Country last week. Thank God I woke up spiritually to write it! I praise God that I've been asking him a lot of questions and getting some real, but hard-to-take answers. He justifies himself while I look like the fool I am. There is no iniquity in God but in 2008 I thought there was and walked away as a result (Jeremiah 2:5). Now I'm finding that there is none in him and I can't excuse or justify myself.

I asked God about my dead, forever in hell, biological father today. His answer: "The wrath of man shall praise thee. The remainder of wrath you will restrain" (Psalm 76:10). This led me to Romans 9. So was my dad a vessel of wrath, even though he wanted help unlike Pharaoh but couldn't help himself?

I have a question. Why must everything praise and glorify God? Why he must "get a name"/exalt himself in everything (otherwise it doesn't happen)? Why is this so important to God? He doesn't need praise or glory. He's not a cookie monster? So just who is God?

Can anyone help me?

July 11 update: I got some divine/help answers for the first question (about my dad). I posted this in Aslan's Meditations today.

I’ve also been asking God why he gave me the family he did, including many hard questions about my father, whom I know died without Christ and is in hell for eternity. God replied with Psalm 76:10 and Romans 9 [vessels of wrath and mercy]. I thought I’d found iniquity in God again (Jeremiah 2:5) about my father’s final destiny. This morning I asked him in my spirit, “Let me go and bury my father” (Matthew 8:21, KJV). God replied, “Let the dead bury their dead. Follow me” (8:22, KJV). I can’t go to hell over the mystery of predestination. Instead I have to accept God as my father and His spiritual children as my brothers and sisters (Psalm 27:10, Matthew 12:46-50, Hebrews 11:24-26).

I have only read a bit of the first Harry Potter book (actually, I think I read the first book... it was a long time ago, so I don't remember.) My only memory of it is the aunt's long neck she used for spying on people, the uncle's multiple chins, the obnoxious cousin, and Harry living under the staircase. I think we watched just a bit of the first movie.
My mom was never (and isn't) very strict over what I watched/watch, read, listen to, etc. So, it wasn't like "HARRY POTTER?!?!? NOOO!" It was more, "Sure, read them and tell us what you think about them, and then we'll discuss them." I just wasn't interested and frankly didn't care enough to finish the first book (at least, I don't remember finishing it. ), but that was just personally me--my sister was interested in the books, though, and she read a couple of the first ones and liked them, then.
It was the wizardry, spells, and just eehh content in it that turned us off, though, and makes me not want to read the books, even if they did interest me.
It's not like occult and all that is something like "Oh...what's that?" for us, we're aware of the facts and all, so we aren't informationless people who just enjoy thumping down everything that isn't Narnia or LotR.
Harry Potter seems to be just a very controversial issue among Christians. I know Christians whose varied and other theological beliefs I greatly respect who like Harry Potter. We've talked about it a little, but just don't really discuss it. Harry Potter hasn't really been very interesting to me, just only in the way that it's something popular, but otherwise not really. I think both sides of this debate need to stop flying off the handle about the other side. Unless someone actually starts drifting away from God due to the books, it's not some huge doctrine hole like Jesus being God, which really defines your salvation. (Well, you know, that you believe Jesus died for you because God required a sacrifice for our sins, so then we have faith, which is a gift from God, this faith is only evident and true if it results in us imitating Jesus in His behaviour.)
I don't know...HP is a really wide topic with many scopes.

I can't say much because I haven't read any of the books (or probably not any but the first. Again, I don't remember. ) And I don't think I will in the future.

I don't believe J.K.Rowling is into occult or anything. From seeing an interview of hers where she spoke alot about herself and HP, I believe that she is a hurt person who needs God.

Rowling is a Christian.

Acccording to p.17 of the July issue of Southern Cross, the Sydney Anglican magazine which once a month is distributed at Sunday Morning communion, JK. Rowling was quoted as saying in a 2007 Time magazine interview:

"I did not set out to convert anyone to Christianity....I wasn't trying to do what C.S.Lewis did. It is perfectly possible to live a very moral life without a belief in God and I think it's perfectly possible to live a life peppered with ill-doing and believe in God".

Perhaps the real dilemma is the confusion between belief in God and belief in behaving ethically. And how far ethical behaviour is consistent with a belief in God on the one hand, and obeying the law, especially when the law, itself, is not always ethical. Without discussing JK Rowling's beliefs too much, I do realise she worked for Amnesty International, and that she has also said heaps on her own site and elsewhere about discriminating against others. The one that caught my eye, which I quoted in an essay was this:

J.K. Rowling herself has drawn a likeness between the pure-blood fanaticism of Voldemort and his Death Eaters, and the Nazis’ anti-Jewish bigotry. On her website, jkrowling.com, she writes:

“The expressions ‘pure-blood,’ ‘half-blood,’ and ‘Muggle-born’ have been coined by people to whom these distinctions matter, and express their originators’ prejudices. As far as somebody like Lucius Malfoy is concerned, for instance, a Muggle-born is as ‘bad’ as a Muggle. Therefore Harry would be considered only ‘half’ wizard, because of his mother’s grandparents.”

