Wednesday, October 4: Hello, googlers. No, I don't have Laura Mallory's e-mail address, but I do have the latest news on her efforts to ban Harry Potter. By the way, I'm a Christian and I'm quite fond of Harry Potter. 
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Back in the day, I was a Harry hater. Witchcraft, witchcraft! They're teaching the children witchcraft! Burn the books!
Then I calmed down.
Gwinnett County, Georgia, resident and evangelical Christian Laura Mallory, bless her heart, joins a long line of Christians who want Harry Potter books removed from government school library shelves. She said she wants to protect her kids, "children and others from evil." If Mallory believes banishing a few books will protect us from "evil," I wish her luck.
Mallory will have to appeal or go another route because the school board refused her request.
I believe the biblical admonition against sorcery is a distinct and separate issue from the hysterical call to ban the Harry Potter books from government school libraries. Reasonable Christians can discuss the biblical issue among themselves without bringing it into the public square. How reasonable is it to appeal to our faith to prevent unbelievers from reading a book? Unsustainable and unworkable, in my opinion. In the same regard, as much as I hate My Two Dads and Heather Has Two Mommies kind of books, I've never called for those to be removed. Instead, I urge Christians to pull their children out of government schools.
Book banning is hysterical and unproductive. If children want to read a certain book, believe me, they'll find a way. The focus should be on what you teach them in the home. If your kid is in a government school filled with books on homosexuality and Harry Potter — and you don't want them reading about either topic — explain to them why the books go against your values and why you don't want them reading such books. Banning a book (excluding child pornography) only provides a slippery slope for banning others you don't like. It's dangerous, ignorant, and uncool.
However, I remain noncommittal (sort of) on whether young children should read the Harry Potter books.
I deal with Bible-believing Christians and Harry Potter in Harry Potter and the Charmed Christians, Part I and Part II.
Update (5/15): Commenter and blogger Jared writes:
Teaching our kids discernment is vastly more important than trying to ‘protect’ them from the world. That’s impossible, and unbiblical. If we don’t teach critical thinking, and allow students to recognize the difference between the wheat and the chaff, we’re failing our students.
God has graced us with intellect and an insatiable curiosity. Remove discernment from that equation, and you get…well, Richard Dawkins. Or Pat Robertson.
Oooooh…low blow against Robertson, but I like the rest. 
Update II (5/17): So the magic in Harry Potter is kosher? Good!
Related posts:
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May 15th, 2006 at 9:39 am
Teaching our kids discernment is vastly more important than trying to 'protect' them from the world. That's impossible, and unbiblical. If we don't teach critical thinking, and allow students to recognize the difference between the wheat and the chaff, we're failing our students.
God has graced us with intellect and an insatiable curiosity. Remove discernment from that equation, and you get…well, Richard Dawkins. Or Pat Robertson.
May 15th, 2006 at 10:13 pm
Good for you, LaShawn.
I don't believe in censorship. I do believe in making smart choices.
Teach smart decision-making. Just yanking something off the shelves, will not teach a child how to make a better decision and how to distinguish between better and worse. A valuable opportunity is lost at that point, and chances are the banned item becomes even more magical and tempting.
Teaching how to deal with temptation through decision-making.
Can you ever really remove any and all temptation from the planet, anyway?
May 17th, 2006 at 12:34 pm
LaShawn wrote:
> Book banning is hysterical and unproductive.
Yes and yes. And it's also a good way to ensure the popularity of a book, so it might be said to be counter-productive.
May 18th, 2006 at 4:50 pm
Jerry Falwell, then?
May 22nd, 2006 at 7:18 am
..if you think that raising children means teaching them to hate the same things you hate! Good luck.
May 25th, 2006 at 8:33 pm
This is really not about either censorship or hate. Librarians remove books from library shelves all the time. Why aren't they ever charged with censorship?
People have the right to decide what they want to pay for. It isn't right to force people to buy books they disagree with. That is just as much a violation of civil rights as preventing people from reading a book–which no one in this case is attempting to do. What the parents object to is the usurpation of their authority, and that should be of concern to all of us whether we are Christians or not.
May 26th, 2006 at 12:55 pm
Harry Potter leads undiscerning children to try to find the power that the see in such vivid detail in the books, this often leads to witchcraft. Therefore we should withhold such books from children till they are of age to discern between right and wrong, good and evil. Public schools are wrong in the first place, but thats another arguement. The church and the parents should be the ones discerning what these children learn from what they are taught and read, not the civil govornment. if the parents believe that a book is going to lead their children awrigh then those books should be withheld from their children. The parents with the guidance of the church should have the final say in what their children are allowed to (not should) read. Please answer with your own thoughts.
Carey Chastain
May 30th, 2006 at 1:39 am
I agree with Maxine about makeing "smart choices" and "Teaching how to deal with temptation through decision-making. …Can you ever really remove any and all temptation from the planet, anyway?"
I would recommend active engagement in our children's education by us parents, not pulling them out of schools run by the government. I think that it is useful to deal with small temptations that occur throughout the growth process, rather than to suddently unleash the world upon them when they are done with home-school. That could be a severe crisis for a young adult.
When Christian parents pull their children out of public schools it removes the salt and light. Many growth and ministry opportunities will be missed. Instead, the parents should be volunteering in classes, be active in parent organizations, meeting with teachers, writing letters or e-mails to principals, and attending school board meetings. Take all that energy that one spends on home-schooling (and it is a considerable amount of energy) and make an impact on one's community rather than becoming more insular.
I know…you have the best of motivations: to protect your children. But no amount of your protection will ensure victory for your offspring in this world. Be watchful, be involved, be interactive; but do not become isolationist. At some point you will have to entrust your children to God.
May 30th, 2006 at 11:38 am
Mr. Prichard, I agree that isolating our children is going to hurt them in the end, but that doesn't mean that we should just release them into the world. We are to be a safe guard aganst sin, not a cannon to launch our children into the world.
Pubic schools are unconstitutional. The govornment does not have the right to steal my money to build schools for other people. Besides that the fact is that the govornment is not legally allowed to build schools. This does not mean that I believe that homeschooling is the only right choice for a christian, there are many other choices but public school is not one of them.
There is a huge difference between being isolational and being protective of your children. The bottom line is that our children need a buffer against sin, and that we need to be that buffer at the same time that we teach our children how to deal with the sin which surounds them every day. Please think about this and write back with your thoughts.
June 20th, 2006 at 6:43 pm
I think what it comes down to is not whether "sorcery" is dangerous for our childrent. It's a literary representation. To say that Harry Potter needs to come off the shevlves is to remove any disney movie with anuy kind of magic in it from the mainstream. Do you think God made the fairy godmonther in his own imager? What about the little mermaid, you think fish magic is god's will?
June 23rd, 2006 at 1:53 pm
Magic is not the problem, the problem is magic based in occultism . In the "Is hogwarts breeding heathens" forum I wrote about Rowling's books being based in occultism, read it and answer if you'd like. You are going way over the top saying that disney needs to be taken off the shelf when Harry Potter does, because unless it is based in occultism it probably isnt bad for children( Im not saying that certain children who have had problems with magic or you don't deem ready to deal with magic biblicaly, shouldnt be guarded from all magic).
September 26th, 2006 at 3:33 pm
Your townhall links no longer work
September 27th, 2006 at 9:18 am
I updated them yesterday, MBR.