Christians & HP (side order of LOTR)

[beldasnoop]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Richelle Votaw" 
<rvotaw at i...> wrote:
> 
> Now, I admit there are hard core fundamentalists who simply do not 
embrace
> ANY fantasy stories at all.  I know people who don't allow their 
child to
> read any sort of fairy tale, from Cinderella on up.  I respect their
> choices, though I personally think that's rather narrow minded.  As 
long as
> a child is taught to separate fantasy from reality, I see no 
problem.  It's
> the people who enjoy fairy tales, LOTR and so on but bash HP that 
really
> bother me.

Me, too.  I'm also a Christian (not Pentecostal, but I am an 
Evangelical), and I've noticed mixed reaction to HP and fantasy in 
general among people at my church.  There are a lot of hard-core 
Tolkien fans, but there are a few (very few AFAIK) families who don't 
like LoTR because they don't like even the slightest suggestion 
of "witchcraft".  I don't really bother trying to convince them, 
because I don't think I'd get anywhere; I just respectfully 
disagree.  As for HP, I have heard one or two people bash it, but 
again, there are probably just as many (if not more) who love it.  It 
was actually a lady from my church who finally got me interested 
enough to consider reading them (I didn't think they were bad--they 
just didn't seem that interesting to me before), and then I saw the 
first movie in my hotel room while on a vacation, and I just *had* to 
go to the library when I got home and check out the books.  I've been 
hooked ever since.  

The fun thing is that now my husband is reading them.  He's never 
been much of a reader, but he's heard me talk about HP so much that 
he's become extremely curious.  We just bought a set of the first 
four books to go along with my copy of book 5 (which is the first HP 
I didn't check out from the library first), and he's reading SS right 
now.  I think the more Christians read HP, the better, because as far 
as I've seen, among Christians who've actually read the books, there 
seems to be a lot of support.  

Michelle (beldasnoop)