Pete. I'm sure you'll love this one. In today's news, a woman in a county in Georgia is seeking to ban Harry Potter from the public library. The claim is that Harry Potter indoctrinates children in the Wiccan religion. The Board of Education replied that if they were to remove all references to witches from their libraries, they would have to remove Cinderella and Mac Beth. Good argument. And might I add that they would also have to throw out C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia as well.
While my own take on Harry Potter is rather ambivalent (or is ambiguous the word?). I feel that the books have much less to do with Wicca and much more to do with British folklore which, for me, would be put in the category of fantasy or imaginary. I don't believe that author J.K. Rowling is secretly a witch or a Satanist trying to recruit millions of young people into practicing actual witchcraft. Having said that, I can see why many Christians would object to it. When I was living in Africa, I noticed that my African Christian friends were much more inclined to take Harry Potter seriously than your average American or European steeped in a materialistic worldview. Why? Because they live in a world of "good witches and bad witches". (actually the good witches are called medicine men) Magic powers to them is not fantasy, it is reality. The Harry Potter books could be dangerous to some who have a natural inclination towards occultism.
Having said that, there was something in the article that I found more disturbing than one woman's quest to ban Harry Potter. Everyone who reads the article (especially secular humanists) will automatically assume that the woman attempting to ban Harry Potter is an Evangelical Christian. With that assumption in place, they would probably assume that since Georgia is part of the Bible Belt, the attempt to ban Spanish literature from the library was also an effort by Evangelical Christians. Why did the people of this particular county in Georgia not want Spanish books in the library? Because they didn't want illegal aliens to have anything to read. Never mind the fact that there might be a few legal Hispanic immigrants in the population who might enjoy some material in their mother tongue. The idea represented is this: "As God-fearing, flag-waving white Anglo Saxons, we feel that the public libraries should represent the majority of us church going folks, not the rest of the population."
Scary. Might I ask the good folks from such and such county in Georgia one simple question. What does banning literature from illegal aliens have to do with the essentials of Christianity? What does it tell people about our faith when we are so proud to be Christians that we feel ourselves superior to others? Why do you think that Evangelical Christians are so stereotyped in the media? Is it a vast left-wing conspiracy or do we Christians often contribute to the stereotype of being narrow -minded and bigoted? I love my race, my nation, my language, and my heritage. But if I have to choose between my faith in Christ and everything else. I'll choose Christ any day. Even if it means that one day, in the good old U.S.A., I might be forced to worship Him in Spanish.
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I had a very strong and intense reply to this topic ( not in disagreement with Aaron ), but I will simply say that is amazing how quick we are to judge that which(or you read it as "witch" if you desire a pun here) we know nothing about.
If anyone really wants to know my full opinion than just ask.
Pete
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