Hi everyone -- banning the books

[Ken Hutchinson]

No: HPFGUIDX 159595

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dragonarm1979"
<dragonarm1979 at ...> wrote:
>
> Carol <freakywife54321@> wrote:
> > <snip>
> > Don't know if you heard about that woman that wants to ban the
> > Harry Potter books, but I think she is crazy.  She said that the
> > books teach our kids witchcraft.  I think she is nuts.
> 
> dragonarm1979:
>  Martin Luther King Jr.'s widow and children have tried to ban all
> the books.  I live in South Carolina and they had a very welcome
> reception in my town because here a lot of people believe freedom of
> speech and expression should be quashed because after all did God
> give these rights in the Bible.  You are right whomever you speak of
> is crazy, because she does not realize what country she lives in and
> the GOD-given rights that we are supposed to have.  The Kings's
> tried to have all major bookstores ban the books, but thanks to the
> MANY loyal Harry Potter fans that did not go over so well with the
> big corporations.  People ultimately fear what they do not
> understand and it robs them of their ability to reason.  So,
> honestly, I believe we should feel sorry for these people and their
> inability to open their minds to fantastic literature.
>

Ken:

The woman is not crazy, just wrong. All kinds of people in every
society that has ever existed have tried to ban things they do not
like, often successfully. Liberal atheists are as likely to ban things
as conservative religionists. Both will also do the inverse: try to
force you to adopt behaviors that they believe are correct. I am a
conservative Christian, a Baptist, and I have never had anything
against Harry Potter. In the beginning no one had any problems with
him but I did not read the books because I rarely read children's
literature. Even when I was a child I tended to read books that were
above my age level and so I have read almost none of the common
children's books. And then, one by one, prominent and obscure
conservative christians in the US started coming out against Harry. My
reaction was "here we go again, people who've never read the books are
going to give society at large another reason to ridicule us". And I
was right, that is exactly what has happened. I have seen it happen
too many times to be taken in by the concern over Harry Potter, even
for an instant.

The problem is that the Bible proscribes witchcraft and sorcery. That
is why some conservative Christians oppose HP and not Star Wars which
in many ways is the same story and just as "magical". Conservative
Christians take the Bible literally and will rarely if ever bend it to
fit modern social ideas. And that is fine as long as we do not try to
impose our beliefs on others. In this case though I, and quite a few
others if this list is representative, do not believe that the magic
portrayed in HP is the type of magic that the Bible proscribes.
Biblical magic is all about opposing God and skirting God's will. It
is something that evil people seek out in order to further their evil
plans.

As we here all understand the witches and wizards in the HP books are
people that God (for those of us who believe in God) created with the
natural gift of doing magic. This is not our world, it is our world
with this one very important difference. Those who are able to do
magic in the Potterverse are no more rebelling against God by doing
magic than those of us with the ability to do calculus are when we do
calculus. The evil among us can indeed use any human gift that they
possess to act in opposition to God's will and the evil people in the
Potterverse do likewise. Clearly the good people in the Potterverse
are using their gifts to oppose those who do evil. What more could a
Christian ask? It seems to me that the HP books are overtly neutral on
the subject of religion. But they come out quite clearly in support of
good over evil. That stance is compatible with every religion that I
have any familiarity with.

So, I wasn't the least bit interested in having these books banned and
in fact I do not believe that banning books is compatible with the
constitution or traditions of the United States. I wasn't going to
read them simply because they were children's books. My plan was to
just watch the movies on DVD. When the first one came out I put it on
my Christmas list. My sister-in-law didn't catch the DVD part and
decided that I should have not one, but all four--of the books. That
is how I became a Harry Potter reader. My religious beliefs are about
as conservative as anyone's but I was not reluctant to read the books
because they were about witches, I was reluctant because I do not
generally find children's books interesting. Ms. Rowling has proved to
me that this is not universally the case and even though I might sound
quite critical of the books when I get wound up on a topic on this
list, I genuinely enjoy them. As an engineer I naturally gravitate
toward problems with the books because fixing problems is an
engineer's delight. If I had children I would encourage them to read
Harry Potter, there is no conflict between them and a fundamentalist
Christian faith.

Conservative Christianity is not a monolithic society of inflexible
robots. We are individuals and our opinions vary widely. All humans
can be curiously blind to things that should be obvious. The founders
of the United States argued the cause of freedom nightly at their
dinner tables with great force and never once considered extending
these noble ideals to the black slaves who served their dinner and
listened to this table talk of freedom with broken hearts. And now the
heirs of the man who challenged us all to finally make good the
promise of freedom and equality for all and to judge our fellows on
their character, not the color of their skin, make the same mistake
with Harry Potter. They are judging him on an inherited physical
characteristic, not on his character. But let's not judge them too
harshly either because we all are inconsistent in applying the
principles we believe in. The thing to do is to try to help each other
see our individual blind spots. 

As the Bible says, two are better that one because when one stumbles,
the other may help him up (from the Ken Hutchinson paraphrase edition).

Ken