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The Trouble With Harry Potter - 2

LONNIE: Even I Lonnie Melashenko, think that Quddiach sounds like a fun game to play. What’s the harm? It’s a fantasy story about kids who can zoom through the air on their Nimbus 2000 broomsticks and score goals at will. Is the Harry Potter phenomenon more than good clean and sometimes scary fun?

CONNIE: It’s a beautiful day here at the Voice of Prophecy, and we hope that the Lord is bringing sunshine into your life today as well. Hi, I’m Connie Jeffery, and this week I’m honored to be able to invite Pastor Steve Wholberg into our studios for a visit.

LONNIE: Steve, welcome back to our studios.

STEVE: Thank you, Lonnie.

LONNIE: What’s it all about anyway? Harry Potter…why has Harry Potter become, as the Denver Post says, as addicting as chocolate?

STEVE: That is a question that many of us have been pondering. I have the magazine sitting in front of us, the Time magazine feature story…asks the question also, why have these books taken off and become so deeply loved and ingrained in the physique of so many millions of children?

LONNIE: Oh! You can’t even find the books in the store, sometimes. You the next book comes out, there’ll be lines around the corner, around the block…

LONNIE: Kids will actually deny themselves TV Time to read the books.

STEVE: That’s right! And they’ll read these books more than once, in fact, they’ll read them 10, 11, 12 times.

LONNIE: What are the books about?

STEVE: Well, they are basically about an orphaned wizard boy, who goes through this whole world of wizardry and magic. The Harry Potter world is a fantasy world, although it’s mingled with the real world. The Potter books basically describe the real world, and right next to it is the underworld. There are witches and wizards, and there are good ones and bad ones, and there is an evil wizard named Lord Vauldermont, who murders a good witch and her husband, Lily and James Potter. As evil Dark Sorcerer murders the two, the couple, He then turns around and he tries to kill the baby, but the mothers love enters the baby and the curse of this evil wizard bounces back on him leaves a lightening shaped scar on Harry’s forehead. The curse strips the wizard of his powers and he loses his body and disappears into the night. Then there is a man in charge of a 1000 year old school called Hogwarts, and this man is named Albus Dombledore, and he takes the baby Harry and he drops him off at the doorstep of his non-magical relatives, who raise him, and then he sends a messenger to this family, the Dursley family, and they tell little Harry, who is now 11, who has no idea what happened to his parents, has no idea about anything, this mortal combat that he was involved in as a little child. Eventually he is informed that he is a really a wizard and that he is now being invited to go to school at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and wizardry, where he is to develop his skills as a wizard, and develop his powers. So Harry packs his bags, and he goes to London picks up a train and basically what happens, is each book chronicles one year of schooling at Hogwarts.

LONNIE: But the plot is laid very subtlety. And we do have a background, between good and evil, don’t we? Which parallels the biblical plot.

STEVE: …and I think that is one reason why kids are in to the books, because there is a battle, and as you go through out the books, the evil wizard Lord Voldermort, is trying to regain his body and his powers, and to retake over the wizard world. He is out to get Harry, and so, you have the good side and the bad side, and at the end of the series, there is going to be some sort of edge of your seat climax, between Harry Potter and the evil wizard who wants to kill him.

LONNIE: Talk to us for a moment about what supporters are saying about this. Why is this so good? My kids are reading, my kids are finally interested in something other than the tube. But then let’s talk a little bit about why some parents are very concerned, and what are the rationales that you see is the director of End Times Ministry. First of all, what are the supporters saying about Harry Potter?

STEVE: What they are saying primarily, is that kids are reading. They’ve turned away from watching so much TV, and they are actually reading books. Which is a phenomenon that…there are not enough kids reading books. So, parents are seeing their children picking up books and reading.

LONNIE: and they do have some moral lessons. People also say that these books are helping to develop a kid’s imagination and it does teach lessons of good versus evil. They also say that it is harmless fiction and harmless fun, that doesn’t have any dangers to concern about, because it is just fiction.

LONNIE: That’s what I was going to say. People will say, Steve, this is just good harmless fun, why worry about it?

STEVE: There are many parents…there is actually a Harry Potter controversy going on, and the library association has gone on record stating, that there is no series of books is the history of the United States that have been opposed more strongly than the Harry Potter books. So, there is a battle going on…

LONNIE: And parents are asking that they be banished from the libraries.

STEVE: Parents don’t want their kids going to school and being exposed to these books. They don’t want them being read in the classroom. They don’t want them to become required reading, or any kind of literature…

LONNIE: …because of the dark side behind this series?

STEVE: Right, because in the midst of the fun and the magic, and in the nice story line and the excitement. What Mrs. Rowling has done, is she ahs expertly woven through out these series the results of years of researching the real occult and witchcraft. There are real places mentioned in these books. There are real people mentioned in these books. There are real practices mentioned in these books. The Bible warns us against getting involved with. Parents are saying to me that Harry Potter is making things that the Bible preaches against fun. It makes all these things fun and exciting for kids.

LONNIE: Well, talk a little bit about this dark Muggle World, with Muggle messages, and Muggle eyes.

STEVE: This is a key, in order to really understand the Potter phenomenon, we have to understand this. The Potter books divide the world into two great classes. There is the non-magical world, everybody that doesn’t have magical powers and those people are called the muggles. Next to the muggle world is the other world, the hidden world of the witches and the wizards, and sorcerers, and this world is divided between the good wizards and the bad wizards. You have the white wizards like Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore, and Harry’s friends Herminie and his buddies at school. Then there are the evil wizards which are the wizards which have gone bad. They’ve yielded to the dark side. So the Potter books divide the world between the non-magical people who are boring and drab, and then the wizards. And it exalts the intelligence of the good wizards vs. the bad wizards.

LONNIE: But the goods ones are the heroes too, aren’t they?

STEVE: Right, and the problem with that Lonnie, is the Bible does not divide the wizard world, between the good wizards and the bad. The bible puts the entire arena of witchcraft and sorcery into the realm of Satan and evil. The Bible clearly says for us not to get involved in any of these things.

LONNIE: So in essence, this book then, is that this whole phenomenon is an inversion of reality as portrayed from the Bible, because moral standards turn upside-down.

STEVE: There is a very short distance between the fun and innocent magic, to the real underworld of the occult. And more than anything we need to understand the difference.

LONNIE: Thank you, Steve.

CONNIE: That was an eye opening discussion, wasn’t it? Thanks so much Lonnie and Steve. Remember everyone, if you would like to receive a free copy of pastor Steve Wholbergs book called Hidden Dangers in Harry Potter, all you have to do is pick up the phone and give us a quick toll free call.