Should Christians Read About Magic?

In July of 2000, The Onion magazine released a fake satirical article about the Harry Potter series leading to a rise in Satanism among children. Unfortunately, some people thought it was real, leading to a small wildfire of panic and condemnation toward J.K. Rowling.

It was a simple mistake — but people believed it. Many Christian parents have doubts about letting their children read about magic, and some go so far as to prohibit it completely. Now, I will have you know that I am firmly all for parental rights. Parents have the right to raise and educate their child how they will — obvious exemptions like physical abuse aside. Thanks to parental rights, I was homeschooled and given a quality education, and am grateful for every bit of it. Because of that I could, and still can, chase the things that interest me and work toward turning those interests into a career. A parent is absolutely allowed to have control over what media their child takes in.

Additionally, as Christians, we are called to bear with one another in love and unity, and not to judge someone else’s servant – it is ultimately God that will hold us accountable. We are to, “make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.” We don’t want to make other Christians, who have strong convictions, stumble through our actions. Romans 14 and 15 contain God’s instructions to some early Christians facing a controversy over types of food – some had no problem with eating it, others were horrified at the very thought. Both carried strong convictions, and that is very much like this issue.

Nonetheless, it doesn’t mean we can’t have healthy dialogue over these matters. If the conflict is to be brought up, I think an argument ought to be made for one side or the other — because after all, there is truth and it is our duty to find it out. As Galileo said, “I do not feel obligated to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” So then, is reading about magic, wizardry, sorcery, or witchcraft harmful for children?

Well, one of the most immediate answers to that question is the fact that magic is mentioned in the Bible. 1 Samuel 28 is the most prominent example — Saul has the witch of Endor call up the spirit of Samuel. If your kid can’t read about magic in his fairytales, he can’t read parts of the Bible either.

“But that’s the Bible,” one might argue. “That’s different.”

How? The Bible is describing things as they happened. Frankly, the same goes for Narnia, the Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter. The authors are creating worlds, inviting us to suspend our disbelief, and then describing imaginary events within the agreemetn of ‘we’re going to treat this as if it was real and go from there.’ As my pastor would put it, the passage in 1 Samuel is descriptive, not prescriptive. And I think the same goes for the above fantasy series’.

Now — there’s an unlimited amount of garbage out there these days and it wouldn’t surprise me if there were books on the library shelves actively encouraging children to engage in witchcraft. I know they’re certainly out there for adults, and frankly, given that the heroes our children are handed are increasingly vampires, necromancers, or witches and the like, I can’t deny that our culture is all for pushing their agenda that there is no difference between good and evil. By all means, parents, know what your children are reading. Discuss it with them. Not only is it healthy and beneficial toward developing their critical thinking skills, it’ll keep you in the know.

This is my argument thus far: Certain descriptions that encourage black magic are bad. But where do characters like Gandalf fit in? What about the Deep Magic described by Aslan?

The Lord of the Rings is an excellent example here, so I will employ it. In the Lord of the Rings we have magic of two types — light and dark. One is the magic of fireworks, small explosions, and moth-whispering. The other is creation-twisting, crystal-ball-scrying, and undead-souls-reanimating. One is beloved and useful and pretty. The other is death and darkness and evil, and every character both knows it and tells it to be such, unless they are like Saruman and have been corrupted by power.

Is the first kind of magic evil? No. In Middle Earth, it is a part of the natural way of things — a tool. Magic there, and in many other fantasy stories, is no more innately wicked than a gun is innately murderous. Misuse of magic is condemned. Blatantly. Destruction comes to those who perform evil. There is certainly no encouragement to delve into the dark arts there, not unless you fancy getting thoroughly wrecked and ruined. And far better for a child to see tools well-used, even well-used against one who misuses them, for then his logic will be far sounder when it comes to such matters as shootings and self-defense, or even the use of his own talents and tongue.

To get back on topic, I might even go so far as to argue that magic in more recent works and characters — say, Doctor Strange or Wanda/Scarlet Witch — runs along these same lines. It’s just like any other superpower. It’s a tool, a gift — though admittedly Marvel will sometimes make out objectively evil practices to be good. Nonetheless, as applies to fictional worlds and the magic therein, the maxim remains that with great power comes… you know what.

Now — another thing to consider is that one must always, always hold things up to Biblical truth whether the book is encouraging them or not. Parents against Harry Potter will protest about the Divination class he takes, and well, yes, that’s all fine. Divination is a sin, it is witchcraft, and it is expressly forbidden by God, though it’s openly tolerated in Rowling’s series. Obviously before you hand a child the book, he or she should know that divination is bad. If your child is aware of that, it should certainly help to allay any fears you might have about your child trying to read his future out of the bottom of his teacup. There is good reason to be worried about a child reading fantasy — if they are not grounded in truth.

If they have no solid foundation, no anchor, then of course there’s a risk the child may begin experimenting. People will always search for their value and their purpose, and will try anything from materialism to cults to provide answers.

