Harry Potter and the Christian Magicians

A reader writes in to ask two questions:

1. What is the right way to answer the accusation that the fantasy genre turns kids into satanists/gnostics/pagans? One sees this argument most used against Harry Potter, but in recent years I’ve come upon people who believe that the inclusion of magic in a work is so evil they won’t even let their children read Narnia.

2. Related to this, I’m curious what your opinion is in regard to what the proper way is for a Catholic author to handle magic in their work. What would be your response to those who say that all magic ought to be portrayed as evil or only used by characters who are stand-ins for God (Aslan) or who are agents of God (as I have seen some argue that Gandalf is)?

The second question would require another lengthy essay. Perhaps another day I can address that one. For now, I will address but the first, and I warn the patient reader this is rather a long answer, because the topic is one I have much pondered.

And it is a topic that has been very much on my mind of late, because in the manuscript under my hand at the moment, I have to decide whether the witchcraft used by one of the characters will be portrayed in that background as lawful or unlawful. (I will have to speak to what I decided in the promised next essay.)

Had you asked me this question a few years ago, I would have said that the best way to answer the accusation was with a belly laugh.

No doubt I would have uttered some snark, along the lines of: “If your biggest worry in the age of dictatorship of relativism in the ever-more socialist dystopia of the culture of death during a global war on terror, faithful Christians, is that a witch flying on a moonless night above your chimney pot will cast her Evil Eye on your milk cow, then you must live a pretty stress-free life.”

But in good conscience, I can no longer be so dismissive. Experience has corrected me.

It is bad form to begin with a digression, but a kind reader will indulge me.

One of my best friends in the world is Willy the Witch.

Willy is a perfectly nice fellow in every respect, kind and generous, funny, clever, a good father, a loyal husband, an honest man, big-hearted to a fault. I love him like a brother.

But he is convinced that occult powers are his to command, and the gods and spirits of the unseen world are manifestations of a mystical force that he, by his rituals and disciplines, can harness to work his will on the world.

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