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Enthusiastic youngsters across America are lining up at bookshops for signed copies of the latest Harry Potter adventure stories. Words like “wizards” and “hogwarts,” “muggles” and “Quidditch” are establishing themselves in the vocabulary of the preteen set. And some parents and ministers don’t like it.
Should youngsters be warned against reading the novels about teenage wizard Harry Potter, student of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry? Should books about magic be removed from young hands? And if so, should the Bible be removed as well?
The Harry Potter books recount the adventures of an unhappy and maltreated orphan named Harry, who learns on his 11th birthday that he is not quite the boy he always thought he was. Instead, Harry is the son of two wizards who were murdered by an evil magician named Voldemort. Harry is invited by the wizard community to reclaim his heritage by studying at the Hogwarts school of magic and to join the battle against the “dark side” of magic.
The books have already divided conservative Christians. Several evangelical ministers have preached sermons against Harry, and some “family values” groups have challenged the reading of the series in public schools in a dozen states. On the other hand, evangelical speaker Charles Colson and Wheaton College professor Alan Jacobs have defended the books as enjoyable reading with lessons in character building.
We’ll certainly hear more about the controversy. The first three Harry Potter books, by Scottish author J.K. Rowling, have already sold ten million copies; Rowling plans to publish four more volumes by 2003.
The magic versus religion controversy is not a new one. In 1940 the British anthropologist Sir James Frazer, in his famous work The Golden Bough, popularized the view that magic preceded, and was gradually supplanted by, religion. Over time, the struggle between the church and magic turned cruel and ugly as midwives and other women healers were charged with witchcraft by crowds and clerics. Their torture, burning and drowning took place in cities and villages across Europe and found their way to Salem, Massachusetts and other colonial American towns.
But drawing the line between magic and religion is not such an easy matter. Consider these biblical examples: What is one to make of Jacob’s use of spotted branches as “sympathetic magic” to cause Laban’s livestock to bear spotted offspring (Genesis 30)? What is one to say of the Bible’s easy acceptance of the magic of Egyptian sorcerers who can turn rods into serpents, as can Aaron (Exodus 7)? And how do these accounts compare with the story of the wand that turns into a snake and attacks Harry? What are we to make of the similarity of “miracle” and “magic” in the stories of walking on water, stilling storms and multiplying loaves and fishes? And how do these biblical feasts differ from the food that magically appears at the Hogwarts school three times a year? What more classic example of wizardry could one find than the story of Elisha inheriting Elijah’s magic cape, or of Elijah’s dark curse, which brings two bears from the forest to savage 42 boys who had irritated him (2 Kings 2)? What kind of magic is used to restore the dead in both the Old Testament—where Elisha restores the Shunammite widow’s son to life (2 Kings 4:8–37)—and the New—in which Jesus brings back Lazarus (John 11:1–44)? Now, how does this differ from Harry’s use of tears from a phoenix to cure his snake bite? It is stories like these that inspire wonder, amazement and awe in the reader of the Bible. Perhaps children who learn to read with the creative imagination required by Rowling’s books will be better prepared to appreciate the profundity of the Bible’s most imaginative—indeed, most magical—narratives, parables and poems.
Are magic and miracle different? Yes and no. The actions might be precisely the same, but the actors differ. Miracle, for many, is simply magic performed by a biblical or holy figure, an agent of God. But does this mean that stories about magic should be banned?
Enthusiastic youngsters across America are lining up at bookshops for signed copies of the latest Harry Potter adventure stories. Words like “wizards” and “hogwarts,” “muggles” and “Quidditch” are establishing themselves in the vocabulary of the preteen set. And some parents and ministers don’t like it.
