Christianity, Magic, and the Fantasy Genre

  In 2001, when I was only seven years old, two very important movies were released. On November 16 of that year, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone first appeared in theaters in the United States. Just over a month later, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring made its debut. I didn’t really know much about the fantasy genre at the time, but I do remember going to see the first Lord of the Rings movie with my dad, and very quickly fell in love with the world. I don’t remember when I saw it, but I know I also saw the first Harry Potter movie in theaters with my parents. I grew up with both of these series, though I took a liking to the Lord of the Rings much more strongly than the boy wizard. I read Tolkien’s books, not just the Lord of the Rings, but other books as well. I must confess, I never read the Harry Potter books and I didn’t see all of the movies until after I had graduated college. I could explain why I liked one much more than the other, but fans of Harry Potter probably wouldn’t agree. Really, at least some of it comes down to one of them striking my fancy at a critical point in my development. I didn’t realize it then, but I was very fortunate to fall in love with the less controversial world.

As I grew up, and my love of fantasy deepened, I was surprised to learn that some of my peers weren’t allowed to watch Harry Potter or read the books for religious reasons. Because Harry Potter is centered around witchcraft and wizardry, some parents believed that the story would mislead their children into Wicca and demon worship. Despite the fact that wizards and magic also appear in The Lord of the Rings, few people gave it the same treatment. Maybe that is simply because it isn’t written for children. Parents weren’t as worried about the complicated world of Middle Earth misleading their children. Kids weren’t reading that book. Furthermore, Tolkien, long dead by the time the movies came out, was a devout Catholic during his life. But then again, Rowling, the author of Harry Potter, also identifies as a Christian and has made it clear that she doesn’t actually believe in witchcraft. She was never trying to convert children to some alternative religion or get them to worship demons. She just wanted to tell a story about friendship set in a fanciful world. 

Nonetheless, her work came under fire from conservative Christians for years. The same went for other popular fantastical stories. Christians railed against Pokemon and the Golden Compass. Some Christians even attacked the Chronicles of Narnia, which is really funny considering C. S. Lewis meant those books to be an allegory for Christianity. Before my time, the role playing game Dungeons and Dragons got caught up in the “Satanic Panic” of the 1980’s.With all this backlash, one must wonder, where should Christians stand with fantasy as a genre?

Obviously, as a long time Lord of the Rings fan, I may have a bit of a bias on this issue. I like the fantasy genre. I love stories set in fictional worlds with dark lords, wizards, monsters, and heroes. But is it right for a Christian, one intending to be a leader in the church no less, to be interested in stories that involve people using magic when such actions are closely connected with demon worship in the real world?

But there are a few problems with this. First, is it actually true that magic is associated with demons in the real world? We should note that modern witchcraft isn’t quite so simple. There are some people who “practice” Wicca in a way that is very non-serious. They don’t actually believe in spells or potions, they simply like the aesthetic. They have spellbooks that they buy from Barnes and Noble and decorate their apartments to look like it is perpetually Halloween, but all of it is simply decoration. There are some people who actually do believe in magic, connecting it to modern goddess worship. They will name various ancient pagan goddesses in chants, calling upon them for blessings. This is really just a form of Neo-paganism, which itself is very complicated and diverse. Some people believe in magic, but instead of actual goddesses, they connect their magic to nature itself. The closest parallel here is probably Animism. There may be other groups out there as well, people who practice witchcraft for other reasons. The Christians would would condemn Harry Potter for its subject matter would say that Animism and Neo-paganism are actually demon worship. If there is no other god but the LORD, then all other gods and goddesses, all natural spirits, must be demons, in this worldview. But it is important to remember that they don’t believe they are worshiping demons. Only in horror movies do witches actually intentionally communicate with the Christian concept of the devil. And one may argue that if someone worships a demon but doesn’t realize it is a demon, they are still worshiping a demon. One might say that this is a distinction without a difference, but I would disagree. The Bible certainly doesn’t say that every spirit that isn’t God is a demon. Assuming that everything else is necessarily a demon is making assumptions based on one particular worldview, which might not be correct.

Christians who fear witches worshiping the devil and summoning demons are doing the Christian version of “If it’s not us, it’s evil.” This attitude is a relic of a bygone era, in which information was limited and the world was small and closed. Now, if we have questions about another worldview, we can simply go online and search the internet for reliable answers instead of fear mongering and assuming the worst. This sort of misleading fear of other people and beliefs has caused terrible harm in the past, and we should seek to move on from it. I suspect that this mindset even achieves its own goals effectively. I’m sure that at least some of the people who identify as Wiccan today grew up in households where their parents forbade them from reading Harry Potter. Repressing children and keeping them from reading popular books sometimes has the opposite of the effect intended.

But there is another important factor to consider here. Even if witches in the real world did practice some sort of evil magic—they don’t—that isn’t what is happening in Harry Potter or The Chronicles of Narnia. Magic is just a natural part of those worlds. There aren’t portrayals of people conjuring demons to curse their enemies in these literary serieses written for children. Demons aren’t a factor here. We should be able to imagine different worlds with their own rules. We should be able to imagine alternatives to what we see in our own lives. We don’t need to force one particular worldview upon a fictional story without hearing from the story itself what it means to say. 

This imagining of other worlds is actually a really important thing for Christians to practice. While on the one hand, it is a good practice in humility to allow for other worlds aside from our own to exist in our minds, we must also consider that when God’s kingdom comes in its fullness, it will be radically different from the world we know. I’m not saying that we will cast spells with wands or have magical rings, but when we allow ourselves to be trapped by the oppressive thought that the way the world is now will be forever, we miss out on the gifts of hope God has given us. 

Besides, maybe magic, at least as a metaphor, isn’t so bad. Our lives are full of experiences that are much more profound and beautiful than we can describe with simple facts. While we don’t actually cast spells with words or dominate the world with rings, there is no doubt that these things are powerful in our lives. With rings we make promises to each other with the intention being that those promises last a lifetime. And with words, we can lift someone out of their darkest day and let them know they aren’t alone. That might not be something that would make it into a fantasy book or movie, but to someone who is suffering, the right kind word at the right moment is nothing short of magical. Maybe it isn’t entirely wrong to stretch our minds to imagine magic in the mundane. And maybe, if we start with seeing magic—something so culturally woven into the stories we tell—in ordinary places, we will one day be better at recognizing God’s love and power in ordinary places as well.