Archive: December 2010

'Wizards, werewolves & wisdom'

By Liza Hoeksma

This Christmas, while we’re thinking again about the amazing fact that Jesus was born, it’s pretty hard to miss that the rest of the world is busy obsessing with wizards and vampires with the sixth Harry Potter film on at the cinema, and the third Twilight film out on DVD.

As Christians this gives us a few things to think about. Is it OK to buy the books, watch the films and obsess about the characters?! Or should we run away as fast as we can, Bible in hand, praying in tongues?!  The Bible doesn’t actually answer that specific question for us but it does give us some wisdom to help us make good decisions. There are arguments for and against watching movies like this and I don’t think there’s a ‘one size fits all’ response. We’re left to use our God-given wisdom to work it out in relationship with our loving Father.

The apostle Paul does address a similar issue from the time, which we read about in 1 Corinthians 8. There was a practice in those days for meat to be sacrificed to idols but then be sold in the market place and the Christians didn’t know if it was offensive to God for them to eat such meat. Paul says that he doesn’t think it’s wrong because the idols are nothing and all things come from God.

But he also says it might trouble some people’s consciences in which case they should stay away from it and so should we in their presence. He’s saying we have to each understand our own hearts and work out the best thing between us and God. Plus he’s saying some of us will have different opinions and we should respect that.

For me, I absolutely love Harry Potter. I think the books are brilliantly written with great characters and gripping storylines. I think there is fantastic stuff in them around issues like friendship, love, loss, growing up, depression and bravery. Although they can be quite dark at times (dark in the sense that the whole story is essentially the age-old tale of good vs evil) there are some pretty Biblical themes (like the fact that Harry is protected by his mother’s blood sacrifice for starters!).

So to me, these are books and films I can enjoy without getting interested in anything more sinister, or even thinking about the occult; if they were I’d have to walk away.

I also really enjoy the Twilight series but there I have to be more careful. Not because I’m tempted to think too much about vampires but because of the intensity (in the books particularly) of the relationship between Bella and Edward. I have to watch that immersing myself in their world doesn’t leave me with a distorted view of what love and romance is.