(A letter in response to “outrage” over Harry Potter originally published in Fall, 2007)
Dear Reverend (REDACTED),
With the precepts of literary response firmly in mind (though your letter certainly calls into question the premise of literary creditability), I have chosen to respond to your letter point by point. Having suppressed a laugh, I have swallowed my intellectual pride (a portion of the seven deadly sins, or so I am told) and decided to belie the image that all atheists are cynical elitists who sniff at religion and find nothing but a putrid farce foisted on an unwitting public. Instead, I find you have joined the veritable pantheon of talking heads that have done nothing more than to increase the ranks of my fold by leaps and bounds, if the vernacular may be employed. Your singular intolerance and support of a nominally subsidized witch-hunt have done nothing more than to convince “average” Americans that organized religion incites frenzy, hypocrisy and intolerance for the most innocuous of literary genres: the novel. With due respect to copyright process, I reprint your letter for the consideration of tertiary readers:
“As a Christian minister with more than 20 years experience helping people who have been hurt by “magic,” I can state authoritatively that any discipline which communicates or contracts with spirits other than the one loving, creator God is dangerous and should be studiously avoided.” I will avoid belittling the term “authoritative,” and instead question by what metric you judge “hurt.” Innocuous though such a term may be, are you to imply a demon has added an extra arm to said practitioner? Has the practitioner come down with a devilish case of the chills that can only be plausibly attributed to demonic intervention? “The essence of magic does not rest in rituals, incantations and spells, which in themselves have no power.” If this is the case, then why do you brim with indignation over a powerless straw man?
“Real magic- not the entertainment variety- constitutes dealing with forbidden forces, that cooperate in some petition for supernatural help, but whose end is the destruction of the practitioner.” By whose edict are these forces forbidden? A supernatural being? If one does not acknowledge such a being, are the aforementioned forces still verboten? What exactly do you mean by destruction? Have you personally witnessed the disintegration of a magician? If you meant the psychological degradation of an individual, is magic the only possible explanation? I realize it is much easier to attribute deep-seeded psychological problems to matters of occult practices rather than a chemical imbalance, but this smacks of superficiality at best and outright chicanery at worst. “Terms more descriptive than “magic” that help better define components of the subject include sorcery, witchcraft, divination, séances, psychic consultation, spirit guides, tarot cards, Ouija boards, talismans, Satan worship, paganism, Wicca, etc.” Allow me to substitute the following on a word-for word basis from an outsider’s perspective: ministry, evangelism, prophecy, Sunday services, prayer, Holy Spirit, icons, bibles, crucifixes, Jesus worship, Protestantism, Catholicism, etc.
“All these hide behind the gentler, more acceptable word, but clearly represent magic’s premise. That premise is to collaborate with forbidden forces for the pursuit of personal will, to the endangerment of the practitioner and those around them, to the insult and anger of God, who expressly forbids such behavior.” Although you restate your thesis, you now bring the image of an insulted divinity. Have you spoken with him as regards the subject? Has your god of love and tolerance mentioned how he intends to vent his anger? “This holds true even with benevolent intent, for the end does not justify the means.” Have you ever noticed that it never does when Christian dogma is invoked?
“There is nothing funny or amusing about real magic.” Magic IS quite humorous when it allows us to view the image of a grown man throwing a verbal tantrum over a children’s book of FICTION. “Parents and other guardians should carefully review the wisdom of making a sorcerer the hero of children’s books and movies.” At the risk of repetition, in the realm of children’s literature what will draw your ire next as an inappropriate role model? The Cat in the Hat (unscrupulous harbinger of disobedience that he is)? Winnie the Pooh (an obvious glutton and example of sloth)? “Childhood imagination and role-playing has its unquestioned place.” One can only assume that this is the case when and if such activities conform to a rigid set of Christian ethics. “But any subtle invitation into real-life experimentation in the occult by a child or adolescent can lead to deadly consequences.” We seem to be on this soapbox again. To what deadly consequences are you referring? “There are too many good and real heroes around us to which we can point our children.” It seems we are finally in agreement on something. However, I tend to doubt that our lists would match (Watson and Crick, Einstein, Mendel, Bohr, the Curies… I suppose we are somewhat divergent on the subject).
“Stooping to the level of Harry Potter gets a little too close to child endangerment.” I wonder if Harry Potter is offended despite the notable handicap of being a fictional character. More to the point, when I view children in tears over the images of hellfire and damnation, I am of the opinion that Christian indoctrination more aptly borders on child abuse. “In real life, the greatest victim of magic is always its practitioner.” So you have repeatedly mentioned. The only victims here are the children who have been deprived of yet another piece of imaginative prose because of the outright zealotry of a few closed minds.
Reverend (REDACTED), the works of J.K. Rowling are not the sound of the seventh trumpet. They are pieces of literature. They do not have a life of their own until a reader digests them. The seventh seal has not been broken. We are not hurtling towards the apocalypse because one woman has brought joy into the hearts of millions of children worldwide while your moribund system of an angry and insulted god has not. When you persist in your inquisition, you relegate yourself to the level of a street corner prophet- in the words of a personal hero “full of sound and fury signifying nothing.” A nominal Christian tried banning books he found unsuitable for his “chosen people” over seventy years ago. A world war later, he passed into history as yet another lunatic, drunk on his own self-righteousness.
(JUNE 09: UPDATE) Iam still in shock…the local paper didn’t print my response…
The Unrepentant Elitist 
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