God Hates Fantasy

[vovat]

Hey, guess what I came across! It's another fundamentalist author about how fantasy is turning kids to Satanism! A large portion of the article focuses on Twilight, and from what I've heard of that series, it DESERVES to be bashed. Not in the way Pastor Joe does it, though. Harry Potter is another target, but what particularly caught my attention is that there's some stuff about The Wizard of Oz.

Are you at all surprised to find that Pastor Joe is willing to accept any source that goes along with what he already believed? If you are, you haven't read very many articles by fundamentalists. He starts out with a quote from MTV News, of all places, about the popularity of Wicca. Did Iann Robinson tell you that, Pastor? :P He also includes a fair amount of quotes from Anton LaVey, because why WOULDN'T a fundamentalist Christian accept the word of the founder of the Church of Satan as valid? It's not like Satan is the Father of Lies or anything, after all! Really, from what I've heard about LaVey's variety of Satanism, most of its rituals are parodies anyway, so Pastor Joe is accepting information on magic (which he apparently DOES believe in) from a group that quite likely doesn't. Really convincing, Joe!

Speaking of Satan, don't fundamentalists typically believe that most people are bound for Hell anyway? Then why would the Devil play all these games and influence all these fantasy authors and Hollywood filmmakers if he doesn't get any more out of it than he would have by default? Yet, in Pastor Joe's mind, imagination itself is the work of the Devil. Seriously. Because Stephenie Meyer and J.K. Rowling refer to the characters and situations as having sprung into their heads, Joe thinks they must have been put there by evil spirits. I'd have to suspect that an evil spirit would be able to come up with something better than Meyer's poorly written abstinence porn, but maybe Satan got one of his lesser agents for her. ("We don't need the Lord of the Flies for this one. How about the Lord of the Dust Mites?") But not only is emotion bad, but knowledge in general. The pastor criticizes the Gnostic notion, apparently shared by the Mormons, that Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit was ultimately a good thing. But if that was the fruit that gave knowledge of good and evil, then is Joe saying that this knowledge is a bad thing, and we SHOULDN'T be aware of the difference between good and evil? Then what the hell are you trying to do with this article, Joey? Maybe YOU'RE the one who's actually on Satan's side! {g}

While the Oz part is fairly short, my fandom makes it pretty much necessary for me to address it. Not surprisingly, the pastor mentions Baum's membership in the Theosophical Society. From what I've gathered, Theosophy was basically one of those New Age systems of belief that mixes in elements from a whole bunch of different religions and philosophies, often with no regard for their original context. While Theosophy includes some rather offensive beliefs, like the idea of the root races, I haven't heard anything about their thinking Satan was good. How much of Theosophy Baum actually accepted isn't really clear. I know he used the idea of elementals that Blavatsky apparently got from Paracelsus (which is one of Button-Bright's many middle names, by the way) in his writings, but did he actually BELIEVE that there were fairy-like creatures inhabiting the air? I'm not sure there's any way to know. Pastor Joe points out that, in Wizard, "Baum’s channeled message doesn’t only teach children that there are 'good' witches, but the message of Glinda (the 'good' witch) to Dorothy was that she didn’t have to look outside herself for answers. 'You've always had the power…' Glinda reveals to Dorothy." Except that line was from the movie, not the book. Did the pastor ever actually READ Wizard? Probably not, since he seems pretty unfamiliar with all of the books he's bashing. He also writes, "Harry Potter seduces young people into Wicca and other neo-pagan worldviews and practices through the lure of occult power and the lie that you, too, can become like God." Yeah, remember when Harry made his own world, populated it with living beings, judged them for their deeds, and sent a forty-day rain to kill most of them? Because I don't. Rowling herself has stated that she believes in God, not magic, but the problem is that people like our pastor here believe in BOTH.

And I've addressed this topic before, but from what I know of Wicca, anyone turning to that because of the way magic works in the Harry Potter or Oz books (or many other fantasies, for that matter) would probably be severely disappointed. Oddly enough, storybook magic strikes me as working much more scientifically.

Comments

[newwwoz.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

My mom was never very supportive of my Oz research, claiming that Oz supported the white magic/black magic idea. (No, she did not read the books, as Baum has it that there is just magic that should be avoided by people who don't know what they're doing, neither good nor evil, but depending on how it's used by certain people.)

My own thought is that the most God-like quality we have is our imagination, and fantasy is simply the creation of our imagination.

There are many such books and arguments by people who claim certain fantasies are evil, even down to more Christian-friendly types like Narnia and Middle-Earth. Seriously, my mom was once loaned an independently-published book called "Candy-Coated Occult" that picked out many such targets, including Oz (briefly), and Narnia and "The Lord of the Rings." (One chapter dedicated to each.) A lot of the claims were wild and loose ("There's a witch in it, so it must be evil!"), and even called the White Stag at the end of "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" a horse. (Apparently the... writer was unaware that a stag is a deer.) The claims about Middle-Earth broke down to "It's dark and scary, and there's a wizard who's good." Hardly substantial.

