Harry Potter and the Christian Magicians III — Theological Speculative Fiction

A reader writes in to ask three 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 his
work.

3. 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 first question I answered at some length here. The second I answered at even greater length here. Let is now turn to the third.

As with most questions in life, this question is one concerning how
to strike a happy medium between to opposing duties or desires. The
first is the writer qua man and his duty to the truth and to heaven; the
second is the writer qua writer and his duty to turn out a workmanlike
product.

The first cannot be ignored for the second. A Christian writer cannot
become a pagan for the sake of the marketplace while he takes up his
pen. Indeed, if anything, the opposite. He must take up his pen for the
greater glory of God.

There are two basic kinds of ideas: those that demand the total
loyalty of the total person and influence every aspect of life, and
those that do not. In general, the former are religious or semireligious
ideas, and the latter are everything else. (I call Socialism a
semireligious idea:  there is no aspect of a man’s life that is beyond
its reach, neither the use of gender-pronouns nor the use of Sterofoam
or lightbulbs nor the use of recreational drugs nor the abuse of
scientific climatological data.)

For the Christian, no aspect of life is or should be untouched and
uninfluenced by Christ: even the humblest of work, baking bread or
cobbling shoes, should and can be done in some fashion that reflects the
glory to God, and displays virtue. While the heathen might find this
concept remarkable (or contemptible) it is no  more remarkable than
saying and honest man does any work honestly, whether baker or
shoemaker.

The heathens of the modern day who find the concept remarkable are,
it must be admitted, hypocrites of astonishing insouciance: surely more
than half the commentators on literature list subversion of the current
social order as their express goal: they regard the introduction into
the mind of the impressionable reader skepticism about the values and
the virtues taught by Western civilization to be a healthy part of the
maturation process. But a book supportive of any of the basic values or
virtues of our common Western heritage will be denounced as fascist.
Note, for example, the difference between the applause heaped on
STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND, a snide satire against monogamy and
monotheism,  and the opprobrium heaped on STARSHIP TROOPERS, a heartfelt
paean to the unsung virtues of the footsoldier.

Yet neither can the second be ignored for the first. I have an
obligation to write stories that will entertain not those who share my
philosophy, but those who share my tastes, including the honorable
opposition. Can I not, as a Christian, entertain heathens? Their world
is dark enough as it is. Am I to tell them no jokes, no daydreams, no
glittering ideas about the world of the future nor the world of fantasy?

Now, as science fiction and fantasy writer, my employers, the buyers
of my wares, are ultimately not the editors but the readers: their
interest is primarily in hearing a well told tale. They do not want to
be on the receiving end of propaganda or lecture, certainly not coming
from the pens of the disreputable tribe of fiction authors, that is,
men who earn their bread by inventing fables rather than by honest labor
that callouses the hands.

There are exceptions, of course. Fan of Ayn Rand are fans, by and
large, fond of her lectures, and the same is true of Robert Heinlein:
but such exceptional books are written for a narrower audience or by a
wider talent than the norm. Outside such rare exceptions, tales are
meant to entertain as editorials as meant to editorialize, and tales
should be told for the sake of the telling.

Unfortunately, three factors militate against tale-telling for
telling’s sake with no concern for the underlying philosophy or moral of
the tale: first, the Enemy of Man and God and his agents and tools are
firmly entrenched in the literary circles, so much so that to find a
Christian writer among them is like finding an oasis in a sterile
desert. Such few and refreshing shady pools exist, to be sure, but the
uncounted acres of sand stretch bare and lifeless to the horizon. For
every rare and beautiful pool of Tolkien, there are allegedly subversive
writers busily sharpening and poisoning their pens against the purely
imaginary Victorian prudes they see lurking beneath every doorstep, or
watching with narrowed eyes behind the blinds, writers who think it best
to use their dull sword-and-unicorn books as the proper venue to
propagate the latest fashionable causes of the eternal rebellion: and
they are as countless as the grains of sand in the wasteland.

We cannot abandon the literary field to them, or the market, or the impressionable minds of the young, or the battlefield.

For one thing, the characters and situations they invent are dreary,
and boring only except when they are shocking or grotesque. The
cathedrals of modern literature are carven more and more with goblins
and gargoyles, and less and less with saints.

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