My View On Christians and Liking Harry Potter

     I’ve been a huge fan of Harry Potter since age eight. I've been reading them since the first one was on the table of Best New Releases. Before the hype and the movies and the themepark-- I'm one of those annoying die-hard fans that will shoot down any self-proclaimed fan that hasn't even read all the books, let alone read them each over and over like I do. Harry Potter is MY thing. I'm one of those people that read the 7th book in a DAY. The day it came out is the day I finished it-- all 784 pages of it, done in 14 hours! And don't get my started on the people that call themselves fans who have only seen the movies. Ha!

    

 So, now that I'm a few months shy of 20 and attending a Christian university, I've heard lots of things about Harry Potter. Harry Potter promotes witchcraft. I've read an article claiming that Harry Potter books are designed to lure in people to the darkside (whoa, calm down Starwars).

“There shall not be found among you anyone who make his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord ….” (Deuteronomy 18:10)

     Here is my main argument on this scripture relating to Harry Potter.

READING A FICTION NOVEL IS NOT PRACTICING WITCHCRAFT.

     I feel that people who believe that by simply reading a book that involves magic you are trying to DO magic...have taken things to the extreme. Parents get scared because their kids are playing "witches and wizards" in their bedrooms with their friends. 

     So...God says sin is sin. It doesn't matter how big or small the crime, sin is sin. So magic is magic. Harry Potter is just as bad as Cinderella...because if you've forgotten, Cinderella has a MAGIC fairygodmother who MAGICALLY transforms her tattered dress into a beautiful gown, MAGICALLY makes a pumpkin into a carriage, and MAGICALLY makes the mice into humans.

    

      I don't know about other girls, but I definatly recreated fairy tales in games. I played "Cinderella" just as much as I played "witches and wizards". Just as I dreamed I could go to Hogwarts, I dreamed about being a beautiful princess like Cinderella. Parents fear Harry Potter for making their kids wish they were a part of something other-worldly...well, newflash, so does basically every kids movie out there.

    How about Peter Pan? Need I remind you of all the magic and "evil" in that story/movie? The kid can fly, for goodness sake. How about the curse in Sleeping Beauty? The Little Mermaid, who sells her voice to a sea-WITCH in return for legs? Think about this. How many Christians enjoy Star Wars? Star Wars is NOT that much different than Harry Potter. Actually, in Star Wars "the force" is the higher power, not God. At least in Harry Potter God is mentioned in Christmas carols and in passing.

     Even The Chronicles of Narnia contain magic. And they're written as biblical paralles.

     Now. I do believe, as a Christian, that you should sit down with a child and explain what is real and what is fake. Explain how God feels about magic in His world. In Harry Potter magic is real- so maybe explain that in a fantasy land magic is okay since it's fake, make-believe. But not in this world, therefore magic is not real. Explain that God has all the power we need, so we need to trust in Him to be with us in our day-to-day problems. Just like we don't have fariygodmothers, we don't go to school to learn magic.

     Not once did I ever take Harry Potter to be fact. When parents start freaking out, that is when kids start to think fantasy stories are more than just that--stories. Out of all the articles I've read, not one of the reviewers has actually READ Harry Potter. They've just heard from others. I've read ridiculous articles where people claim Harry Potter is teaching and instructing kids how to use magic. Those people don't have a clue. They haven't picked up a book. Now, some of them have seen movies...but let me make a point. Stories from the Bible that are recreated into movies...do they really capture the heart and soul and messages you'd get from reading it straight from the Bible? No. I know the Bible is very different from any other book (of course!) but it's a general rule: typically the book is waaaay better than the movie, no matter what book or movie it is. Reading The Notebook is much more impactful than watching the movie alone.

     Surprisingly enough...I actually find a lot of parallelism between Harry Potter and the Bible. I feel like Harry is a Jesus figure. Volemort is Satan. Voldemort, or Tom Riddle as he was called in his youth, use to be a prized student at Hogwarts, very smart and the pride of many teachers. Unpredicted by most teachers (except Dumbledore) and then, bam, he fell from that good pedistal and became the world's most evil wizard. Similar to how Satan fell as God's angel. Harry Potter [SPOILER] sacrifies himself, knowing he must die to save everyone. And then, an amazing thing happens, and he comes back to life. Similar to how Jesus sacrifices himself and resurrects. Throughout the books, Harry always values the human life above all. He is always going for the greater good, putting himself in danger before his friends. He's modest and hard working. In the third book Harry had a chance to murder the Wormtail, the man who lead Voldermort to kill his parents. But he chooses not to...and at the end of the story [spoiler again...] Wormtail spares Harry and is killed by Voldemort (his master) for doing so.

    

     The thing I take to heart the most from Harry Potter is the emphasis on love. The reason Harry didn't die when Voldemort tried to kill him as a child is because his mother died to protect him, putting a charm over Harry, the most powerful kind, which is one from love. Love is what saves Harry and drives the story. Harry doesn't discriminate--a friend is a friend, whether it's an outcast like Luna Lovegood or Neville Longbottom, or if it's a house elf like Dobby. And in the end, the love from all the characters in Harry's life save him. From reading Harry Potter I've adapted many of it's lessons into my life, and I wouldn't be the same without them.