Posted on 03/17/2008 7:44:22 AM PDT by Terriergal
By John-Henry Westen
EDINBURGH, March 12, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The newly released edition of the Edinburgh University Student newspaper, the oldest student newspaper in the UK, includes an interview with Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling. In the interview Rowling claims to have received death threats from Christians opposed to her novels, calling Christian 'fundamentalists' "dangerous" and comparing them by inference to Islamic fundamentalists.
Asked if there were not some Christians who dislike the book 'intensely', Rowling replied, "Oh, vehemently and they send death threats." Questioned about the 'death threats', she added, "Once, yeah. Well, more than once. It is comical in retrospect. I was in America, and there was a threat made against a bookstore that I was appearing at, so we had the police there."
While she said she could stomach critics, she had little time for Christian criticism. "But to be honest the Christian Fundamentalist thing was bad," she said. "I would have been quite happy to sit there and debate with one of the critics who were taking on Harry Potter from a moral perspective."
Many Christians who have opposed the Potter series have done so after reading comments by Christian reviewers pointing out their moral and spiritual dangers. The opponents, who have been relying on the reviewers criticisms, have often avoided reading Rowling's lengthy Potter narratives, and Rowling uses such cases to paint Christians as if they were insane.
"I've tried to be rational about it," she told the paper. "There's a woman in North Carolina or Alabama who's been trying to get the books banned-she's a mother of four and never read them. And then- I'm not lying, I'm not even making fun, this is the truth of what she said-quite recently she was asked [why] and she said 'Well I prayed whether or not I should read them, and God told me no.'"
The interviewer notes that at that point "Rowling pauses to reflect on the weight of that statement, and her expression one of utter disbelief." Rowling then continued, "You see, that is where I absolutely part company with people on that side of the fence, because that is fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is, 'I will not open my mind to look on your side of the argument at all. I won't read it, I won't look at it, I'm too frightened.'"
"That's what's dangerous about it, whether it be politically extreme, religiously extreme...In fact, fundamentalists across all the major religions, if you put them in a room, they'd have bags in common! They hate all the same things, it's such an ironic thing."
Michael O'Brien, one of the most prominent Potter critics, has carefully read and analyzed the Potter books critiquing the spiritual and moral problems with Rowling's works. O'Brien commented to LifeSiteNews.com about Rowling's mockery of Christians who avoid her works.
"Regrettably, there is a strange new form of self-righteousness at work in the world-a psychological state of mind that is common to post-modernists such as J. K. Rowling," said O'Brien. "One of its symptoms is their inability to discuss on a serious level the truth or untruth of their cultural products. They avoid the real issues and instead take the 'ad hominem' approach-personal attacks against those who raise critical objections to the disorders in their books. From the vaccuum of real thought arises the dreary habit of classifying as a 'fundamentalist' any critic who bases his arguments on religious or spiritual grounds."
Added O'Brien: "This term is used against bomb-throwing terrorists, sweet grandmothers praying silently before abortuaries, and anyone who preaches the fullness of the Christian faith in church and media. It has become the utmost smear word, a weapon that is proving quite effective in silencing opposition. If you don't have an argument yourself, you just switch tactics and cry 'fundamentalist!' Supposedly all opposition will then collapse."
In previous interviews Rowling has said Christian criticism of her works come from the "lunatic fringe" of the church.
Prior to being elected Pope, then-Cardinal Ratzinger expressed an opinion opposing the Potter books. He sent a letter of gratitude to Gabriele Kuby who authored a work explaining the dangers of the Potter story, especially to young children. Made available by LifeSiteNews.com, Ratzinger's letter to Ms. Kuby stated, "It is good, that you enlighten people about Harry Potter, because those are subtle seductions, which act unnoticed and by this deeply distort Christianity in the soul, before it can grow properly."
Father Gabriele Amorth, chief exorcist of the Vatican also condemned the books warning parents, "Behind Harry Potter hides the signature of the king of the darkness, the devil." Father Amorth criticized the novels for glorifying magic, which he explicitly refers to as "the satanic art", and for presenting disordered perceptions of morality in the supposedly heroic main characters.
See related LifeSiteNews coverage:
Pope Opposes Harry Potter Novels - Signed Letters from Cardinal Ratzinger Now Online
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/jul/05071301.html
Harry Potter Feature Page:
http://www.lifesite.net/features/harrypotter/
I forgot to ask. WHO IS the goat-bearded man in the “25 Most Influential . . .” picture?
I don't know, I found Mother Goose to be pretty scary.
ping
I had the same thought.
