Harry Potter and the Occult
A Sermon by Dr. Neil Chadwick
This is the weekend we are being told that all box office records will be broken - and who can argue with success? Within less than four years, more than 40 million copies of the books have been sold. Children have forsaken their mind numbing video games to return to what we had thought was gone forever - the reading of books. Who would dare criticize something so beneficial and popular? Few Christian leaders have been bold enough to speak out to raise the important questions. Even Charles Colson, who airs the popular "BreakPoint Commentary", declared that these books are harmless (11/02/1999), and an editor of "Christianity Today" declared that no Christian leader of any importance has pointed out that there's anything to worry about. Besides, who wants to be charged with narrow-mindedness? Who wants to be known as approving censorship? Or worse yet, who wants to be one of the "muggles?" In case you don't know what we're talking about; if you haven't yet learned the meaning of this recent addition to our language ("muggles"), let me fill you in. It's the humorous story about a young orphan boy who lives with a cruel uncle and aunt. However, on his 11th birthday, he learns that he is the orphaned son of two powerful wizards and possesses unique magical powers of his own. He is then invited to attend "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry", and embarks on the adventure of a lifetime. At Hogwarts, he finds the home and family he never had. Written by an unemployed school teacher in England, J. K. Rowling, the "Harry Potter" books are being hailed as companions of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. Not only is opposition almost silent, some Christians are running to the defense of these books, going so far as to declare that Harry Potter is a "Jesus-image"! (After all, we learn that Harry was attacked by the evil powers as early as when he was a baby, but they could not kill him. Does this not remind us of a certain baby in Bethlehem? (Ã…ke Eldberg) Furthermore, Harry, like all other Christians, struggles with temptations and enemies, is subject to doubts and difficult moral choices, and senses that there is a higher purpose in his life. Do you know what the problem is here? We have slowly slipped down to where we now are under the strong condemnation of Isaiah when he wrote, "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" (Isaiah 5:20) Are we going to let Tolkien and Lewis and Colson and all the Christian leaders of the Evangelical world and book sales and box office success determine what is good and what is evil? We say we want to be like Jesus. Listen to what Isaiah said about Him, "And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD." (Isaiah 11:2 ) That reminds us of verses in Psalms and Proverbs: "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever." (Psalms 111:10) "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding." (Proverbs 9:10) What is the "fear of the Lord"? Very simply, an awareness of what God loves, what God despises, and what are the consequences of disobedience and rebellion against Him. Say what you will about the literary genius of the Harry Potter books; the problem with them is simply this, they promote the very things God forbids. Listen to the Scriptures: "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." (Deuteronomy 18:9-12) "And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people. Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy: for I am the LORD your God." (Leviticus 20:6,7) In case you are among those who have decided that the Old Testament is only for Jews, listen to what the New Testament says, "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." (Galatians 5:19-21) We must not turn away from the fact that the obvious evil practices listed in these Scriptures are encouraged in the Potter series, such practices as witchcraft, sorcery, spellcasting, divination, calling up the dead, etc. The "block-buster" movie this weekend is based on the first Harry Potter book. Notice that it was first released in England as "Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone." However, publishers in the US were convinced that no child in America would be interested in a book with the word "philosophy" in its title, so they changed it to "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone." However, that change in wording, though based on ignorance, was very instructive. You see, the “Philosopher’s Stone” is part of the lore of alchemy and medieval sorcery, supposedly a stone which could be used to turn base metal to gold - the Holy Grail of sorcery. But the "Philosopher’s Stone” was not just about getting rich off of the making of gold, in midieval times it was also connected with the attainment of inner spiritual transformation. What is sorcery? It's the same as "magic", defined as "casting spells using a special formula of words or actions to gain control and also as a technique for manipulating supernatural forces to attain certain ends through contact with spirits and psychic realms." (New Int’l. Dictionary, 552, 6) As one author has stated, "Sorcery is nothing less than the attempt to replace God, since it is one’s will that is primary in practicing sorcery." (Marcia Montenegro) A moment ago we used the newly coined word "muggles". Who are they? "Muggles" are people who are not witches, and who think that witches are "weird". Harry Potter's adoptive parents are muggles, and they are obviously bad people. The message is clear, bad people oppose witchcraft - opposition to witchcraft and the occult is silly, narrow-minded, cruel and the result of stupidity and ignorance. So our hero Harry must escape from this evil, and he does so by joining the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry! The sad fact is that many troubled young people do “escape” to the world of the occult. Are we so foolish as to think that the occult is a safe place of escape? By the way, "muggles" isn't the only new word found in these books. "Mudblood" is an insult for any wizard born of Muggle parents; the name given for the school of witchcraft is a reversal of the syllables from the word ''warthog"; and the headmaster's name, "Dumbledore" is a 1787 word for ''bumblebee.''' The ghosts at Harry Potter's school celebrate each anniversary of their "deathday"; "quidditch" is a soccer-like game played by wizards on flying broomsticks; and "Animagus" refers to a wizard who can be transformed into an animal - the word is a blend of ''animal'' and ''magus.'' And one more: the name of the giant groundskeeper at Hogwarts, Hagrid, may come from a variant of the word "hag-ridden", describing somebody harassed or tormented by an evil female spirit. Harmless fantasy, some will say. No, Harry Potter is immersed in the occult. For example, we know that the "magic mirror" has always been favored by witches - by staring into mirrors they would see visions or receive mental images. In the Potter book it's called the Mirror of Erised (‘desire’ spelled backward) - in it Harry gets a glimpse of his dead parents, and later looks into this mirror to get a vision that will give him the location of the sorcerer's stone Harry also gets a "wand", a tool well-known in occult arts, used for purifying, divination, focusing energy while casting a spell, finding water or treasure, and invoking spirits. In the books there are several incidents where witches and wizards wave a magic wand and instantly produce things like food for a banquet. They cast spells, such as speaking the word "Lumos!" to make one's magic wand become a light source. They bewitch cars to make them fly and ceilings to make them twinkle like the night sky. Then there is the snake which communicated to Harry when he visited the zoo, and owls which are used as messenger birds for the students at Hogwarts. It is well known that in the occult of the Middle Ages, demons in the forms of owls attended witches, running errands of evil for them - now they once again show up in the Harry Potter book also as messengers. (Scrolling across the bottom of CNN is a warning to parents not to buy owls as Christmas gifts because they are not smart, they are not sociable, and they are not cheap!) Other occult items and practices are encouraged in these books, such as the "sorting hat" (which can apparently read minds ), and casting of spells (clearly forbidden by God - Deuteronomy 18: 10-11; 2 Kings 17:17, 20:6; Isaiah 47: 10-15; Malachi 3:5; Acts 8:11, 13:6; Revelation 18:23, 21:8). Even more alarming is the attitude toward death which is promoted by these books. In the very first book this statement is made, “After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure,” (297). This statement is made by Dumbledore, the headmaster of Harry's wizardry school, whom some see as the figure who symbolizes God. To further ingrain this thought, this statement is repeated later by Harry to his friends (302). Right after making this "death" remark, Dumbledore says that truth is a “beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution” (298). So, truth should be treated with caution but death is an adventure? Without a doubt, the occult is always connected with images of death; death is a good or necessary thing, death is a journey, an escape, or a glorious ending. Children all over the world reading this book can now think of death as “the next great adventure.” So what is our response? Simple: Harry Potter glorifies the occult. God condemns the occult. Which side do we want to be on? Should we take a book lightly that endorses what God has so seriously forbidden? Of course this presents a huge challenge for Christian parents. The temptation is to simply turn a deaf ear to these criticisms. After all, it would be psychologically damaging to our children to expect them to stand out and be different from their classmates. But if we're to determine our actions by the Word of God rather than popular opinion, we can do nothing other than "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." (Proverbs 22:6) Do we train up our children in God's way, or the way of the occult? Does this mean we should ban the Potter books, movies, toys and trinkets? Perhaps, depending on the age and awareness of the child. At least, it means that we won't let them read the Harry Potter books on their own, nor let them go to see the movie alone. It means we will sit with them and show them from the Bible where the ideas promoted in these books are in clear opposition to God's Word, and give them answers they can pass on to their friends. If we're not willing to do this, then banning is the only other alternative.  - - Return to Top of this Page  - Email a Link to this Page
- Go To Next Sermon by Dr. Neil Chadwick
- A Response by Taylor Fordham
 - Back To Sermons Page or to the Sermons Alphabetical List
 - - Download This Sermon
|
