I love that the Church of England, rather than outright condemning the Harry Potter books as somehow promoting witchcraft and the occult (as if the "magic" in Harry Potter and witchcraft in the Bible were remotely the same), has chosen to release a study guide that uses Harry Potter as a starting point to discuss Christian themes. Granted - such study guides can be done quite poorly, and I haven't seen this one. Still, I think this is a much more healthy and constructive approach to the Harry Potter phenomenon than Christians condemning literature simply because it involves some form of "magic."
"Jesus used storytelling to engage and challenge his listeners," [Diocese of Oxford Bishop John] Pritchard noted. "There's nothing better than a good story to make people think, and there's plenty in the Harry Potter books to make young people think about the choices they make in their everyday lives and their place in the world."
5 comments:
You'd hope the church could take something from contemporary society and use it to their advantage. Look at the underlying themes of the books, and focus on that. The context of the story can just act as a medium for teaching.
wow, 8 character captcha. I must really be human.
I agree. Of course, if you think the story itself is "anti-Christian" simply because of the presence of magic, you wouldn't do so. But I don't think that.
I think Christians need to be careful in the way they approach and utilize contemporary media (books, movies, music, etc.) - too often our analyses fail to understand and evaluate the actual message being communicated, good or bad. Having said that, I absolutely think that Christians can (and even should) use contemporary media as a means for theological reflection. Stories are powerful, and can provoke us to think about things in new ways.
I have to admit - I have NO idea what you're talking about with that last part. :)
The captcha is the weird letter image the people see when posting in other peoples blogs. Basically to prove you're a human, not a spamming computer.
Captcha from Wikipedia
Ahhh . . . I get it. I really hate those things. Sometimes you can barely read them - or can't read them at all. But I'd never actually heard that term before.
Glad you're especially human. I don't have to do the captcha (I assume because its my blog) - does that mean that I'm somehow less than human?
Lets be honest, Jake. Deep down you really feel like you're more human than the rest of us, not less. :)
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