Just a quick note, hopefully old news but I thought it worth passing on:

The email /web pages that allege to detail various grade schoolers who have been led into the occult by the Harry Potter books are based on a satire written in The Onion. The Onion is a web newspaper that consists entirely of satire.

The books do portray magic in a neutral manner and they do involve ghosts (with the exception of one scene of the 4th book ghosts make up a rather minor part of the stories).

Those issues may well disturb some Christians, but the over-the-top stories of the impact of this are just that, over-the-top.

FWIW the following is an interview with the author. http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2001230004-2001231268,00.html

Robert

~~~

wrote in message news:<>…

> The email /web pages that allege to detail various grade schoolers

> who have been led into the occult by the Harry Potter books are

> based on a satire written in The Onion. The Onion is a web newspaper

> that consists entirely of satire.

And yet, in England, I have heard on the BBC, Pagan schools and religious organizations have had to hire extra staffing just to take the sudden increase in phone calls seeking information.

I do not doubt that there is no organized conspiracy to convert the naive and the young to witchcraft and paganism. At least not in this world. Yet we do not strive against flesh a blood. We are ever at war and for the Christian to white wash it in any other way is akin to hiding our heads in the sand. From the books I have read, Harry Potter is different than, say JRRT. Harry Potter and the characters that surround him, do not use their magic in the same way that Anslem did in CS Lewis’ Narnia tales. I think, rather, it is more akin to another Inkling writer, Charles Williams, and even there it is different in that in HP as there is no allusion to ultimate Goodness.

But that is just my .02. I see nothing wrong with HP if Christian parents explain fantasy from fact and darkness from light. I think too many Christian parents go overboard. I remember my children when they were small playing with “Masters of the Universe” figures and having some people get their noses bent out of shape over it. I think imagination is to be cultivated, even amongst us adults, not inhibited. God created us in His own image which means that we too can be creative and fanciful.

-L