Brittany Wallace, Harry Potter and Religion

I tried to resist the fanaticism that was Harry Potter. I really did. Everyone was talking about it and reading it and I thought a few stories on a wizard and his buddies sounded cute, but why waste my time reading it? At fourteen years old I had more interesting things that I could spend my time doing, like going to the mall and seeing movies on the weekends. But when the summertime hit and all of my friends were on vacations with their families, I could only take so much daytime television. So I picked up the fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I had attempted to read the first three books when I was eleven, but I could never finish any of them. But the story got me this time. I was officially hooked. I quickly read the fifth story, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix only a few days later. Then I went back and read the first three stories a few days after that. I couldn’t stop. I officially was a Harry Potter fanatic and I loved the feeling. Imagine the shock I felt when, wanting to talk about my newfound love, I come to find no less than three of my closest friends weren’t even allowed to read these wonderfully addicting stories. Stories of magic and adolescents in dangerous situations could lead to nothing good apparently. I came to find out from one of these friends that magic is a method employed by the devil, according to her mother at least. I came to realize all of these friends of mine were forbidden to read the stories for the same reason: it was against their Christian beliefs: Wizardry and other forms of magic go against the natural order that God has created in the world, and in her books, J.K. Rowling makes it appear as though such magical practices are everyday happenings. Thinking that there must have been some mistake, I’ve always wanted to look further into the idea.