9 Christianity and Harry Potter

9 Christianity and Harry Potter.

Most of the criticism of Harry Potter is from fundamentalist evangelical Christian groups, who believe the series' depiction of witchcraft is dangerous to children. Paul Hetrick, spokesman for Focus on the Family, an American Evangelical Christian group based in Colorado Springs, Colorado, outlined the reasons for his opposition to them: "[They contain] some powerful and valuable lessons about love and courage and the ultimate victory of good over evil; however, the positive messages are packaged in a medium – witchcraft – that is directly denounced in Scripture." Harry Potter has been the subject of at least six book burnings in the U.S.In 2002, Chick Publications produced a comic book tract titled "The Nervous Witch" that declared "the Potter books open a doorway that will put untold millions of kids into hell." In 2007 Jacqui Komschlies wrote an article in Christianity Today comparing Harry Potter to "rat poison mixed with orange soda," and said, "We're taking something deadly from our world and turning it into what some are calling 'merely a literary device.'"

A common belief among fundamentalist Christians is that Harry Potter promotes the religion of Wicca, and so keeping the books in public schools violates the separation of church and state in the United States.In her response to Laura Mallory's court case, education attorney Victoria Sweeny said that if schools were to remove all books containing reference to witches, they would have to ban Macbeth and Cinderella.Jeremiah Films, a Christian video company largely known for its Clinton Chroniclesrelease, also released a DVD entitled Harry Potter: Witchcraft Repackaged, which stated that "Harry's world says that drinking dead animal blood gives power, a satanic human sacrifice and Harry's powerful blood brings new life, demon possession is not spiritually dangerous, and that passing through fire, contacting the dead, and conversing with ghosts, others in the spirit world, and more, is normal and acceptable."

In 2001, Evangelical journalist Richard Abanes, who has written several books arguing against new religions and Mormonism, published a polemical text that made similar allegations to the video: Harry Potter and the Bible: The Menace Behind the Magick. Later editions incorporated comparisons and contrasts between Harry Potter and the more overtly Christian works of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. In an interview with CBN.com, Abanes remarked that, "One of the easiest ways to know whether a fantasy book or film has real world magick in it is to just ask a simple question, 'Can my child find information in a library or bookstore that will enable them to replicate what they are seeing in the film or the book?' If you go to The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings what you see in, story magic and imagination, it is not real. You can't replicate it. But if you go to something like Harry Potter, you can find references to astrology, clairvoyance, and numerology. It takes seconds to go into a bookstore or library and get books on that and start investigating it, researching it, and doing it."

Abanes writes: "The classic passage dealing with divination, along with several other forms of occultism, is Deuteronomy 

There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these thing are an abomination unto the LORD.