What specific result? Other than when you use them as a way to measure time I can’t think of any specific results attached to any specific prayer, and as time-measurements they’re a bitch because of variations in speed.
Absolution from sins was what I was thinking of, mostly - for oneself (“Say 3 Hail Marys and 4 Our Fathers, go forth and sin no more”) or for others (Saying a novena for the dead).
I did see one page online claiming David Copperfield does his tricks with Satan’s help.
According to my fundamentalist Christian relatives, Harry Potter books fall into the category of things that don’t glorify The Lord…therefore, a Good Christian shouldn’t give them any further thought.
On the other hand, based on their viewing/reading habits as published on Facebook, Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and The Chronicles of Narnia apparently glorify the heck out of the Almighty.
Well, Aslan is Jesus, so they’ve got that part right.
I think that there is also a concern that Harry Potter and its ilk is “devil worship Lite”; that it gets the young readers comfortable (even enthusiastic) about magic, when they should be warned to stay far away. I also think that many of the (deeply fundamental) groups who hold these beliefs are distrustful of fiction in general.
We were looking at a school for my daughter, which had a strong local reputation, run by what I thought was a pretty mainstream Christian organization. I admit that I was a bit surprised by their offhand comment, “Well, she won’t find that here.”
I’ve seen his show and I can well believe it. No human could do those things without infernal aid. 
When I was a kid, my fundamentalist Catholic father thought that even the Narnia books were too un-Christian, or something. Thankfully, my mother was sane, and she was the one who raised me, so she never had any objection to any of that stuff (and, in fact, she’s the one who introduced me to the Harry Potter books).
IIRC, in 101 People Who Are Really Screwing America (and Bernard Goldberg is only #73), Jack Huberman lists J.K. Rowling, as being at least a symptom of the growth of magical thinking, superstition and irrationality in America.
That pretty much sums up the attitude in my household when I was a kid. No one could point to any passage in the Bible that crucified Chuck Berry, but that didn’t matter. It was banned because it was not in the hymnal or written by Mozart.
I have a pamphlet authored by Billy James Hargis, a bible-thumping, fire & brimstone radio evangelist 50 years ago, about the Beatles. It is called Rhythm, Riots & Revolution, and warns of the mortal, moral danger to society if anyone listened to Beatles music. It even claimed you could get pregnant from it. :rolleyes: Hargis appeared to be deadly serious, and quoted bible verses that he thinks support his position if you stretch them beyond the breaking point, that is.
One can only suspect that a preacher taking this kind of stance is
The Narnia books (which I loved) didn’t have a problem in my fundamentalist home. Perhaps it was because of Lewis’ underlying dying and rising god (Aslan) concept. Lewis was widely known as a Christian apologist and proselytizer, something that I never picked up on as a kid, but maybe that’s what gave him a free pass in my household.
It certainly is a fine line between acceptable Christian magic and unacceptable Potter magic, isn’t it?
In a mood-setting sense, I suppose some women have.
Well, in the home of my Catholic upbringing, CS Lewis was considered dismissible Protestant theology candied up as a children’s book, so that line has a lot of space to shift.
The links in this thread are great…I’m reading bits aloud to my family.
What?! But, Anglicans are practically Catholic! (In the sense the bisexuals are practically straight.)
From Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew:
PETRUCHIO. Come, come, you wasp; i’ faith, you are too angry.
KATHERINA. If I be waspish, best beware my sting.
PETRUCHIO. My remedy is then to pluck it out.
KATHERINA. Ay, if the fool could find it where it lies.
PETRUCHIO. Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting?
In his tail.
KATHERINA. In his tongue.
PETRUCHIO. Whose tongue?
KATHERINA. Yours, if you talk of tales; and so farewell.
PETRUCHIO. What, with my tongue in your tail? Nay, come again,
Good Kate; I am a gentleman.
This is even worse than it sounds. Witches were supposed to attend Sabbaths where the Devil actually showed up in person and the witches worshipped him by kissing his hindquarters. Petruchio is literally comparing Kate to the Devil.
When I was in fifth grade (in Catholic school), the teacher read The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe to the class. I missed the allegory completely – the teacher made no effort to launch a class discussion about it, for some reason – and was very upset by Aslan’s sacrifice. Interestingly, I had a similar reaction to a cartoon that was shown to the class around Easter time in which a little boy and a little girl use their Bible to travel back in time to warn Jesus about the impending crucifixion…
No, they are Protestants and therefore condemned, same as Foot-Washing Baptists. Now, you and I could sit through a mass performed by a male priest of either and be hard-pressed to tell the difference, but there is one. A BIG one.
Harry sacrificing himself for his friends and coming back is TOTALLY different from Aslan sacrificing himself for his friends and coming back. :rolleyes:
It’s not as if HP mentions things like the importance of loyalty, not judging others, humility . . . :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
it’s simple. Fundies of any religion believe in magic. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be fundies (unless the purported fundie is a leader of a group of fundies or a politician).
Harry Potter’s magic isn’t their magic, and like all other magic it’s in competition with their own. Therefore it is evil. Why, it might be the magic of the second-most powerful magician in the universe.
Any magic not their magic might give their fundie compatriots ideas, even if the other magic is only slightly different.
A tally might tell us whether more wars are fought over slightly different magic than greatly different magic.