irst a disclaimer: I’ve never read the Harry Potter books (I’ve admired their covers) and can’t comment directly on them. This is a review of a book—Harry Potter and the Bible—written by Richard Abanes, who has read the books, and doesn’t like them. According to Abanes, they’re amoral, unbiblical, and promote witchcraft.

The British author of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling, is a young single mother who has set new publishing records, got kids reading again, and made herself wealthy. But she has also polarized the Christian community. On the one hand are those Christians—both liberal and conservative—who defend the books. “Rowling's series is a Book of Virtues with a preadolescent funny bone,” write the editors of evangelical flagship journal Christianity Today, who wholeheartedly endorse Harry Potter. “Amid the laugh-out-loud scenes are wonderful examples of compassion, loyalty, courage, friendship, and even self-sacrifice.” Supporting this view are other prominent evangelicals such as Chuck Colson, Fuller University president Richard Mouw, and Wheaton College English professor Alan Jacobs.

On the other hand, many within the Christian community see a distinct threat from these books, and Abanes (left) provides a well-documented outline of these views. His book alternates between paraphrasing the Harry Potter story, and analyzing it. (If his concerns are legitimate, I wonder at the wisdom of the paraphrases—which focus on the “bad” bits. It’s like the Bob Larsen cassettes against rock music that were popular in church circles when I was a teenager. Larsen quoted extensively from the most objectionable lyrics to prove his point—thus imprinting on the minds of impressionable young people the very lyrics he was condemning, most of which they probably wouldn’t have noticed otherwise.)

Abanes’s first concern is that the Harry Potter books desensitize children to the occult and lead them to an interest in divination and witchcraft. He points, in particular, to the use of terms, activities and expressions that parallel those in occult literature.

However, at times you get the feeling that he is over-analyzing. Some readers argue that he misses the point that in her humorous, tongue-in-cheek style, Rowling is actually satirizing divination and mocking it. Rowling herself disavows any attempt to promote the occult. In a CNN interview she says it’s absurd to think that she wrote these books to encourage children into witchcraft. “They see it for what it is,” she said. "It is a fantasy world, and they understand that completely. I don't believe in magic, either." One reader comments that saying the Harry Potter series will lead children to Satanism is like saying soda pop will lead children to heroin.

Christian defenders of the books argue that Rowling’s references to “magick” (a specialized spelling, Abanes argues, that incorporates all forms of witchcraft and the occult) are a literary device—similar to the use made by other fantasy writers, even Christians such as C.S. Lewis and Tolkien. And yet Abanes makes a case in chapter 12 that Rowling uses witchcraft at a different and more insidious level, and he does document evidence that these books have awakened further interest in Wicca and paganism among at least some readers.

Abanes’s other major concern is that the behavior of the characters is contrary to biblical principles. He points, for example, to lie-telling, rule-breaking, and disrespect of authority. But this behavior is not foreign to many children, or much of children’s literature. And in depicting it Rowling is not necessarily defending it.

So what are we to do with these books? Even if only a fraction of Abanes’s concerns are legitimate, there should be a “handle with care” sticker on the books for Christian parents. But perhaps rather than categorically banning these books, Christian parents might use them as a good jumping point to discuss the issues of good and evil and shades of grey from the perspective of the Bible—another collection of books that is no stranger to witchcraft, lying, rule-breaking, and disrespect for authority.