2001-11-16 - 12:12 p.m.
Deep Thoughts on "Harry Potter" and three-sided fences ...

Sorry, no funny stories yet. There are plenty of thoughts rattling around in my brain, though, and those always make good musing material. I wonder why it is that I muse best when I can write it all out, and yet I can't make any progress on my novel anymore? I think it's because I can't write third-person worth a damn. Time to start over in first-person, I guess, and hope that doesn't turn off readers.

I had a nice series of deep conversations with Hildegaard this weekend, and on the phone the week before. I hadn't done that in a long while, and I ended up talking far too much. I kept telling her to shut me up, that I was babbling because I've been socially deprived, but she never did. Probably because she was doing the same thing. =)

Anyway, about halfway through one of those long conversations, we were having one of those good-natured discussion/arguments about the moral status of "Harry Potter". She was relating how her pastor and family thought it was Evil, and when I asked why, she said she hadn't read it herself, but the Bible says witchcraft is Evil, and according to the pastor, mixing witchcraft and eleven-year-olds in a novel is a horrific idea and might inspire children who read the books to start messing around with Evil things.

This is exactly the kind of black-and-white thinking that inspires me to instant outrage. Which is funny, since I'm what might be called a fundamentalist Christian myself, and I do believe that witchcraft is not something people should be messing with. (Please don't flame me for that; I have more reasons than just what the Bible says. I'm not a knee-jerk believer). How much do you want to bet that the pastor him- (or her-) self hasn't even read the first "Harry Potter" book?

My first reaction was to think, "Hello. Narnia?" The Narnia books, all seven of them, feature magic in them, are aimed at children, and are typically welcomed by Christians, not despised. Why is that? Oh, yeah, they were written by a Christian author (C.S. Lewis) as a Christian metaphor. "Aslan" makes it all better, and the redemptive themes, yadda yadda. *gag* Are you picking up my sarcasm yet?

I first picked up "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" when I was 5 years old. Do you think I had any idea then what all those important themes were about? Hardly. I was just enjoying the tale. I was 7 when I read the entire series through for the first time. Did I have any better grasp on Christian themes then? Riiiiiight.

Little children in church are taught to "accept Jesus" sometimes as young as 3 or 4, but salvation is an enormous concept to truly understand at that age. It's more, "God loves me, Don't do bad things". I was barely starting to get a grasp on the seriousness of it when I was 7, and I was in Sunday School practically since birth. I didn't pick up on most of the theological issues in the Narnia books until I was in my teens, reading them for the fourth or fifth time.

Anyway. Legalists will say, "But the Witch in that first Narnia book was an evil character," and "Magic in those stories serves as a device, it's not glorified or promoted, and besides, it was written by a Christian" and so forth. *sigh* I suppose these are the same types of people that also bar children from things like the "Wizard of Oz" series and fairytales (Disney-told or otherwise) and "Lord of the Rings" and etcetera etcetera ad infinitum. Or who reject even Narnia as too likely to inspire badness. My friend Jocasta was raised like that. Anything fantasy, or even sci-fi, was forbidden to her.

In my (not-so) humble opinion, blocking a child from reading imaginative works is to cripple that child's imagination, and that cripples all of humanity as a whole. God gave us imaginations for a reason, and creativity, and free will, and some of the harshest things that have ever happened in this world were started by some group that locked down on expressions of same among the populace. (Taliban, anyone?).

I could understand the animosity more if the message of the story was immoral in some way, or against Christian beliefs. But it's not. "Harry Potter" (IMHO) is a story about a boy learning and growing and triumphing over adversity in positive ways. It wasn't "Oooh, teach children witchcraft". Young eleven-year-old Harry spent the book fighting against Wrong, and learning more about what is Right, and while it may not be expressed in Christian terms or themes, Harry Potter's adventures are morally positive ones.

To reject a story out-of-hand because "Hey! Witchcraft!" is to confuse the decorations in a house for its foundations.

Now, it may be true that some children might react to "Harry Potter" by trying to practice witchcraft. That's not of the good. And I'm not saying that every child should read "Harry Potter" or any of the other books I've read and loved over the years. I'm just saying that the books themselves aren't evil. If a child has problems with "Harry Potter", then that's a symptom of a problem in the child's personality, not an indictment against the book. Just as "Dungeons and Dragons" (also popularly church-hated) is not necessarily evil, IMHO, although it is dangerous to the kind of addictive personalities that identify totally with fantasy worlds.

I bet I lost some people with that last argument, and caused others to roll their eyes. *laugh* Ah well. This is my own personal tirade on the subject, and you don't have to agree with me; plus, if you're not in the slightly-more-righteous-than-me camp, this totally isn't aimed at you at all. Which is what I told Hildegaard, when she seemed to be sticking to the Evil-Harry-Potter idea; I'm just irritated at the closemindedness of the man who decided to preach against it, to begin with.

But then she laughed and said something else, that I find both complimentary and frightening. She said I challenge people. Yes, I know, not too threatening; but then she elaborated. The essence of the comment was that I'm a forceful arguer, that I have a tendency to take up an issue and batter at people's ideas with it for awhile before giving up. That discussions with me help her define her own point of view more thoroughly. Which is good. But also sometimes alienating ...

I'm always telling Hildegaard to stop me if I offend her or get too forceful or go on too long. As I said before, she never does. She gives as good as she gets most of the time, and at others, she just "Hmmm" and goes on in another topic. But do I offend other people? I can remember the discussions I used to have with Jocasta back in the day, three or more years ago, before I gave up talking to her about anything serious. It didn't matter what my point of view was, if it didn't agree with hers, she'd start getting hurt and angry after only a couple of minutes. Even if I really agreed with her, and was arguing devil's advocate. Didn't matter. Result: Upset Jocasta.

I don't want to be offensive. And usually only get argumentative like that among close friends, who tend to be the argument-enjoying type themselves. I worry though. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. I just want to promote understanding.

Another layer in the greyness of me, I suppose. Another reason for both sides of the fence to look at me askance, and say I am sitting on it, when really, why do fences have to have only two sides? I have my firm Christian beliefs, and I guide my actions accordingly, but I also believe you must take a good look from your adversary's point of view before charging in with sword drawn. You can open your mind without your brain falling out, and I think you should.

You don't have to endorse other beliefs, you don't have to agree with them, you can point to verses and say "This is wrong". But doing so without thinking first and trying to understand, is the quickest way to hurt feelings and rashness and alienation of people who might otherwise be willing to listen to YOUR beliefs. Not to mention backing ass-first over that fence into wrongness of another sort if you're not careful.

Ugh ... I think my point(s) have gotten lost in there somewhere. But hopefully if you've read it all, you get my drift ... I think part of what I was really trying to say is, "God gave us each a brain, and a heart. Use them!"