Hmm, drinking blood (not to mention eating flesh), human sacrifice, contact with the spirit world. Please, tell me if I’m wrong, but I’m sure these things feature quite heavily in another bestselling work of fiction, no?

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The fundamentalists can’t seem to separate fiction from reality. Using the fictional Bible for guidance leads to this kind of inanity.

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The Bible tells Christians that wizardry is Satan and his fallen angels working through the wizard by giving him/her supernatural powers to conjure magical spells, curses, create optical illusions (visions), and magical healing of the sick (because they believe Satan likes to imitate God).
So in essence Harry Potter sends the message to kids that it is OK to be a wizard (i.e. agents of Satan).

In conclusion: These people live in an imaginary world.

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It would interest me to track sermons that attack various cultural phenomena and then see the same churches twenty years later after they have absorbed the cultural phenomena they once attacked. I am certain that churches attacked “Star Wars” with its talk of “The Force” as a satanic influence in 1977. The same churches now, in all likelihood, use “Star Wars” as an example of virtuousness. This happens with all aspects of culture. There are now churches that are accepting of pornography and yoga, veganism and football. Try to find a church where they preach about the evils of watching football! They did all the time decades ago. Adapt or perish.

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Yeah.  The bible also teaches that god created evil, that giant fish swallow men and puke them up, that golden arks are also nifty seats for a supposedly omnipotent deity and that plagues killed many innocent first born throughout Egypt, all with the help of god.  Spare us the lecture on what the bible allows.

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This is just fans of one work of fiction blasting another work or fiction. Wizards, vampires, and magic don’t actually exist, anymore than God, Angels and Heaven. I think it’s funny how all the magical folk in J.K.R.‘s books are so inept when it comes to technology, science and mathematics. Muggles are always more comfortable with the modern world.

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Why is it that when one creates a “story” about Magic or wizards it’s WRONG. But when someone creates a “story” about a deity and they REALLY believe it thank it’s o.k.????

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well of course they hate, or actually more acurately, fear it…how would you feel if someone infringed upon your monopoly?!  The religious right has long claimed the majority shareholdings on the false copyrights to all paranormal activities, witchcraft and magic being just a few of the many.  Granted, they’ve presented no true and solid evidence to justify these claims…just a book of fairy tales.  But lets be honest, when has that ever stopped them before?

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This is all due to a lack nuanced understanding with a big helping of dogma. I have Baptist friends who aren’t like this. Unfortunately, the most idiotic amongst them tend to have the loudest voices. When you think about it, dogma tends to be prevalent in all facets of thought.

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I have always found it exceedingly strange that Christians of the variety described in this piece resent Harry Potter and the crew at Hogwarts in such harsh and uncompromising terms.  They seem to, on the whole, rather like the works of J.R.R. Tolkien who peopled his world with a raft of magic users, and who didn’t really shy away from the use of the term wizard.  I have a heard a few deflections that attempt to explain this fact but none of them seem terribly satisfactory in erasing what appears to be an obvious hypocrisy.  What seems just as obvious is that these fundamentalist critiques are offered in advance of actually reading the books they revile.  I suppose they cannot even be rightly called critiques because to offer a critique requires that one have actually read, or watched the material under the discussion. 
It is their loss..

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@Max:  Is it hypocrisy or mere inconsistency?  Is there some unspoken reason that I missed that they especially hate Rowling, or have the fundies just gotten even weirder over the past century?

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There’s a reason why J.K.‘s books and Dan Brown’s books are in the “Fiction” section. They’re not meant to be taken seriously. They’re entertainment.

Why is it so hard for some folks to grasp that fact? Are they afraid someone has written a better story than the fairy tale they actually believe in?

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There is preciously little separating fiction from reality for these people.

Personally, I would much rather have these types of moonbats racing around challenging fiction authors than getting their noses into subjects where they con do some real harm, like politics.  I say keep churning out the wizard and witches books for this reason alone.

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I love two things here: “Essentially, Christians fear that the film-makers are presenting witchcraft in an appealing and attractive manner to impressionable young minds, without showing its inherent dangers.” Tell me, what are the inherent dangers of witchcraft? My 5 year old knows witchcraft is “make-believe”. Another favorite quote here: “The positive messages are packaged in a medium – witchcraft – that is directly denounced in Scripture”. Let’s change the word “scripture” to “witchcraft” and we see how nonsensical this is. Scripture = Witchcraft. Harry Potter is responsible for millions of children who may never otherwise have cracked open a book, now to become lovers of books. It has sparked the imagination of millions versus extinguishing the light of inquiry as is so brutally accomplished on a daily basis through religion. Go Harry!

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Why does the writer of this blog lump all fundamentalist Christians together?  For that matter, why do you use the term, fundamentalist, which at this point seems to be so vaguely defined?  Is Charles Colson a fundamentalist?  Based on his writings, I would argue that he is, as he adheres to the fundamentals of the Christian faith, as outlined in the Apostles Creed.  To those commenters above who think he is a fundamentalist—I hope his support for Harry Potter (see http://www.breakpoint.org/commentaries/4635-witches-and-wizards) makes you a little uncomfortable about the smugness that is dripping from your comments.

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