God, the Devil, and Harry Potter : A Christian Minister's Defense of the Beloved Novels

Rating:
Summary: A REFRESHING READ
Review: A nice book indeed. Well written with a goodly amount of common
sense. I found it quite refreshing after reading some of the books by some of the bible thumper ilk. While I am a confessed Christian, some of my fellow Christians rater embarrass me from time to time. While not a fanatical Harry Potter fan (I did enjoy the books though, I must admit), I do like reading a well researched piece of work. This is one of those. I do not like reading work accomplished by individuals who are trying to grind their own ax. Killinger did a very fine job with this one. While I felt that some of his points were a bit of a stretch, they certainly made more sense than burning a book, any book, before you actually read it, such as the nut case in New Mexico did recently. Recommend highly. Your a brave man Rev!

Rating:
Summary: Not worth the money!
Review: As a fellow pastor AND fan of the Harry Potter novels, I picked up this book with much interest. The introduction was intriguing enough, so I proceeded with the book. There is no doubt in my mind that evangelicals will dismiss this book as blasphemous. Harry Potter as Jesus? Dumbledore as God the Father? Fawkes as the Holy Spirit?? While I recognize the merit of Killinger's basic argument--that many of the themes in the Potter books are themes that have a Christian basis (if not an outright Christian character--I felt that his comparisons are exaggerated or altogether too weak to stand.
Of course, like others, I am totally embarrassed by the Christians who have dismissed the Potter books as "evil." I was hoping this book might be a reasonable, substantive argument against those accusations. Alas, it is not. In fact, it reads more like a synopsis of each of the Potter books in print with some theology thrown in to boot. Killinger's admiration for the Potter books stands out more strongly than any argument he makes for the books not being anti-Christian.

Rating:
Summary: I was disappointed...
Review: How can a man with a doctorate in theology have such a poor understanding of Scripture?

If you're a conservative, Bible-believing Christian looking for a conservative biblical approach to the Harry Potter/Christianity issue, this book will surely disappoint you. The author takes a very dim view of Scripture.

I found John Granger's book to be much better written and far more informative.


Rating:
Summary: Impressive
Review: I am fully aware that some people who have not read the books think that Harry Potter is satanic. This is utter nonsense. In the books, there are a series of prophecies that foretell events in the series. If you are unaware, prophecies in the series are basically a divine intervention with events in that are happening in the wizard world in which God speaks through someone. I don't know about you, but that doesn't seem like something that would appear in a satanic book to me. I found Killinger's book insightful and well-written. On a slightly different note, do you think that Jesus would want us all to be treating others so horribly because of a children's book with God in it?

Rating:
Summary: Super Christians Beware of Harry Potter
Review: I can not believe that this debate is going on. These zealots need to climb out from under their rock and step into the real world. Hello, FICTION. You, people, do remember the word, I hope. The Harry Potter series is wonderfully written and opens up the imagination and gets the kids out from the television and video games. Come on people, kids are only kids once. God isn't going to strike you dead for reading them and the devil isn't going to invade your children for reading them either. Get over this stupid idotic idea that this is unholy.

Rating:
Summary: Super Christians Beware of Harry Potter
Review: I can not believe that this debate is going on. These zealots need to climb out from under their rock and step into the real world. Hello, FICTION. You, people, do remember the word, I hope. The Harry Potter series is wonderfully written and opens up the imagination and gets the kids out from the television and video games. Come on people, kids are only kids once. God isn't going to strike you dead for reading them and the devil isn't going to invade your children for reading them either. Get over this stupid idotic idea that this is unholy.

Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: I found this book absolutely wonderful. I am a Harry Potter fan, and I am also a Christian. I have read some of the other literature about the Harry Potter series, and have found myself getting defensive. This book gave me a lot of things to think about that I hadn't considered in my readings of the HP books. People who haven't even touched the HP books because of their religious views ought to read this book before they speak out against the HP books.

Rating:
Summary: Not worth the money!
Review: I had some trouble rating this book, three or four stars. I think that in defending Harry Potter some of the premises go too far but it is still interesting and an informative contribution. If it drives the reader to a dictionary to theological terms I see no harm in that, though personally as a very amateur theologian I had no trouble understanding it. I think it's a mistake to impute an esoteric theological message to the author. As supplementary reading I highly recommend Hal GP Colebatch's "Return of the Heroes: Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and Social Conflict" which I have reviewed on its own page.

Rating:
Summary: Ties with "Irresistible"
Review: I had the hardest time getting in line for this book at the library. It was almost always checked out. It ties as most interesting with "Irresistible" but the focus is on the Christian nature of the stories. Harry turns out to be Jesus made flesh and all the symbolism turns out to be as Christian as C. S. Lewis could wish. As long as you are not an extreme fundamentalist reading these stories turn out to be great Christian literature. In fact, it turns out that all moral narratives are Christian. Dr. Killinger explains why.

Rating:
Summary: overview
Review: I'm sorry for those of you who hate Harry Potter because most of the people I know that hate Harry Potter haven't even read the books. They just read some bad reviews. I'm a christian too and I totally get that people could imitate this so-called witchcraft (The spells aren't even real in the book) but most just read the books because they're VERY good and easy to read. But this book here is more just an overview of what happens in the books. If you wanted that then just read the books! But no, some certain people just think the reviews and comments about the book are true and don't even give the books a chance. In one of these "anti-Harry Potter" books I even read that someone got one of the books as a gift or something and just because of these bad review things she threw it right away, not even wanting to read it. Like I said though, this book is basically just telling you what happens in the books with little relations to why we should or shouldn't read these best-selling books I guess. In my opinion 'don't judge a book by it's cover' or how bad the reviews are until you've read because you know what? Those are other people's opinions, not your own. Do you have an opinion? I believe you can only have an opinion if you've read the books yourself, then you tell me if you THINK it's bad or not, that would be your opinion. I like the books, that is my opinion.