December 3, 2001
Death in the Pot (ter)
A pastor's thoughts on the misuse of magic___
___By Doug Jackson
___The Harry Potter books are meat offered to idols. They are thoroughly enjoyable stories (that’s the meat), which draw from about five millennia of mythology (those would be the idols). You may recall that the Apostle Paul, in 1 Corinthians 8, took the view that idols are not real, while brisket is, leading to the conclusion that a Christian could in good conscience scarf his barbeque without inquiring too closely into its religious background.
___This kind of practical agnosticism doesn’t go down big with modern evangelicals, who feel positively driven to ferret out the details of (certain) aspects of our culture. Thus we must be told how jack-o-lanterns (but not Christmas trees) are a survival of druidical ritual and how black cats (but not elves) date back to the pre-Christian superstitions of Europe. (We won’t even get started on the Easter bunny, but ponder the phrase "the rabbit died," and you’ll pretty much get the picture.)
___Now, it is not my business to defend Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling, the author of the series, currently ranks (behind Madonna but ahead of Queen Elizabeth) as the second-wealthiest woman in the United Kingdom; I don’t think she needs any assistance from me. As Paul says of picnicking on pagan pot roast: All may, none must and some musn’t. If you have doubts, keep your kids on C.S. Lewis and the Little House on the Prairie series and you get no argument from me.
___What does concern me is that we seem to be attacking the wrong thing. I can’t honestly feel there’s any real threat that thousands of pre-teens will enroll as acolytes at the local coven. The real challenge Rowling invites us to face is not theoretical but practical, not magical but technological.
___As Professor Alan Jacobs of Wheaton College points out in his excellent essay, "Harry Potter’s Magic," from a historical point of view, science is merely magic that worked, and technology is applied science. The Renaissance alchemist, with his stuffed crocodile and acrid herbs, wanted pretty much the same thing as the Ph.D.s in their white frock-coats want today—to influence matter more effectively for their own ends. Or as Professor Robert Moore-Jumonville of Spring Arbor University states in his paper, "Deep Magic," "If we depict a character stepping onto a transporter beam platform, disintegrating and then reintegrating in another spot by a stunning feat of advanced technological engineering, we stand up and cheer. But if the same feat of disappearing and reappearing is produced by the wave of a golden wand, some of us begin asking uneasy questions about the occult."
___ And thereby hangs a tale.
___Young Potter quickly discovers that wizardry is merely a means to an end, and that some ends are morally superior to others. Technology, whether magical or muggle, demands moral choices from the proficient. In the world of Captains Kirk and Picard, by contrast, desirable ends automatically result from improved means; a sufficient infusion of Vulcan technology puts an end to hunger, greed, selfishness and ambition, which is why there is no chaplain on board the U.S.S. Enterprise.
___ Again, Moore-Jumonville states, "The reason we are so bothered by the idea of magic is because our world-view—not the one we subscribe to in theory but the one we practice daily—is so thoroughly naturalistic." The danger, you see, is that our kids will become, not pagans, but secularists. Thus the basis of C.S. Lewis’ whimsical wish to see a session of Parliament opened by the slaughtering of a garlanded white bull in the House of Lords, or Cabinet Ministers leaving sandwiches in Hyde Park as an offering for the Dryads. "If such a state of affairs came about," Lewis quipped, "then the Christian apologist would have something to work on." Pagans, Lewis said, are sub-Christian, while secularists are post-Christian, and it is by far easier to make a wife of a virgin than to make a virgin of a divorcee!
___ So do what you like about Harry Potter—but keep an eye on your microwave! The real danger, it seems to me, is not where we will put our faith next, but where we’ve invested it at the moment.
___ One final note: while Paul gives USDA approval to temple T-bones, he does advise a certain caution about the scruples of our brothers in Christ. So go easy on the Potter books. To paraphrase, if reading Harry Potter causeth my brother to stumble, I will … well, I’ll wrap my copy in the dust jacket from the latest Left Behind book.
___Where’s the beef?
___Doug Jackson is pastor of Second Baptist Church in Corpus Christi.
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