I may be bringing up a fairly sore subject, but it's always bothered me that Christians attack the "Harry Potter" books for witchcraft and darkness, while the Chronicles of Narnia have magic and darkness as well. Let's not forget Tolkein either--the LOTR trilogy is DARKER than HP, even if the good guys win in the end.

Mind you, I love the Chronicles and though I've only read 1\2 of The Fellowship of the Ring, I greatly respect Tolkein.

But why do Christians attack the HP series? The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe describes how Aslan was led to a sacrificial table and goes to great lengths to describe the evil on Jadis' face. It is very suggestive of the way Aslan will be killed, and that chapter always scared and saddened me as a kid. However, I hear Christians talking about how scary and immoral HP is and is inappropriate for children. They also argue that magic is a bad example, but in the LtW&tW, Jadis turns her enemies to stone, and Aslan restores them. He is also brought back to life by "deeper magic from the dawn of time".

I won't go into Tolkein as I don't know about his books, only the movies, but I thought we could all debate this. Why is there a seemingly double standard for the Chronicles and LOTR? Is it because of the sometimes blatantly obvious allusions to Christianity? That Tolkein and Lewis themselves were Christians? Is it because J.K. Rowling meant mostly to entertain and provoke thought, rather than teach a moral lesson? Or d'ya think its something completely different? Talk!

P.S. I use "Christian" referring only to those against HP, not all Christians. I am Christian myself.

Well, as you put it everyone has double starndards. Still, I have heard of Christians (Catholic or Protestants, idk) complaining about The Cronicles of Narnia too.
Of course oyu have to bear in mind that the Biblical paralels in the Cronicles are much more clear (for most peeps) than HP's ones. Anyways, while reading the Silver Doe, the Princes tale and the Forest again, I found that Harry is as much a Jesus-in-his-death-eve parallel as Aslan. I would even dare to say that he is a more real parallel, he says something like this: "Was I meant to know, but not to seek?". For the first time in all my life I sort of had an idea of how must Jesus have felt (yeah, I am a slow learner).

i totally agree with you.
Lewis's chronicals of narnia show as much if not more magic then HP IMO. it may bc HP is something so big and so many people love it and stuff... i dont know myself. as to LOTR, its just like you said, darker kinds of maigic then HP, and we can see taht from the mvies, no need to even read the books ( i have tho lol). and theres the Inheritance triology by Christopher Paolini. its like the more *traditional* magic if you know what imean, dragons and stuff like that... however, i cannot see any reason for people to attack any of these books, and i myself love thme all, (HP more of course! lool) and if they bothered to read them they wud see that there is nothing wrong at all and none of them passes on evil messages and stuff like that, and the least of them all HP. of course there is wichcraft involved, they all have magic after all dont they?? and yes there are mentions of darkness etc, well of course its all basically the good vs. evil thing all over again!!!
what i think is really unfair is that people talk about the books and say its evil and dark and horrible without even reading them!!! how do the know??? at least read the ok before you talk, IMO.

PS. i am sorry if i offended anyone, that was not my intention, i just wanted to give my views on the matter.
PPS. LuvCrookshanks i am a horse lover too!!! yay for us!!!

You know there isn't just a double standard with Narnia and Tolkien books Vs Potter. How about Anne Rice who writes about Incest, Pedophilia, Necrophilia and so on and these are the HERO's of the story doing these things.

It's a fair enough question. But Narnia has come in for criticism from the censors for years. It's really only very recently (since the Chronicles of Narnia movie in fact) that many of them woke up to the fact that Narnia is a Christian work.; I imagine that some of them still object to Narnia. In general, most of the folks who scream about Harry haven't read the HP books. They equate any reference to witchcraft as being an embrace of the occult.

Excellent points made in this thread so far!

Another reason TCoN (and LotR) may receive less criticism from religious reactionaries are their distant, far-removed settings. Worlds separated so far from our own are, perhaps, more readily accepted as settings in which "ungodly" things like magic can be portrayed without constituting a bad moral influence on readers. Even the most vividly-portrayed, down-to-earth characters are, in the end, clearly fictional. These are so clearly fantasies that the depictions seem "safer."

