My nephew Brennan first introduced my kids to the Harry Potter
series, lo these many years ago.
My nephew Brennan first introduced my kids to the Harry Potter series, lo these many years ago. He had read the first three and loved them; he loaned them to my two younger kids, who read them and loved them, too.
Then, just before the fourth book came out, I began to hear rumors that the Harry Potter books were anti-Christian, that they were evil, Satanic. I queried my kids:
“Blood sacrifice? Anti-Christian?”
My kids were astonished. “Well, the bad guys drink a unicorn’s blood… but those are the bad guys. No, the books are not anti-Christian.”
So, judging from their review, the books sounded fine, but all the same, I told them I would be reading the fourth one when it came out, before they would be allowed to.
Oliver thought I was being silly, and told me so. He was still snickering at my over-protectiveness when we drove up to Hicklebee’s to buy the fourth book. “There’s nothing wrong with them,” he insisted.
“Probably not,” I agreed, “but I’m the mom, and you will just have to put up with me doing the best job I can parenting you.”
So I bought it and read it, with the children plucking at my sleeves and demanding to know if I was done yet. Fortunately I read fast; I turned it over to them within a day and a half. “Go ahead,” I said.
The books are not anti-Christian, Satanic, or evil. The bad guys do bad things. The good guys are witches and wizards, so the books could be construed as glorifying witchcraft. But they don’t glorify evil.
The writing is fast-paced, interesting, compelling, but not what I would call great writing. So I allow my kids to read them, but I don’t read them aloud, and I don’t assign them. The books are what I call popcorn books: not bad for you, like candy, but not good for you, like a salad, either.
Nor is the book particularly morally uplifting. Harry and his friends are loyal and kind to each other, but they sometimes lie or cheat. Not paragons. Not demons either.
I think the huge appeal of the books, aside from the quality, lies in two things. One, the kids get to leave home and go away to live in a big, cool old house with their friends. Two, the kids have magical powers; they are a cut above the non-magical humans, the muggles. I suspect that the latter factor is the biggest one, that smart kids who read for fun would just love to have magical powers that would help them deal with the petty picking-on that smart kids often have to endure from their peers.
The biggest flaw in the books is the elitism and derogation the wizards feel for the poor muggles. But by the fourth book, there is a change; the good wizards, Harry and his friends, are beginning to see that muggles are people, too.
In the months following my reading of Harry IV, two friends asked me, on two separate occasions, my opinion of the Potter books. The first lady, my pastor’s wife, nodded in agreement when I gave her my review. “I don’t see anything so bad in them either. I’m reading them aloud to my kids.”
The second friend shook her head. “I see your point, but we won’t be reading them. Not if the heroes are wizards and witches. To my mind, that’s glorifying witchcraft.”
I thought both of my friends were making good parenting decisions, based on their faith and their family values. And I think the whole process is illustrative of how these decisions are made in families, good families, caring families, Christian or not.
The point of view I don’t understand is the one expressed in Lisa Pampuch’s column, where she picks an extreme example, a man, not in Gilroy, not even in this state, who burned some Harry Potter videos. From this extreme example, she argues that Christian parents are not allowing their kids to read the books, and further, makes the unwarranted assumption that the parents haven’t even read the books.
The facts are that Christian parents, like all good parents, are monitoring what their kids read and watch, and making decisions based on their values. Not much of a story. I mean, what is so bad about parents caring about what their kids read? Is this a crime? But one can make a mountain out of a molehill if one works hard enough at it, even out of a mundane molehill such as choosing what to read to the kids.
