Time and time again, we encounter newspaper articles heralding the banning of Harry Potter by parents and in some private schools with a Christian focus. Their argument always seems to be along the lines of "Harry Potter novels promote and normalise witchcraft" and "children are being lured towards witchraft and sorceries, practices which are deemed evil in the Bible". No matter how they justify their arguments, they always seem to forget good ol' common-sense. .
Ok, lets get something right. Harry Potter is a piece of wonderful literature that has not 'corrupted the minds', but rather, captured the imagination of millions of children. It can be found in the Fiction, I repeat, Fiction section in bookstores (Fiction is the genre of books that are not about real life events or people). Therefore, through the application of simple logic, it would mean that Harry Potter is as harmless as the next Agatha Christie mystery novel. Why should J.K Rowling's hard work be singled out as non-consistent with the rules of Christianity? Hang on a second, doesn't one of the Ten Commandments explicitly states that "thou shalt not commit murder"? So I guess the religious extremists are currently at an all-out war on crime mysteries novels. .
No? I thought so. .
But that's exactly what they are saying about Harry Potter, you know, there's magic involved in Harry Potter, therefore it is evil, so lets bust out our pitchforks and torches. You see, that's also the case with crime fictions; for example, someone got brutally murdered, possibly by Colonel Mustard with the candlestick in the Games Room. So what is the difference?.
I'll take another Commandment to emphasise my point. "Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbour". That is interpreted roughly as "you should always speak the truth". As we all know, court lawyers are the masters of the art of telling lies, or as they subtly put it, 'manipulating the truth'.
