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I have noticed that a lot of Evangelical parents these days (okay, since the 50s at least) have tried to prevent their children, and frankly themselves, from reading all sorts of literature deemed unChristian or which had too many pictures of scary monsters on the cover, etc. I just do not get this. Thinking like this is why Flyover Baptism is turning into anti-intellectual stupor that can be bamboozled by the vaguest nonsense from elected officials and can't give any kind of credible response to atheist culture.
I know it's important to educate your children early in Christian values, and that is really one of the most important things you can do - give your kid as much theological and ministerial education as you can possibly afford and they can handle! But that is NOT good reason to go around hiding Harry Potter books because of some indirect parody of magic it involves.
In addition to the Bible in sundry translations there were dozens of volumes by Calvin, Luthor, R.C. Sproul, Gary North and Augustine; and by far the most common type of book in our home was theological, theonomic or devotional. On top of that there were piles of Nietzsche, Carlyle, pulp fiction magazines, Ayn Rand, comic books, Shakespeare and Thucydides. My father encouraged me to read it all, and more beside. I feel that my strength is stronger, truer and hardier because of it, for several reasons:
1) Because not everything worth reading was written by Christians. If you think Nietzsche's 'God is Dead' is all bunk, then maybe you should read him and get the fact that he's primarily attacking the self-immolating liberalism and hypocritical Christianity of his day. You don't have to agree with his positive thesis to learn from his critical thesis.
2) Because if you don't know what they believe you will look like a fool contradicting them. A personal example of this is how often I have heard protestants argue that Catholics believe in the doctrine that 'man is saved by works', which is little more than slander. You are not going to convince anyones by attacking straw men, and you may turn them right off.
3) Just because something has violence, sex, magic or monsters in it does not make it a priori an immoral piece of pornography. See: the Bible.
I know it's important to educate your children early in Christian values, and that is really one of the most important things you can do - give your kid as much theological and ministerial education as you can possibly afford and they can handle! But that is NOT good reason to go around hiding Harry Potter books because of some indirect parody of magic it involves.
In addition to the Bible in sundry translations there were dozens of volumes by Calvin, Luthor, R.C. Sproul, Gary North and Augustine; and by far the most common type of book in our home was theological, theonomic or devotional. On top of that there were piles of Nietzsche, Carlyle, pulp fiction magazines, Ayn Rand, comic books, Shakespeare and Thucydides. My father encouraged me to read it all, and more beside. I feel that my strength is stronger, truer and hardier because of it, for several reasons:
1) Because not everything worth reading was written by Christians. If you think Nietzsche's 'God is Dead' is all bunk, then maybe you should read him and get the fact that he's primarily attacking the self-immolating liberalism and hypocritical Christianity of his day. You don't have to agree with his positive thesis to learn from his critical thesis.
2) Because if you don't know what they believe you will look like a fool contradicting them. A personal example of this is how often I have heard protestants argue that Catholics believe in the doctrine that 'man is saved by works', which is little more than slander. You are not going to convince anyones by attacking straw men, and you may turn them right off.
3) Just because something has violence, sex, magic or monsters in it does not make it a priori an immoral piece of pornography. See: the Bible.
