AN ORTHODOX VIEW OF HARRY POTTER

CGW · Post by **CGW** » Thu 24 March 2005 2:00 pm

OrthodoxyOrDeath wrote:
CGW,

I would like to know how you interpret, or a better term is, understand this Saint.

I believe I answered this several posts back.

OrthodoxyOrDeath · Post by **OrthodoxyOrDeath** » Thu 24 March 2005 2:25 pm

CGW,

I believe you said the passage was not "germane". Seriously, if the Saint mentioned Harry Potter by name, would you say the same?

CGW · Post by **CGW** » Thu 24 March 2005 2:30 pm

Please, OOD, my post is right there for you to read. I didn't use the word "germane" or anything even close.

Second: if he were to discuss Harry Potter by name, he would be obligated to get his facts right about the content of the book. He were to fail to do so, he would discredit himself.

Ebor · Post by **Ebor** » Thu 24 March 2005 3:43 pm

joasia wrote:
CGW,

The post IS titled, an ORTHODOX view of Harry Potter.

Yes, and there are other views offered by persons who are EO, such as Mr. Granger and this one by a Bishop:
http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles2 ... tter.shtml

It would seem that there is not one single universal view on this matter that corrolates with yours.

Ebor

Pedro · Post by **Pedro** » Thu 24 March 2005 6:09 pm

Now, I usually do away with posting during fasting periods, but this was just too much. Loved CGW's points (and others -- you go, Ania!) like this one:

CGW wrote:
This has nothing really to do with reading fantasy, or even fiction, but with reading. Even the lives of the saints, even scripture itself can give rise to this sort of misapplication...Parents don't just have a responsibility to monitor what their kids read. They also have to monitor how their kids react to what they read. A father cannot assume, because some authority has asserted that some text is wholesome, that the result of his son reading it will be wholesome. Conversely, a mother cannot assume that the condemnation of a text by another would have the predicted effect on her daughter.

True...heard a story of a kid who drowned after reading the Bible story of St. Peter walking on the water (and I'd hate to think what would happen if kids read books like Judges and went unchecked!). The problem is not that the Bible is a bad book (it's NOT, of course); the problem is that the kid had bad parents who didn't deal with what their kid read.

I'm actually not surprised something like this is so roundly condemned by traditionalist Orthodox; it seems to go with the territory of folks who see everything in EITHER black OR white (often with no first-hand knowledge of the subject at hand, as is the case with many of the anti-HP folks here) and who can't make the distinction between very real witchcraft (which involves invocation of demonic spirits) and the largely mechanical, impersonal type of in-name-only witchcraft (of the HP books) which bears NO resemblance (other than the labels "witch" and "warlock") to the real, entity-driven witchcraft of the dark world.

My wife and I are expecting our first child in June. We've personally listened to all five HP books on tape and love them. We will definitely make morning and evening prayers a part of Hope Elizabeth's daily routine. She will be biblically literate. We will acquaint her with the works of Tolkein and Lewis.

And we WILL read HP to her, as well.

Why? 'Cause they're a dang good example of creative fiction which creates a clear moral universe for its characters and resolves its conflicts in unambiguously moral ways which, as far as the morality is concerned, Orthodox Christianity would have no problem with.

And because papi likes to do voices when he reads. We figure she'll like that....

OrthodoxyOrDeath · Post by **OrthodoxyOrDeath** » Thu 24 March 2005 7:31 pm

...after all, why read the HP books and not Holy Scripture? Or bible stories to your children??

For as much as we see people continually repeat with such mechanical precision, "I am a sinner, Lord have mercy on me", and other such eleqoent sayings, it is amazing how easily they are turned to easrnestly defend their passions and pleasures.

For so strong is the appeal of pleasure that it can bring about a prolongation of ignorance with a resulting facility for sin, or a perversion of conscience leading to self-deception.

In addition, some may perhaps be allured to either error by the opinions of heathens who commonly use the following arguments against us in this matter: such comforting and merely external pleasures of the eyes and ears are not opposed to religion which is founded in man's mind and conscience; neither is God offended by a man's enjoying himself, nor is taking delight in such enjoyment in its proper time and place a sin as long as the fear of God and God's honor remain unimpaired.

But this is precisely what is not compatible with true Orthodoxy and true obedience to Christ.

I'm actually not surprised something like this is so roundly condemned by traditionalist Orthodox; it seems to go with the territory of folks who see everything in EITHER black OR white

The Orthodox, a people who are ever ready to die, are trained in stubbornness so that they more easily despise life, once its ties have been cut, as it were, and lose their craving for that which, as far as they themselves are concerned, have already made empty of everything desirable.

This is precisley what Orthodox Christians struggle and strive to do, to free themselves from pleasures and vices. It would indeed be loathsome for people continuing in the enjoyment of delightful pleasures to die for God.

Clearly, the more we separate ourselves from pleasure, the more we free ourselves from the world. But I do not expect that everyone can free themselves from every pleasure; but Orthodox Christians should at the very least recognize that these things are not virtues and activities they should defend.

And nothing that was just said even brushes on the demonic nature of the HP books.

CGW · Post by **CGW** » Thu 24 March 2005 9:45 pm

This is likely to be my last post on any subject until Sunday evening at the earliest.

OrthodoxyOrDeath wrote:
...after all, why read the HP books and not Holy Scripture? Or bible stories to your children??

Is there not enough time to read both?

For as much as we see people continually repeat with such mechanical precision, "I am a sinner, Lord have mercy on me", and other such eleqoent sayings, it is amazing how easily they are turned to easrnestly defend their passions and pleasures.

And is posting not a pleasure for you? A passion? And do you assume that for you, posting is not sinful? Everything that you say about reading HP applies as well to what you are doing right this minute.

Besides, you are again verging on the Manichean notion that pleasure is innately evil. For instance, you say:

This is precisley what Orthodox Christians struggle and strive to do, to free themselves from pleasures and vices. It would indeed be loathsome for people continuing in the enjoyment of delightful pleasures to die for God.

I am tempted to call this heresy, but in any case it is convenient that the pleasures you commend to yourself you deem Godly, but (I suspect) those which you would deny others don't really tempt you in the first place. Permit me to suggest that by this rule you should be plowing through the novel which you do not care to read (so that you may be better informed concerning its contents) and that you should deny yourself the posting which you enjoy.

And nothing that was just said even brushes on the demonic nature of the HP books.

But it does brush upon what I suppose is your pleasure in having denouncing them.