Look, I’m a fundamentalist Christian and I like the Potter books. I don’t see anything that Rowling says that is so unreasonable. Calling in death threats against an author is pretty similar to Islamic fundamentalism. Criticising a book without reading it is pretty stupid. She’s hardly calling all Christians bigots and I believe she’s a Christian herself - as anyone reading her seventh book would easily believe.
Also that thing about the Pope criticising the books was debunked way back whenever. This article is stupid.”
Well posted! Going after the Potter books is silly when you have books that openly push the homosexual agenda being forced on public schools. The Potter books at least show strong convictions and the willingness to risk all for moral principles. It is fantasy, with little relationship to reality, but I thought I could detect some similarities to our current fight against Islamofacism in the books.
The willingness to kill innocents and to glory in it was a clear parallel with our current enemies and the evil portrayed in the books.
She must be a liar, that's it.
Who would ever issue a death threat against a popular media figure? Couldn't ever happen.
And she needs to sell more books, doesn't she? Yeah, that must be it.
If someone thinks that you should be dead so much that they tell you in the form of a threat on your life, does it really matter how that threat is carried out? Whether beheaded, shot or stabbed, you’re just as dead.
I don't know, I wasn't there. However, JK Rowling equating Christians to Islamic fundamentalists is outrageous.
Best comment so far.
No surprise there.
here ya go.
“Meanwhile, in a commentary posted on the website of the Christian Broadcasting Network, which has also called a ban on the Potter books, self-described cult expert Jack M. Roper reiterated past warnings from conservatives to parents over the impact that the disguised witchcraft contained in the novels may have on children.”
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20071030/29889_Conservatives_Urge_Ban_on_’Harry_Potter’_Over_Witchcraft,_Homosexuality.htm
Joyce makes me too sleepy to kill.
Is this witchcraft good? Does it mean that casting spell is okay?
For believers who follow the scriptural dictates against witchcraft these are black and white issues and there's no question which path to take. They just don't want their children to read this stuff.
Exactly!
Potter is very big in UK where church attendance is abysmal
Children have active imaginations. Instead of helping these imaginations with solid religious stories (like in Sunday school) they get filled with Harry Potter quasi black magic paganism
It's one thing for an adult to investigate astrology numerology demonism and dark forces....
It's bad for this to be thrust upon a child
Rowling is wrong, but she has a grain of truth.
Both Islam and Christianity have two faces. One is pretty much sweetness and light, people trying to connect with their maker. The other side is dark, coercive and dangerous.
Both will blame extremism in their ranks on “misinterpretation” of their doctrines. But that doesn’t matter to those who are oppressed by this “misinterpretation”.
What matters is the difference between how Muslims and Christians treat those among them who are dark, coercive and dangerous.
Christians will not support those in its ranks who commit violent acts and espouse repugnant interpretations of their religion. They can judge them, either from afar, or as a member of a jury, and give them NO benefit from sharing their religion. They will send violators to prison or even give them the death penalty, appropriate with their crimes, and not give the criminals religious beliefs a second thought.
Muslims, however, find it agonizingly hard to condemn those of their religion who offend. While they personally are offended by the primitive, even animalistic behavior of their fellow believers, they still hold them up as better than the best of the non-believers.
But there are similarities between the two religions as well. One such are those factions within the religions that hold the belief that hold the literal word of God in their respective holy book, and that it must be obeyed to the letter.
This in turn leads to disputes with everything else in the world, all other knowledge, and civility. Much credibility is lost over silliness such as insisting the value of pi is 3.0, because “the Bible says it is so”, as if that matters to spiritual truth, which it doesn’t.
Yet almost all Christians, long ago, discarded the idea that *only* the knowledge in the Bible was worth having, that all other knowledge should be ignored, and people should despise it. For ideas abound, and people must rely on their own judgment to determine if they are good or bad.
But there has long been factions in Islam that hold just this view, that the Koran holds all knowledge. This view is a thousand years old, and was espoused by a philosopher in Persia known as al-Ghazali (spelling is important, as there are others with similar names).
In a Xenophobic and paranoid time in Persian history, he tried to unify Muslims by despising all knowledge outside of the Koran. His success doomed the Muslim enlightenment, and stopped their scientific and technological progress ever since.
And this is why so many Muslims are Philistines, who destroy schools and libraries, and kill teachers and scholars.
So while there are a few similarities between fundamentalists, the differences are marked, and make all the difference in the world. Especially to those who are not admired by the fundamentalists.
Good little dhimmi, JK. We won’t rape and stone you in the first wave when sharia rules in Merrie Olde.
Potter ping.
No, it’s not believable.
That’s just more of the same kind of anti-religious rhetoric that she’s spewing.
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