1. notleia says:

    So basically, you argue that children need wonder and imaginaaaaation, but not really magic? Okay.

    Except it is the United Federation of Planets, of which Star Fleet is a subsidiary, you philistine!!!!1!! 😛

  2. Mark Carver says:

    Fictitious magic is fake, and real magic is demonic. Neither of which are needed to be in awe of the world and God’s glory. What’s the problem?

  3. Jill says:

    Gibbs is ignorant to witchcraft; therefore, it’s okay. That’s a strange argument to make. It’s true we’re living in a time and place that pretends to be empirical, but that’s exactly why demonic forces can slip by in seemingly innocuous forms. Anyone who has experienced witchcraft knows it’s not innocuous and that magic doesn’t point to God. I have a friend who’s leaving the state where we live to get away from people in her family who are practitioners of brujeria. After all, she said, it’s called the Land of Enchantment for a reason. Words like that do indeed mean something. Real magic is dangerous, but attractive to people whose lives have been stripped of the supernatural. This is why, as a Christian, I’m conversely attracted to churches that practice the sacraments — so many churches deny the very real presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

    • Travis Perry says:

      Agreed that there is such a thing as witchcraft and that it has real effects and actually has been going through a massive growth for some time now–but I think mentioning witchcraft has been discredited among Christians by those few who emphasize it too much and worry about it obsessively.

      No, just because some people are in a panic every time something with a star on it falls over sideways (I’m exaggerating for a purpose), doesn’t mean the very idea of witchcraft is inherently ridiculous and imaginary. Witches and Neo-Pagans are real and they are as much an enemy of Christ as materialists.

  4. Honestly, the devil will probably use anything he can to taint people, whether it’s fictional magic or volunteer work at church. And even if he didn’t bother trying to do that, we can end up tainting ourselves even with seemingly innocent things. Life is a minefield. As much as we try to calculate where the bombs are, we’re still going to step on a few now and then. Obviously we shouldn’t be overly paranoid, but it does mean we should use a semblance of caution in everything we do. Like, I dunno. Reevaluating our own behaviors on a regular basis helps, along with analyzing how it affects our lives.

    • Mark Carver says:

      The devil cannot taint believers; he can only tempt them. He literally has no power over the spiritual walk of anyone who is in Christ. He can affect their circumstances, but it is the Christian’s job to walk in the Spirit with boldness. And while life may be a minefield, some areas have more clusters of mines than others, and it’s not smart to go frolicking through those areas. They should be traversed with alertness and sometimes with caution, like you said. Since everything, even something as seemingly wholesome as volunteer work at a church, can become a temptation or an idol, Christians need to continuously guard their hearts, especially when it comes to things that have clear roots in sin, such as magic.

      • Taint might be the wrong word. I guess ‘lead them toward problematic behavior and mistakes, especially by using circumstances to manipulate their thinking’ might be a slightly better way to say it. But yeah, if there are areas more likely to be littered with mines, don’t play there. Buuut, don’t assume that an area is safe just because it’s stereotyped as having less mines.

  5. Carmen says:

    “…crediting the Harry Potter books for “…restoring children’s delight in school after the materialists and secularists turned schools into godless factories” is downright silly. He claims that “[m]agic is now a weapon of joy for fighting Darwin, Dewey, and all the other prophets of doom who have lately tried to strip the wonder from the world.” I call pure BS on that. Fictional magic has about as much power in the real world as the Star Fleet Federation has in the UN. ”
    ^ I realize the discussion here isn’t really about Harry Potter, but I see your call of BS and raise you one. Personally, HP DID restore a love of school, a passion for deep friendship, serve as a weapon to fight depression and loneliness, and inspired a drive for exploration and imagination for me. Yes, I’d absolutely call that magical, and magic that had a very real and directly-observable power in my world as a teen. It’s totally okay if not everyone experienced that — everyone is affected and changed by different stories. But not having experienced it personally is no call to “call BS” on it globally.

  6. I don’t care much for the Harry Potter books, but love LOTR. Gandalf uses magic, and it seems to be a symbol of God’s power. What children actually need is stories that show “the ceaseless struggle between … good and evil.” If the stories use symbols like magic, or dragons, or spaceships, it doesn’t matter as long as the imagination is baptized, as C.S. Lewis said Norse legends did for him.

  7. Wendy Jones says:

    This argument is solid! I found many of his examples to be an exaggeration of a point, instead of holding substance. In Romans, Paul tells us “since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” You don’t need magic to know God.

What do you think?