Of course, this still does not necessarily conclude with the alternative that an ungrounded child will absolutely start getting into tarot cards or astrology. Our world highly promotes a materialistic denial of the spiritual, and furthermore, children know the difference between reality and fantasy once they get to a certain age. I don’t recall ever thinking the cats or dogs or frogs or toads in my chapter books were real. I never believed the characters in my own stories, the ones I made up, were real. I knew the difference between real and make-believe, even though I sometimes played make-believe with a passion. Still, I had my five senses, didn’t I? I jumped off that rock in my grandparents’ backyard a hundred times and never learned to fly like Tinker Bell or Peter Pan. And I knew it was because I simply couldn’t.

Here we enter into an interesting side thread that I’ve seen some folks argue — children shouldn’t read fantasy because it’s all fake, and it’ll encourage them to do silly things like try to fly. Rather, they should spend their time focused on real things.

But we live in a spiritual world. There is more to life than five senses and three dimensions. Demons and angels are real — and so are witches and dabbling in the occult. Anyone who says otherwise doesn’t believe the Bible. Don’t you think, then, that it would be better for the child to be awakened to the true state of the world?

It is nonsense to think that by simply reading about magic in any way, shape, or form, that one is opening oneself up to demon possession or at the very least, evil influence. No child ought to see the Witch-King of Angmar and say to himself, “I think I shall go try to resurrect spirits or see my future.” A child might as well see a 4th-of-July fireworks display and say, “I think I shall go try to blow up the shed in the backyard.” There’s a fundamental disconnect between seeing in the spirit of fun and fantasy, and putting it into action in a dark and wicked way — and an especial disconnect when the character such as the Witch-King is portrayed in a negative light and comes to the just death he deserves.

“But children are impressionable.” Aye, that they are. But which would you prefer? A child who grows up sheltered and materialist, only to be shocked and unprepared when he or she enters college and ends up with a roommate practicing the dark arts? A child stuck with only dull books in which the worlds are like his own, limited and physical and spiritless? A child who struggles to hope for anything beyond the terrene when the only times he hears about the supernatural is in his Sunday-school class?

Or would you prefer a child who knows the ways of the enemy, and as a soldier for the light, is unafraid of them? A child who has seen an example, an allegory, in his stories of what comes to those who commune with demons? A child who is discriminating and whose hope for the glorious future of eternity is only heightened by his tastes of good things beyond the temporal?

My friends, witchcraft is wrong. Divination is wrong. Dark magic is wrong. In this world we have no light wizards or friendly, retired stars. Men experiment with the black and ugly.

But if a child is not shown heroes who fight against such practices, their world loses a little light. If a child cannot for a short time step into another world and enter into a fantasy, his world loses a little hope. As Miriam Hendrix puts it, “One great pleasure we receive from fantasy comes from the opportunity it gives us to align ourselves so completely with what is good against what is unequivocally evil.” There is nothing like a fairy tale to remind us that this spinning mudball is not all there is, and that our time on it is not the end of the line for our souls.

I understand — this is still a touchy subject, and what you have heard is merely my case for my conviction based on my own reasoning and research. Please, operate under your own convictions, but only do so if you have first put in the effort to evaluate how things lie and make sure your convictions align with logic and faith. Our God is a logical God, and as creatures made in His image, we ought to seek to arrive at Truth through the use of reasoning. As it happened in my family, I wasn’t allowed to read Harry Potter until I was thirteen. I’d recommend this anyway, magic exempted, as there’s some violence, cursing, and what was in my personal opinion a very strange and Godless ending. Quite frankly, I’m no fan at all of the Harry Potter franchise. It’s frivolous, Godless, and sometimes a blatant imitation of previous fictional works such as Tolkien’s masterpieces. But I would sooner prefer my own children to read works of fantasy and whimsy, and see dark magic meet its due end in those pages, than to cover their eyes until they graduate and leave them to some shocking awakenings on their own.

Magic is like any other topic — it has a vice and virtue scale. If it is not put in its proper place during a child’s most sensitive years, then of course it is bound to tip toward vice. Reading about magic in books is like reading about romance. If there is no solid foundation in the home, no healthy cap, and no good examples in the fiction of reward for virtue and punishment for vice, then things are bound to go south.

The presence of magic in books is not inherently an evil thing, nor will it cause wicked behavior in children or dark spiritual influence unless something is wrong — either in the presentation of the magic or in the soul of the reader.

But of course, make your own decision. I’ve emphasized the importance of learning to think for oneself and to reason critically over and over, because without those skills, we will drift, we will be swayed by whatever the latest influence tells us. Evaluate your own soul, or consider your children’s spiritual maturity, and know what you or they are reading.

Let me know your thoughts, readers. I’d love to engage with you and hear your opinions. Polite discourse and exchange of thoughts is key to learning to reason and discern. So post your thoughts, even if you disagree. Especially if you disagree. You may have a counterargument that I’ve never heard before, and I promise you that I will give it its due consideration.

Alright, I bid you all adieu. ‘Till next time!

For Further Reading: C.S. Lewis and the Potter Debate — APU What If Your Kids Do Read Fantasy? — Lorehaven Library/Speculative Faith