Potter and Evil

The reason I first picked up the original Harry Potter book was because I kept receiving forwarded emails from Christians who claimed that the Harry Potter books promote Satanism, witchcraft, and all sorts of evil. Rather than ignorantly forwarding those emails to other Christian brothers and sisters, I decided to read the books to see if there is any credence to these attacks. While I do believe we ought to be very careful to monitor what our children are reading, and as I mentioned above, I think the late Potter books are too dark for younger kids, I do not think that these books promote evil. It seems to me that too many Christians have adopted the methods of protest and boycott as their only means of engaging society, so they quickly apply these methods to the Potter books. I’m sure such Christians are well intentioned in their attempt to avoid compromising their values and to protect their children from evil, but I am yet to hear a convincing argument for why the Potter books are so evil. Here are my main reasons for saying this:

1. Most Christians who attack the Harry Potter books simply because they include witchcraft, wizardry, and magic often fail to criticize so many other books and stories that include these same elements. The same people who preach against Harry Potter for all of its magical aspects are typically the same people who praise stories like The Chronicles of Narnia or The Lord of the Rings which include magical elements themselves. My point here is not that Harry Potter is in the same league as Narnia or LOTR; I’m simply pointing out that they need to do a better job of explaining why the magic in Harry Potter is so much worse than the magic in all other fantasy books that they tolerate.

2. I tend to think that the witchcraft/magic in Harry Potter is only a plot device that isn’t supposed to be taken seriously or seen as being in any way real. Some Christians have responded to this “plot device” argument by saying that witchcraft is in fact real, and they quote Deuteronomy 18:10-14 to back up the grave nature of its reality. Let me just say that I do believe in the reality of evil spirits, Satan, witchcraft, etc… and I don’t mean to make light of any of it. I will also readily admit that occult practices are real and should not be dabbled in. However, I don’t think the magic in Harry Potter resembles real witchcraft and occult practices. From my limited knowledge on the subject, it seems to me that true occult practices involve real spiritual elements like worshiping some form of spirit or interacting with spirits through séances, weegie boards, etc… The magic in Harry Potter includes none of these spiritual elements. It is not grounded in any spiritual reality at all. It includes things like invisibility cloaks, flying brooms, and the ability to transform into animals, and I seriously doubt that any of these are supposed to be taken seriously or are supposed to resemble real occult practices.

Of course, the seventh and final book could reveal that Harry Potter does in fact worship Satan, and if this is the case, I will certainly have to change my opinion.

New Tunes

I’m digging a new CD that I picked up last week. It’s the first album released by a fellow Buckeye named Joshua Radin. If you’re into mellow/acoustic/modern-folk music, you may want to check it out. You can listen to four of his songs on his myspace page here.

My favorite song so far is “Winter” which begins with the words:
“I should know who I am by now; I walk the record stands somehow thinking of winter. Your name is the splinter inside me while I wait.”
Anyway, the song has a sentimental quality that fits my general mood of late.

How Much is your Body Worth?

$4840.00The Cadaver Calculator - Find out how much your body is worth. From Mingle2 - Free Online Dating
If my body is only worth $4840, why is health insurance so expensive?

A God Who Suffers

I just finished my final course for seminary, so I now feel an incredible freedom to read any book that I choose to read! Yippee! I ordered a few used books off of Ebay, and I just finished the first book to arrive: "Night" by Elie Wiesel. It’s one of the most captivating and haunting books I have ever read. "Night" is Wiesel’s autobiographical account of living through the holocaust as a young teenage boy. If you have not read this book, I highly recommend it. It is difficult to stomach, but it is also inspirational and deeply moving.

In the most interesting passage of the book, Wiesel recounts a story of a likeable and sweet Jewish boy who is brutally hung to death by the Nazi SS. He writes:

“But the third rope was still moving: the child, too light was still breathing…And so he remained for more than half an hour, lingering between life and death, writhing before our eyes. And we were forced to look at him at close range. He was still alive when I passed him. His tongue was still red, his eyes not yet extinguished. Behind me I heard the (a man) asking, ‘For God’s sake, where is God?’ And from within me, I heard a voice answer: ‘Where He is? This is where—hanging here from this gallows.’”

As a boy Wiesel passionately believed in God and even desired to become a rabbi, but the holocaust made him lose all faith in God. I wonder if his experience would have been any different if he had believed in a suffering savior, a God who descended to human form and suffered an atrocious death on a cross. I cannot pretend to imagine the horror that Wiesel suffered in the midst of Nazi oppression and the horrors of the concentration camps, but I wonder if his faith in God could have survived if he was a Christian and knew the suffering of Christ. It seems to me that the only faith that would have had a chance of surviving such a horrendous experience is the Christian faith.

Theology Quiz

Here's another fun quiz to determine your theological tradition. I was actually a little surprised how strongly mine turned out. It worked better than I expected:

You are an evangelical in the Wesleyan tradition. You believe that God's grace enables you to choose to believe in him, even though you yourself are totally depraved. The gift of the Holy Spirit gives you assurance of your salvation, and he also enables you to live the life of obedience to which God has called us. You are influenced heavly by John Wesley and the Methodists.

Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan - 96%
Neo orthodox - 82%
Roman Catholic - 71%
Emergent/Postmodern - 54%
Reformed Evangelical - 46%
Charismatic/Pentecostal - 46%
Fundamentalist - 43%
Classical Liberal - 32%
Modern Liberal - 11%

A Prayer

I was reading and praying tonight and came across this prayer by Thomas Merton. I was moved by his words. I need to pray his prayer:

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.” (from “Thoughts in Solitude” p. 89).

Are You a Heretic?

Here's a test to determine if you're a heretic. I scored 100% as a Chalcedon compliant, so obviously this test failed to pick out my specific heresies. Oh well, no test is perfect.

Anyway, I got this from Sean Scribner's blog. It's pretty fun.

My Sweet Hair

Yeah, I haven't been blogging much lately. I hope to post more over the next couple of weeks, but one thing I have been doing is letting my hair grow. I figured you might enjoy this pic from a few weeks ago. Jill and I were bored on a Sunday afternoon, so I let her do my hair.

We're #2!

A few years ago, a friend of mine found some 30 year old paraphernalia from Circleville Bible College. One of the items he found was a sign with the college’s old sports slogan. The slogan read: “We’re #2!” The implication was that “We’re #2 because God is #1.” I think it was the cheesiest slogan I have ever heard….but now I’m not so sure.

Perhaps all Ohio sports teams should adopt “We’re #2” as their official motto, not because God’s #1 and Ohio is #2, but because Ohio teams are finishing second in everything in this year. We’re putting together the greatest string of silver metals in the history of sports. The Buckeye’s football team was shellacked by Florida in the National Championship game in January. A few months later their basketball team was beaten handily by Florida in the basketball National Championship. Then, just last week, the Cleveland Cavaliers were swept by the Spurs in the NBA finals. If the Cleveland Indians can somehow manage to lose the World Series this fall, 2007 should mark Ohio as the greatest runner-up in the history of sports, and I think that’s something to cheer about. So, here’s to you Ohio, you may not be the best, but your pretty darn close.