Oh, Be Careful Little Eyes What You See ...

I can honestly say this is the last thing I thought I would be blogging about today. I didn't really know what to blog about. So I prayed about it and here we are.

You all know how I feel about protecting our kids' mind, body, and spirit. They hold such an innocence and once it's gone, it's gone. You can't get it back.
 
As our kids start to read, this is made so much harder. I remember not too long after my oldest daughter started to read, I would catch her reading the covers of the tabloid magazines by the checkouts. That was when I thought "Oh my goodness, we are bombarded with smut, immorality, and just plain sin everywhere we go." Don't even get me started with Victoria's Secret stores ... My boys will be banned from malls soon. That's a whole other post. 

What our kids read affect them, bottom line. Kids are impressionable and they don't always interpret things correctly. 

Last year my oldest daughter was just told about a book called "How To Be Perfect in 3 Days" by a teacher. In the book, a boy is told all of these silly things to do in order to be perfect. One of the things was to not eat for a whole day. So my daughter comes home and tells me she wasn't going to eat for a day. Once I found out what was going on, I wasn't too thrilled with the teacher or the book. (I ended up reading the book and at the end the boy finds out that no one is perfect. That there is nothing you can do to be perfect. I still don't think they should have used not eating as one of the ways but that's my opinion.) My daughter interpreted that totally wrong and was going to try this out in order to obtain perfection.

Kids are willing to try things that sound cool and don't really think of the consequences. This is why we really need to be aware of what our kids are reading and watching and allowing into their minds.   

With the new Harry Potter movie coming out, I thought I would share an interesting article that I found. 
 

-The reading phenomenon known as “Harry Potter” is sweeping the globe, and it truly has an international presence as readers in 200 nations, in over 40 languages, indulge in this series. A U.S. consumer research survey reports that “over half of all children between the ages of 6 and 17 have read at least one Harry Potter book.” With the financial backing of Warner Brothers, Mattel, Coca Cola, and Scholastic, Inc., Potter is sure to be a force to reckon with for years to come. Public school educators and many parents in America are thrilled with a series that has captured the imagination of children like no other in history, prompting a revived interest in reading. Reading is a good thing, but not all is as innocent as Potter fans would have others believe.

This series of books by British author J.K. Rowling focuses on the plights of young Harry, who is selected to attend the prestigious 1000-year-old Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry himself is an orphan, his parents (practitioners of “white magic”) murdered by the evil Lord Voldemort (a master of the “Dark Arts”. But “when Lord Voldemort, the most powerful Dark Wizard for a century turned the curse that had killed so many witches and wizards on Harry Potter, it rebounded upon Voldemort, ripping him from his body, and his powers gone, barely alive, he fled.” 

Children are understandably fascinated with the kind of power that Harry and others in his world possess. Author J.K. Rowling says, “The idea that we could have a child who escapes from the confines of the adult world and goes somewhere where he has power, both literally and metaphorically, really appealed to me.” 

Certainly power is appealing, especially “white” witchcraft like this that is made to look so innocent.

Even some Christians leaders agree that it’s “just fantasy” and generally acceptable for the Christian reader, including Chuck Colson of Breakpoint, the editors of World Magazine, and Connie Neal (author of What’s A Christian To Do With Harry Potter?).  However, occult experts, Marcia Montenegro of Christian Answers for the New Age and Caryl Matrisciana, author of Gods of the New Age, disagree with their Christian peers. Both have personal experience in the occult before becoming Christians.

... in the Potter series, the line is not so clear. The “good” guys practice “white magic”, while the bad guys practice the “Dark Arts”. Readers become fascinated with the magic used (explained in remarkable detail). Yet God is clear in Scripture that any practice of magic is an “abomination” to him. God doesn’t distinguish between “white” and “dark” magic since they both originate from the same source.

“There shall not be found among you anyone who …practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination to the LORD, and because of these abominations the LORD your God drives them out from before you. You shall be blameless before the LORD your God. For these nations which you will dispossess listened to soothsayers and diviners; but as for you, the LORD your God has not appointed such for you.”
Deut. 18:10-14

The problem is, witchcraft is not fantasy; it is a sinful reality in our world.

“J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, has gone through an awful lot of research. She is very accurate (otherwise we would have witches all over the country and the world saying ‘this is not a true representation of our religion.’) This is a true representation of witchcraft, and the black arts, and black magic. And yet we have people that say this is merely fantasy and harmless reading for our children. Actually, what makes this more dangerous is that it is couched in fantasy language, and children’s literature, and made to be humorous, and beautifully written and extremely provocative reading. and it just opens up children to want to have the next one. This is what is so harmful.” 

“Clara Sessoms, who manages Living Water Christian Books in Marion, Ind. [says] ‘I don’t think people fully realize what they’re dealing with, and I think anyone who knows anything about spiritual warfare knows those books can open the door to spiritual bondage.’ ‘And I think it’s worse that children are the target,’ said Jessica Ruemler, a buyer for Living Water. ‘It opens the doors for young minds. You put sorcery in, what do you expect to get out?’” 

“With the growing popularity of youth-oriented TV shows on witchcraft—‘Sabrina, the Teenage Witch;’ ‘Charmed;’ ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’—a generation of children is becoming desensitized to the occult. But with Hollywood’s help, Harry Potter will likely surpass all these influences, potentially reaping some grave spiritual consequences.” 

Parents, whether Christian or not, must take an active role in what their children are being exposed to and determine what is appropriate. Christians especially should be guided by God’s Word, the Bible.

Author Richard Abanes has written a book called Harry Potter and the Bible. He says that the movies and books not only teach anti-Christian lessons on the occult, but also moral relativism, and desensitize children to profanity and off-color humor.

So, what is a Christian to do? Ask, seek, and knock. Ask the Holy Spirit to guide you as you lead your family in taking a biblical worldview of morality, seeking to please God (and not conform to man). Seek out what the Bible says about the occult (be sure to read our other articles) and how Christians are to react to it. And knock on the doors of your friends who may also be unsure what to do with Harry Potter. There is a useful video titled “Harry Potter: Witchcraft Repackaged” to share with your family, your church, and others.-


**I shortened the article but you can find the full version at http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/harrypotter.html