Explain the "Harry Potter is evil" meme?

Great Debates
1

(Apologies in advance if this belongs in Cafe Society, but it’s primarily about religious witnessing, so I’m putting it here.)

I’m reading a memoir by a dear friend who’s quite religious in a way that I, for comparison’s sake, am not. She’s the most enthusiastic Protestant I’ve ever met. One of her preoccupations (which she doesn’t explain in her book to my satisfaction) is with the Harry Potter series of books, how it invites demons into one’s home, how the magic spells actually work for the kids at home trying them, etc. Her book kind of assumes that anybody reading it already knows just how bad and dangerous HP is, but this is based on arguments I’ve never heard and a theology I only have a second-hand familiarity with.

Is this belief common in mainstream American religions? What is the basis of it? If The Boy Who Lived is tainted goods, why do CS Lewis and JRR Tolkein get a free pass? I tried to find online sites that might explain this, but could only find some bullshit site that tried to pass off some publicity stills of Daniel Radcliffe in EQUUS as porn-y “actual footage” from a Harry Potter movie.

2

Um, no…not that I’m aware of anyway (I’m an agnostic, so perhaps I missed the other major religions believing the spells are real and such, but I doubt it).

Not to disparage your friend, but crazy people believe crazy things, and anyone who thinks that the spells in Harry Potter actually are pretty much nuts. Having read the books, the things don’t even work very well in the fictitious setting of the book very well, and they aren’t logically consistent or even very interesting.

My guess is that it’s due to the popularity of the books and movies that have set off the nutters among us wrt fiction. But Harry Potter isn’t the only book or whatever that have set crazy people on the warpath, just the most recent and largest.

3

See, this I don’t get. If the book really did provide spells that work why would that not be reason enough to switch religions and worship Dumbledore? Most religions only give you prayer as an option and even then the results are spotty at best. If spells work 100% of the time I am lining up for Bertie Bott’s and pumpkin juice at holy communion, TYVM.

4

The basis just seems to be “the books involve magic, characters do magic, this is presented as a good thing” (though that last one is not necessarily required, given that I’ve seen things Voldemort and the Death Eaters do presented as evidence of the book’s evil).

And yes, they’re popular enough that they’re a familiar target. That at least doesn’t seem an objectionable part of the whole thing.

5

Hi, XT. Any kind of religious belief is going to look ridiculous to someone on the outside (Virgin birth? Prohibition on pork? No dancing?), but there’s usually some kind of internal logic among believers. I’d just like to know what, if any, is in effect here. And yeah, I do suspect some hacky church elder just wanted to get butts in seats by going after some popular cultural phenomenon that kids enjoy (“Rock n Roll is the Devil’s Music! It’s not the lyrics, IT’S THE BEAT!”).

6

The Bible is pretty clear when it comes to what you should do with witches and warlocks.

A lot of these fundy beliefs are hold overs from the witch hunts. Witches do have magic. Where do they get it from? The Devil. Either by making some sort of terrible bargain, or by having sex with him. People would attribute all sorts of maladies and ill fortune to witch curses, ranging from bad crops to impotence. As far as I know, the only place where this still happens is in some African tribes. Erectile dysfunction? A witch did it.

It doesn’t matter if Harry is using magic for good. He’s in league with the Devil and should be stoned to death. Also see: Dungeons and Dragons is evil, Doom is evil, and so on (which struck me as odd, since Doom is about killing all the demons…with really big guns).

7

Yeah, but this is a belief that events happening in fictional children’s books or in a movie are real…that’s a bit beyond the pale even for the magically created fish and virgin birth crowd. Anyone who thinks this is more than a few Cheetos short of a bag.

As far as I can tell it’s only a few fringe religions that think that the spells are real and you can really summon demons and such using them as a guide, so the effect is going to be pretty much miniscule unless you are either wanting to write a sensational story about the rubes who believe this stuff or are one of the rubes inside the religion in question.

8

There is a not insignificant group of people that lump all forms of “magic”, from any fiction or nonfiction source, as falling under Biblical prohibitions against witchcraft, divination, etc. And the Bible is pretty clear about what you should do to wizards, witches, sorcerers, etc.:

http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Bible-Verses-About-Witchcraft/

Rational people can look at the Harry Potter books and think, “These are just books, they’re not real.” The same argument is difficult to put forth to a Biblical literalist, whose entire view of good and evil depends on believing that a book is very very real. The Bible says there are wizards and wizards are evil and we should kill them. This book about wizards has children wanting to be wizards, possibly it’s teaching them to be wizards, therefore this book is a tool of evil.

I can see the logic. It’s internally consistent, if goofy.

9

IMHO it has little to do with magic and witchcraft. Instead, it’s a repeat of the whole “Beatles are bigger than Jesus” thing - Harry Potter is evil because it’s popular, perhaps even more popular than the Jesus and the Bible and going to church. Certain types of religious folk have a hard time dealing with what they perceive as competition.

10

Was this article part of the cause or a response?

11

MilliCal went to a Catholic school for a couple of months, and we were surprised to find that they didn’t allow Harry Potter books in the school library. I was flabbergasted. I couldn’t have imagined them doing this at the Catholic school I’d attended as a kid.

12

Yeah, there’s no movement I’m aware of to ban, say, Percy Jackson.

13

This is very true. When I was a kid, I had friends who weren’t allowed to watch Bewitched, for pretty much the same reason. I think it has to do with the presentation of witchcraft as in any way a positive, or even a morally neutral, thing.

I don’t think it’s particularly productive to call people with these beliefs crazy, but there do seem to be a minority of people, mostly among Protestant Christianity, who take certain aspects of the Bible very seriously. In this particular case, it has to do with belief in witchcraft.

The Bible mentions, and usually condemns, people who work magic, practice divination, tell fortunes, interpret omens, and so forth. The word “witch” is used to refer to these people in some translations, notably the King James Version. To some readers of the Bible, this indicates that witches exist, and are an affront to God.

That’s why it does no good to say things like “Harry Potter is just fantasy. None of those magic spells would really work.” To these readers, it’s patently obvious that witchcraft is not fantasy. It’s very real, and very evil, and any work that would present it as morally acceptable is (willingly or not) acting in such a way as to make it seem “normal,” and thus weaken our defenses against it.

People with these beliefs, it seems to me, appear to interact with fiction quite differently than most readers. They often seem to have a very difficult time with the notion that an author might write about something without approving of it, or without intending the reader to accept it and approve of it, as well.

And don’t assume that C.S. Lewis “gets a free pass.” (Warning: Ugly website design!!)

14

It’s not nearly as popular either in book form or in the movies (which were dreadful, IMHO). However, if you Google Christian Groups Banned Percy Jackson you’ll get more than a few hits, so no…even Percy isn’t immune.

15

Nope.

16

Try Wikipedia: Religious debates over the Harry Potter series.

17

They might want to check back with the Vatican: Vatican praises Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince | Harry Potter | The Guardian

I have heard several Episcopal clergy praise the HP books for their emphasis on friendship, loyalty, courage and resistance to evil.

18

Definitely a response. Not that it doesn’t get cited as “proof” of HP-caused Satanism by people who don’t know what the The Onion is.

19

Because the fundie/evangelical take – and it is consistent with Scripture – is that magic and divination do work, but are not of the Lord, Whose followers should avoid such things and rely on prayer alone, because anything supernatural, spiritual or religious that is not of the Lord is by default of Satan.

20

Thanks. My Google search used the wrong combination of search terms.