I do not understand the oposition of some Christians to the Harry Potter books. Especially those who on the one hand criticize Harry Potter and then praise C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia or The Lord of The Rings. It strikes me as a very inconsistent position. It’s also odd, when one considers the influence that Narnia had on J.K. Rowling’s thinking, both as far as content, as well as her decision to make the Harry Potter series a seven book series, the same as the Narnia series.

Rowling has written fiction. They are stories of good and evil, with good being triumphant. No one in their right minds would take them as how-to manuals or imagine that they describe reality. They are stories, designed to entertain. That’s it. Rowling doesn’t believe in magic; she believes she was telling stories.

She no more imagines she is describing reality or that magic is real, any more than Jotham in his fable that he relates in Judges 9:7-19, imagined that the various trees and bushes were looking for a king and conversed with one another on the topic. He was telling a story with a moral purpose. There is nothing remotely evil in telling stories of fantasy; it’s kind of the nature of stories. They tend toward the fantastical sometimes and that’s part of their charm. That’s what makes them fun, and fun is okay.

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About R.P. Nettelhorst

I'm married with three daughters. I live in southern California and I'm the interim pastor at Quartz Hill Community Church. I have written several books. I spent a couple of summers while I was in college working on a kibbutz in Israel. In 2004, I was a volunteer with the Ansari X-Prize at the winning launches of SpaceShipOne. Member of Society of Biblical Literature, American Academy of Religion, and The Authors Guild
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