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What's a Christian to Do with Harry
Potter?
Chapter Four, Page One |
Please note that the page numbers online do not
correspond with the pages in the book. All footnotes are on this
page
What would Jesus do? This question, posed in the Christian
classic In His Steps by
Charles Sheldon, has become so familiar as to be reduced to ‘WWJD?’
But how do we determine what Jesus would
do, particularly in the kind of divisive debate where well-versed
Christians disagree as they do over Harry Potter? It is precisely this
kind of situation, involving personal opinion and individual application
of Scripture, in which the ‘WWJD?’ question becomes most useful.
In the fictional story, In
His Steps, a pastor challenges members of his church to take a
pledge. For one year they agree to ask, “What would Jesus do?”
before making any personal decision. They agree to consider what the
Bible has to say on the matter, pray about it, ask God for wisdom, seek
godly counsel if necessary, then come to their own conclusion on what they
believe Jesus would do.
They were necessarily relying on
dictates of conscience, because the question was to be a matter of
personal reflection before the Lord. They were not to poll their friends
to see what their friends thought Jesus would do in their situation. Nor
were they to pry into their friends business regarding personal
decisions and volunteer their opinion of what they believed Jesus would
tell their friend to do. Once the individual gained a conscientious
conviction in answer to their personal question, “What would Jesus
do?’ they pledged to do it regardless of the consequences.
At one point in the story a man who
owns an establishment that sells hard liquor, wine, and beer asks the
question: What would Jesus do?
After prayerful consideration of many passages in the Bible that mention
drinking wine, the first miracle of Jesus being to make water into wine
for a wedding celebration, and strong warnings about drunkenness
throughout the Bible, he gains a personal conviction that Jesus would
not sell hard liquor used primarily to get people drunk. He decides to
discontinue the sale of hard liquor, but has no such conviction over
selling beer and wine.
At a meeting of the people who took
the pledge, he is questioned critically about his decision to continue
selling beer and wine by a man who is a recovering alcoholic. To that
man, beer and wine represent drunkenness because whenever he took one
drink he could not stop himself until he was drunk. The store owner
reminded his friend that he had followed the pledge: he prayerfully
considered all of Scripture and came to a personal and conscientious
conviction about his decision. In this case, as in many of this nature,
what made the difference with regard to the answer was the personal
history of the individual and what the matter meant
to that person.
It follows that each person’s
answer would seem the obvious one -- to their mind! It would take some
consideration and adjustment to broaden their perspective to see that
another Christian might not make the same associations, and therefore;
would come to a different decision. And -- most importantly for
Christian unity -- that both personal decisions, while different in
terms of personal boundaries and conduct, could be right before God.
This is a good analogy for the
debate over whether or not Christians should read or allow their
children to read or see the Harry Potter stories. You may have noticed
in the in the previous chapter that the pro and con positions depended
on the associations each person made in their mind. These often
reflected the personal experience of the individual. One man even
appealed to this as part of his argument, saying, “I
know from personal experience
that it is not okay...” and who can effectively argue with that? No
one. Therefore, personal experience as well as the associations in our
own minds regarding the disputed matter all come into play.
Thus, it is not surprising that Alan
Jacobs, who is a college professor of English at a Christian institution
associates Harry Potter primarily with classic literature. For him, the
issues are defined by his study of the history of magic in literature
and science. Alison Lentini, a writer with the Spiritual Counterfeits
Project, has degrees in Romance languages and literatures from Princeton
University, also looked at the Harry Potter books from a literary
perspective. However, before coming to Christ, she was involved in Wicca
and neo-paganism. She has personal
experience with occult practices that correspond to some of the
subjects at taught at Hogwarts. For her, the issues are defined by her
knowledge of occult practices that are being practiced in our world
today. Her study of literature is taken in light of her experience. Both
referred to and compared the Harry Potter books to the Chronicles of
Narnia (although I didn’t include those remarks in the excerpts);
however, their interpretations of Narnia and are contrary. These two
Christian scholars came to entirely different conclusions about Harry
Potter. What’s more, both wrote convincing
arguments to support their cases for and against Harry Potter.
Furthermore, I believe both of their conclusions are right -- for them!
It’s one thing to see how two
people can look at the same work of literature and see two different
things. But how can two Christians can use the same Bible and come to
opposing positions about what is right,
but still both be right with God? There is a biblical explanation
for this, covered under the heading of disputable matters (found in
Romans 14, 1 Corinthians chapters 8-10 which will be covered in more
detail later). In such cases, where cultural, personal, and spiritual
issues overlap, individual Christians have to finally agree to disagree.
Sincere Bible-believing Christians, who seek the Lord with all their
hearts, can be led by the same Holy Spirit to opposing conclusions. This
is not relativism or situational ethics, not compromising our commitment
to godly conduct under mere social or political pressure. This is a
personal decision about the appropriateness of disputable conduct when
there can be legitimate differences of opinion between Christians. Yes,
the Bible does allow for cases.
Clearly, the issues raised over
Harry Potter don’t lead to a single Christian position. It’s a disputable matter because we are not
debating whether or not it is okay for a Christian to practice witchcraft, or cast a
spell. The Christian position on that is clear. We agree that we should
never participate in anything
listed in Deuteronomy 18:9-14, never practice
any form of occult involvement. But reading Harry Potter is not the
same as practicing or even --
as some assert -- promoting witchcraft. However, some can take
it to mean that. Therein
lies the disputable part of these issues that Christians are debating in
earnest.
Asking What
would Jesus do with Harry Potter? can be helpful when we have to
deal with disputable matters. But it is only useful to dictate personal
choice about our own conduct. It loses it’s usefulness when we turn it
into a rhetorical question to tell someone else what Jesus would have
them do. The letter to Christianity Today from the twelve-year-old boy
in the previous chapter, showed he had seriously considered the issues
in light of God’s Word, and came to a definite conclusion that it
would be wrong for him to read Harry Potter. He clearly associated
reading them with involving himself in witchcraft that the Bible
forbids. Therefore, it would be sin for him to do so.
However, he then went a step
further, writing,
“I can’t picture Jesus
recommending the Harry Potter series as good reading... It’s so
obvious that these books are bad.”
Another letter to CT appealed to the WWJD? question, arguing along these lines, “Do you think Jesus would
be proud of a parent who gave their child such a book?”
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