If you think this is far-fetched, look at some of the real charts the Nazis used to show what constituted ‘Aryan’ or ‘Jewish’ blood. I saw one in the Holocaust museum in Washington when I had already devised the ‘pure-blood,’ ‘half-blood’ and ‘Muggle-born’ definitions, and was chilled to see that the Nazis used precisely the same warped logic as the Death Eaters. A single Jewish grandparent ‘polluted’ the blood, according to their propaganda.” 3

I have to agree that Nazi Germany, at any rate, and possibly others in the last few decades or more of your lives that you can think about, were never what anyone called ethical societies at those times. And I do think that some of the themes in Harry Potter did definitely chime in with the times of the past decade.

It was more, "Sure, read them and tell us what you think about them, and then we'll discuss them." I just wasn't interested and frankly didn't care enough to finish the first book... but that was just personally me--my sister was interested in the books, though, and she read a couple of the first ones and liked them, then.
It was the wizardry, spells, and just eehh content in it that turned us off, though, and makes me not want to read the books, even if they did interest me.
It's not like occult and all that is something like "Oh...what's that?" for us, we're aware of the facts and all, so we aren't informationless people who just enjoy thumping down everything that isn't Narnia or LotR.
Harry Potter seems to be just a very controversial issue among Christians. I know Christians whose varied and other theological beliefs I greatly respect who like Harry Potter. We've talked about it a little, but just don't really discuss it. Harry Potter hasn't really been very interesting to me, just only in the way that it's something popular, but otherwise not really.

Fair point. I happen to like the HP books, unlike some of my oldie cronies at church. But funnily enough they don't really approve of Narnia, either. Possibly they also didn't think much of the LOTR movies, as popular as they were. You are perfectly entitled to your own point of view and your likes and dislikes, especially once you have reached your age of majority and good judgement. This is quite different from wanting books banned because of fear of other people's individuality.

The main dispute about the Harry Potter books was due to Laura Mallory who wanted the books banned from her children's school library, on account of her belief that they promoted the occult and from things she had heard. I'd agree she shouldn't have them in her own home if that is what she wants, but she shouldn't try to restrict the choices and access to such books of other parents and children who disagree with her. In a well-publicised case in the USA state of Georgia, she eventually lost her case, mainly due to her utter refusal to read the books herself. Therefore it was unlikely she could quote and discuss intelligently exactly what she found objectionable and harmful about those books. In the end, all she achieved was make the HP books somewhat better known than they might have been.

The Southern Cross article I mentioned, entitled Voldemort and lightning (very, very, frightening) which unfortunately is probably not on Internet, did quote Richard Abanes, a similar critic to Laura Mallory. But it disagrees with Richard Abanes quite markedly. According to Dr Peter Bolt (p.16-17 July 2011), the head of New Testament at Moore Theological College, "fear has always been the wellspring of magic... magic usually arises when someone feels powerless". He points out about the Biblical condemnation of witchcraft on p. 17

"What it says instead is that there are all these kinds of practises that your pagan neighbours are operating with and you know them very well. You shouldn't have anything to do with them because you've got a God who's spoken to you.....These things (divination, astrology etc) have been around for centuries, and it's basically trying to get insight into life from means other than the word of God".

At least I know for a fact, from my own reading, that JK Rowling does ridicule the quackery associated with fortune telling. Prof Trelawney, the Divination teacher, it is agreed in the books, is a bit of an old fraud, who frequently makes an absolute fool of herself. To hammer the point home, Dumbledore points out that people's choices are so varied that it is impossible to accurately foretell the future, unless, believing in a prophecy, one brings it about, a major theme of the HP books, and one also discussed in both Narnia and LOTR. Dr Andrew Shead, head of Old Testament at Moore Theological College, also commented on p. 17:

"The issues I found in Harry Potter weren't related to witchcraft or the occult....With my children, the things that might have made me cautious....would be the dark themes of death and suffering, rather than anything to do with witches... I think that children are well able to separate fantasy from reality. I personally found admirable traits in the characters in the books...."

Exactly what I would have said myself. Like Dr Shead, who suggests other authors like George MacDonald, or books like Violet Needham's 'The Black Riders', David Hastie, an English teacher at a prestigious local secondary school, says:

"I've never met an English teacher who thinks it is great writing - not one. The main complaints are the characters - they're not rich enough." Hastie goes on to say that his wife describes (HP) as "'boys' own adventure' dressed up with magic...It is filling the Biggles-shaped space in the children's book market. What's being sold is not occult, but adventure and quest."

Maybe so. But then I find more appeal in reading Harry Potter than I ever would in reading the Twilight series. How is Twilight a Christian series?