The HP world, on the other hand, closely parallels our own. It is more directly immersive (or at least the suspension of disbelief is easier), and a lot of us have, at times, desired intensely to be a part of that world. Even obviously not-of-our-world characters like Hagrid seem like someone you'd head down the pub for a pint with. The temptation to embrace what these folk see as something sinful would be seen as far greater, I think.

Another aspect:
The Christian-style archtypal story line is common to many cultures. Be it Jesus or Harry or Mithra or Osiris (or you pick one), the central character's tale is similar. Some adherants of a particular tale will get their hackles up when they think another tale is poaching "their" territory, I suppose.

I've thought about this a lot ever since I started hearing about Laura Mallory and those who were vehemently protesting against Harry Potter. To me, if they could condemn Harry Potter like this, why not any book with magic? Certainly there is magic, both light and dark, in Narnia.

The one thing my mind keeps coming back to is because the author was Christian. That makes all the difference in the world, I suppose. But also, JK Rowling is such an influential figure, and HP was such an amazing phenomenon, one of those things that doesn't happen very often at all (star wars and lotr too). And because she and her books are in the present and not an old set written fifty years ago by an author who is now dead, there's room for judgment.

So my theory is that the repercussions and harsh judgments are directly proportional to the popularity of the series, and how much it is in the public eye. JKR is very often in newpapers and on tv channels doing interviews and whatnot, and making headlines. It's just natural that a lot of gossip and vehement opinions come with it. Today we can't look in a newspaper without seeing an article about some celebrity having checked into rehab or going to court, yet there are other celebrities who are just as big in different circles and aren't noticed as much, like country singer Joe Nichols (he checked into rehab a few weeks ago).

Rowling is also Christian. Not a theologian like Lewis, but she is Christian and has said publicly that she hadn't talked too much about it before the end of the series because she was afraid it would tip her hand.

I quite agree with your point about the popularity of the series being what is making the criticism so vitriolic.

I completely agree 'freedomstar', although I believe that HP has great literary merit etc. the media continually reference the presence of "literary mania" in the series' popularity, that it is predominately hype not substance (i.e: smoke without fire) this I think has lead it to be subject to such scrutiny. I mean for example Harry promotes many very positive messages and although open to personal interpretation is secular, where as His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman, chronicles a direct attack on the figure of God and church (I'm not condemning this series btw, I actually really like it) but because His Dark Materials has not been subject to the same literary mania as HP it has not received the same condemnation despite the fact that religious individuals do have some cause to worry about the effect this book may have on their kids faith.

So although Narnia and LOTR both have great enduring popularity, they were never IMO subject to the same level of mania as Harry even with the recent release of the film adaptions. It is a double standard, it makes me all the more confident in the fact that zealots such as Laura Mallory really have no basis or substance to their arguments

Ah! There's the fish; part of the reason for the outcry against Harry Potter are the two reasons above, IMO.

For example, say that there's a kiddy cartoon that makes some masked but questionable jokes for the adults to enjoy. Say the cartoon isn't very popular. People may notice it's got weird jokes, but its not popular. Then say that it is popular. There's public outcry, because more viewers=more harm (even if the kids don't get the jokes). The fear that those against HP seem to have is that: (popularity + "questionable" material=kids getting away from God\morality and "into" the dark arts)

And the fact that Rowling is Christian, but not theologically or obviously so, also seems to be a contributing factor. The brilliant Madeleine L'Engle, though generally beloved, has been criticized for her blending of good and evil. (She was, however, a little too obvious in A Wrinkle in Time, including a Christian hymn as a song being sung by some good creatures. She was also criticized for listing Christ with figures like Ghandi and Einstein when the main characters spoke the names of beacons to the world for comfort. Which I find grossly unfair--Christ was also man.)

Er...before I get into a whole discussion of L'engle, I'll stop here.

And yes, I know there are Christians against LoTR and CoN too, but that's sort of like the vaccines-for-kids debate. Most are for it, but some are against it