That made my mom tell me to get rid of my Oz books and anything "Lord of the Rings" related, because my interest in them must be why the family was doing so poorly financially. (A pretty weird claim, as I was actually the only one in the household who was holding down a job.) I of course didn't listen, but it was one of the factors that helped me decide to move out.

I've never read Harry Potter (or "Twilight") or seen the movies, so I'm not quick to label them as "evil." I think I might go the way of my Scottish friend Al and wait until they're not quite so uber-popular.

I hate this notion that just because you're a Christian, you should hate people who don't agree with you. It's totally wrong.

One of the better things I've read on this subject is "Harry Potter, Narnia, and The Lord of the Rings: What You Need to Know About Fantasy Books and Movies" by Richard Abanes. While written from a Christian perspective, he does not say that certain books should be banned, burned, or generally avoided. Rather, if parents are so concerned with what their kids are reading or watching, they should actually parent their kids and make sure they understand what's fantasy, what's real, what's safe, and what's dangerous (Wow, what a unique concept.), as the book noted that non-fantasy entertainment, such as the "Jackass" television show, could be harmful to under-educated minds. He did have a note that said Rowling has met people who claim to try to duplicate the spells in Harry Potter, but I'm sure Rowling herself would worry about the sanity of such people.

Anyways, that's all I should say for now.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I don't think Baum mentions either black or white magic in his fantasies, although Thompson does refer to the former in Wishing Horse. Baum makes magic itself pretty much neutral, but I guess someone who thinks all magic is from Satan couldn't accept this. Still, Wizard also includes a live scarecrow, a talking lion, flying monkeys, and a poppy field that puts people to sleep. Why would someone reading the book accept the Good and Wicked Witches as real, and not any of these other things?

As far as Middle-Earth goes, wasn't Gandalf eventually revealed to be an incarnated angel or something? Angels do plenty of magic in the Bible, with no indication that it's wrong.

[billiedoll.livejournal.com]

This is the story of what happens when a guy tries to cast spells from Dungeons and Dragons and the Harry Potter books. http://www.theescapist.com/spells/

Both Narnia and Lord of the Rings were written by Christians as expansive parables.I'll never figure out why Christians don't get that.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

I've only read the first two Twilight books. Although the second one is markedly better than the first (not that it was a high target to shoot for), one of the things I like about Stephenie Meyer is that I can point to her and say, "See? I write ten times better than her, so if she can get published ...."

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Well, sometimes it isn't so much about good writing as it is about getting something a certain audience can latch onto. And apparently there's a good portion of the population (probably mostly teenage girls) who can really latch onto the idea of sex with sparkly Mormon vampires.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's fair to call them "Mormon" vampires ... after all, so far there hasn't been a single character in any of my stories who was Lutheran. :->

Actually, there's a pastor in the story idea I'm working on now, but since he's a preacher in a nudist colony I'm fairly certain he's not a Lutheran, either.

But you're right, Meyer hit the jackpot with her quasi-erotic sexy vampire vs. sexy werewolf abstinence stories -- and I'm sure there a thousand rip-offs going through the printers of teenage writer wannabe's even as we speak.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

A few years ago I found a website profiling Tolkien, Lewis, and L'Engle specifically as Christian writers who incorporate their faith into their fantasy novels, and there was a guestbook/comments section/something-- most of the comments were positive, but there was one comment that said something like "If you think these writers are Christian you are SO WRONG..." etc etc, you know, this garbage. And I felt so sad for that person, for their narrowmindedness not allowing them to see the beautiful things people are writing about faith through the format of fantasy, and for the slander against these three people who passionately claimed not only the label of "Christian" but also the Christian life-- to say that any of them is "SO not a Christian" when their lives revolved around it, I mean, that's just mean. Not like, you know, any of them were READING that comment, but it's still, the concept of the thing. Then again, Catholics like Tolkien and I, we're some other species and all... (yesterday I overheard some people talking about religion, and they got on the subject of Catholicism and one said "Do they have The Bible?" and the other was like "Well they DO but they have this Catechism thing which is More Important" and so on and I was like "Wha...?" also the Pope is a Dictator)

[vovat.livejournal.com]

It often seems like the most anti-imagination Christians are the same ones who insist on taking the Bible 100% literally. I guess they figure that, if kids are going to take the story of Noah's ark at face value, they might well do the same for Gandalf and Dumbledore.

There was a time when popes could reasonably have been considered dictators, but that's not so much the case nowadays. (Not to mention that the Protestant denominations are essentially offshoots of Catholicism anyway, even if they'd deny it.)

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

Protestants broke pretty firmly with Catholics. You could say that *all* Christian churches are offshoots of the same original church -- that's pretty obvious!

[vovat.livejournal.com]

True. If you read the letters of Paul, it sounds like it didn't take long at all for several different Christian denominations to spring up.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

It's the nature of humanity to get petty over little differences. In my mind all of Christianity can be boiled down to one small sentence: If you except Christ as your personal savior, you go to Heaven. Period. No need to go through another human, no ceremony needed, doesn't matter which knee you kneel on or how you say your prayers. You either believe or you don't; the details are of no matter to anyone but the devil.

And that's why I don't get along with organized religion any better than you do. ;-)

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

My ex-wife's husband is like that: The only Christianity is HIS Christianity.