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Posted on 11/9/2001, 10:58:40 AM by MadIvan

Conservative Christian critics in the US claim Harry Potter leads children to witchcraft and sin.

The books top the banned book listing for 2000, compiled by the American Library Association.

Other Christians insist the stories are harmless fantasies about magic and morals.

"I'm so tired of people saying he's evil," said Connie Neal, a Christian author who has investigated the Potter claims. "They're choosing to interpret the books in a very selective way."

Richard Abanes, author of Harry Potter And The Bible: The Menace Behind The Magick, said: "Although the story is fictional, Harry Potter has real-world occult parallels.

"The books present astrology, numerology, mediumship, crystal gazing," he said. "Kids are enthralled with it. And kids like to copy."

"There's a real religious concern," said Jana Riess of Publishers Weekly, who moderated an Abanes-Neal debate at a convention of Christian retailers. "Evangelical Christians believe that witchcraft is real."

But, she said, witchcraft in the Potter novels "is not a worldview in the way evangelicals would think of it." She likens the fuss to parallel complaints when The Wizard Of Oz was published a century ago.

Harry Potter author JK Rowling calls the accusations "absurd," saying Harry Potter's world is entirely imaginary: "I have met thousands of children now, and not even one time has a child come up to me and said, 'Ms Rowling, I'm so glad I've read these books because now I want to be a witch'."

Though more than 50 million copies are in print worldwide, there has been no evidence of widespread conversions to paganism or witchcraft. Andy Norfolk of the London-based Pagan Federation, said the youth-aimed Potter books have created no serious interest in his movement because they don't appeal to older people seeking spiritual options who "see them as rather uncool."

I really don't understand this. The King Arthur legends had Merlin the Magician in it, but no such objections were presented. Shakespare in "Macbeth" had three witches at the start of it, and no one objected. Bedknobs and Broomsticks had Angela Landsbury as a witch with "Poisoned Dragon's Liver" in her pantry. No one said a word. Why this in particular? It's just a story for goodness sake; and most parents are sensible enough to teach their kids the difference between fact and fiction. At least I hope they are.

Regards, Ivan

But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour."

Today is Trinity Sunday. Centuries ago words were written to be a call and a spur to the faithful servants of Truth and Justice: "Arm yourselves, and be ye men of valour, and be in readiness for the conflict; for it is better for us to perish in battle than to look upon the outrage of our nation and our altar. As the Will of God is in Heaven, even so let it be." - Winston Churchill, 1940

This then, my lords and gentlemen, is the message which we send forth today to all states and nations, bound or free, to all the men in all the lands who care for freedom's cause. To our Allies and well-wishers in Europe, to our American friends and helpers drawing ever closer in their might across the ocean, this is the message-lift up your hearts, all will come right. Out of depths of sorrow and sacrifice will be born again the glory of mankind. - Winston Churchill, 1941

"What kind of a people do they think we are? Is it possible that they do not realize that we shall never cease to persevere against them until they have been taught a lesson which they and the world will never forget?" - Winston Churchill, 1941

LET US GO FORWARD TOGETHER

Ivan: not everyone shares our peculiarly British fondness for Potter.

Shocking if true: What JK Rowling really looks like

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