Danielle M. Soulliere's article Much Ado about Harry: Harry Potter and the Creation of a Moral Panic reveals the extent of the Potter debate over the last decade. Controversy stirred within Christian communities as various individuals and groups saw Harry Potter as a celebration of witchcraft and the occult. This created a moral panic that has labelled Harry Potter as offensive and out-of-bounds for many young readers. Soulliere raises many significant issues in her article, but the problems that banning certain fantasy material from children could have been more readily addressed. For example, how can parents, educators, and religious critics and communities take a piece of fiction and blame it for executing a certain truth? The definition of fiction in itself shows that fictional novels do not convey the truth:
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In Harry Potter the main message does not tell youth to worship the devil and perform magic, but encourages people to believe in themselves and always trust in your friends and family as love conquers all evils in life. If this is not a Christian message, then what is? Soulliere presents the idea that “even though these others (pro-Potter critics) have presented sound reasoning and evidence for their counter-claims that Rowling infuses Christianity into the Harry Potter books, anti-Potter critics have continued to maintain that the books are diametrically opposed to Christianity” (Soulliere 8). The mere fact that Harry Potter is a work of fiction and fantasy, as opposed to documentaries such as Zeitgeist which are vividly anti-Christ, re-works the definition of fiction. If fictional stories have to be molded to present a perfect engagement and respect for the world we live in, for example a worship of Christ, then a fantasy world can never be truly created for the reader.
The second point Soulliere could have incorporated into her article more is how Harry Potter encouraged (and still encourages) children to read who were previously disinterested in the world of fiction. Harry Potter allows kids and teenagers to escape from reality and explore a world which will teach them valuable life lessons that do in fact draw from a Christian world view as “Rowling has cleverly packaged a Christian story through the Potter tales by presenting a redemptive moral story that has Christian undertones, despite the series’ ostensive witchcraft wrapping.”
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https://www.google.com.au/webhp?rlz=1C1PRFA_enAU435AU435&sourceid=chrome-instant&ix=sea&ie=UTF-8&ion=1#hl=en&sa=X&pwst=1&rlz=1C1PRFA_enAU435AU435&q=fiction&tbs=dfn:1&tbo=u&ei=l6NpT5uyDMiViAezkI2bCg&ved=0CCkQkQ4&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=ee2e20a284eabb8b&ix=sea&ion=1&biw=1366&bih=624
Soulliere, Daniel. 2010. “Much Ado about Harry: Harry Potter and the Creation of Moral Panic.”Journal of Religion and Popular Culture 22 (1).
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