Dear Rev. Know-It-All,

Give me a break! I read your last article and am convinced you are out of your mind. Where do you get off calling Harry Potter demonic? The Harry Potter books are just good clean fun.

You’re as bad as my pastor. He just had a speaker at the church who wrote off one of the world's major religions as demonic. There's no such things as demons. Why don't you join us here in the twenty first century. It' easy to throw words like "demonic" at people and groups we don't like. They had no trouble doing it at the Salem witch trials. When do you plan to start burning the witches? 

What hypocrisy!

Kent B. Leavitt

I think you may have seen too many made for TV movies.

I suspect you are defining demonic as always involving spinning heads and projectile vomiting. If you are a Catholic Christian you say the creed every Sunday, assuming you darken the door of a church where the Nicene Creed is said, "I believe in God... the creator of all things seen and unseen." We believe in the existence of a world that we cannot see with our eyes.

I can not recommend C.S. Lewis's book, The Screwtape Letters too enthusiastically. If you aren't a fan of reading, you can get it as a recorded book, read by John Cleese of "Monty Python" and "A Fish Called Wanda" fame. C.S. Lewis points out that we human beings live on the border of two worlds; the natural and the supernatural. We are incarnate spirits, not just flesh, not just soul.  You may think that there is no supernatural world, but you are living in it, and the struggles of this world are not separate from the struggles of an unseen world.

The Bible says that "It is not against flesh and blood we war, but against powers and principalities." (Eph.6:12) 

St. Peter reminds us that, "The devil goes about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour." (1Peter 5:8) 

C.S. .Lewis points seem to say this is the true nature of things demonic, "the stronger will seek to devour the weaker," to quote The Screwtape Letters. 

When you hear the word "demonic" you probably picture Linda Blair in the movie "The Exorcist" or the film "Rosemary’s Baby," but the demonic is usually much more boring than that.

Abortion clinics are demonic. They are just places where people punch in and make a living. They have secretaries and efficient people in white coats and coffee pots. And degrees on the wall and certificates from health inspectors, just like any little business, but they suck unborn children down suction tubes after breaking their skulls. They devour human life. 

Rape is demonic. When someone forces another person to become the object of his attentions without regard to the other’s well being or freedom, he does what the devil does.

The abuse of a child is demonic, whether on the part of the clergy, a teacher or a parent. It is the very essence of the stronger will devouring the weaker. 

Imperialism, the devouring of small countries by large ones, is demonic, whether it is perpetrated by Nazis, by our own government, by Jihadists or anyone else.

So you see, if the essence of the demonic is a kind of devouring, then the demonic is everywhere. It infests business, politics, religion and who knows what else. 

But, in what sense can Harry Potter be demonic? 

Well, look closely at the context of Harry’s powers. They are HIS powers. They are at his service, not necessarily at the service of the good. He accomplishes his will by defying his guardians, whether they are his stodgy uncle and aunt or the headmasters of Hogwarts Academy. He can hurt those who hurt him. He is in constant competition for control of the situation. The bad guys want to destroy him and he wants to destroy the bad guys. 

Contrast him with Jesus on the cross "obedient, even to death." (Phil 2:8) 

Can you really conceive of Harry saying "love those who persecute you"? (Matt 5)

If Jesus is the very image of God, then Harry is the image of someone else, just packaged more nicely.

Rev. Know-It-All