Harry Potter and the Misdirected Christians

No this is not a novella that is a rip off of a series of well written stories by the rediculously wealthy JK Rowling rather it is a reflection of the reaction of Christians that those fun novels sparked. But this is nothing new and Harry Potter is just one of the more recent straw man that some Christians attack. I am not criticizing the desire to create a safe world for our children and the very parental instinct to protect them from dangers. This is meant as a critique to those teachers and pastors who have laid a foundation of Christianity unlike that found in the Bible upon which this fear can not be engaged, but fed. The fear with things like Harry Potter is that it is an influence that will steal our children away from the faith of the parents. This is an outside thing that infiltrates and kidnaps the mind, heart and soul and leads our children to a life of witchcraft (in the case of Harry Potter). Parents are taught that things like reading the Harry Potter novels will teach your children witchraft and then devil worship. There seems to be several things going wrong in the thinking behind such sentiment.
First off Harry Potter doesn't even use real witchcraft. The author makes things up using fantastical ingredients in the few occurances of some kind of potion. Really if a kid wanted to make some potion from the novels where in the world would they get unicorns blood???? The magic words that are said to unlock doors and disarm other wizards of their wands for example are simply made up latin words much like pig latin. Pleasay dona beay stupidio persono!
Secondly Harry Potter leads people to magic and witchcraft as much as Heavy Metal causes people to commit suicide. Think about it a person who is in love with God, goes to Sunday worship and all that other stuff that goes into a genuine relationship with God then begins to read these novels. The next thing you as the parent know is that suddenly your son is now wearing a robe, mixing weird concoctions together in an attempt to become invisible to sneak out of the house to sacrifice a chicken to Satan. Sure things like this have happened, but it's never the influence of one thing that leads people to such a radical tranformation. If a person who appears to have a genuine faith leaves the faith to such an extreme there is a lot going on in the person's life. Similarly there is no such thing as a happy person who has everything going for them and is a genuinely healthy individual who begins to listen to heavy metal, suddenly becomes seriously depressed to the point where they take their own life. There are many other factors going on. Maybe some kid was actually depressed perhaps over their parents divorce or is chemically unstable and needs medication or whatever. It's most likely this depression that leads that person to listen to music that may reenforce their thinking, but it is never more than a catalyst. Anyone who reads Harry Potter and gets into witchcraft was probably dealing with a lot in their life and would have gotten into one thing or another anyway.
Perhaps when we scapegoat Harry Potter or Heavy Metal or whatever we are doing not only ourselves a disservice, but our children who in an attempt to protect them from something we are actually protecting ourselves from facing the reality that neither we nor our children are perfect. In an attempt to protect our children from things like Harry Potter we are spending all our energy fighting a straw man while ignoring things that may actually do them harm, i.e. depression, poor self image, etc. Maybe some parent can't deal with the reality that their child has fallen from faith and then blames Harry Potter or something in an attempt to pacify our fears that it was our fault.
Thirdly there is also the theologically backwards thinking of how sin works and where it comes from. The thinking is as if sin were some kind of contagious pathogen. The thinking that lies behind the desire to protect is that there is something outside of us from which to protect. The reality that Jesus teaches, however, is much the opposite. Mark 7:20-23 have Jesus instructing his disciples that evil comes out from within the human heart. The seat of evil is not something that is floating around the air currents just waiting to infect some unaware otherwise good Christian, rather it is within us all. Evil isn't Hitler, Stalin or even Sadaam it is the propensity within all of us with a heart bent towards sin. Evil is expecting everyone to live according to my standard of how the world should work. Evil is thinking that I'm better, privaledged, entitled, etc. Evil is wanting the destruction of others (this isn't the core, but an example) and this comes from within. Sin then is the inevitable action of a heart untouched by the transformative blood of Jesus Christ. The essence of the gospel is that Jesus Christ has forgiven our sins and is transforming us from the inside out. Jesus has given us a new heart (Jeremiah 31) and is transforming our image into his image (2 Cor 3:18) our mind into his (Rom 12:1-2, Col 1:21).
Instead of trying to insulate our children and ourselves from outside things, as if wearing a spiritual prophylactic will keep us safe from the emanations of the world, we need to inoculate ourselves with the blood of Christ. Only when we see our faith as something that comes from within us through a divinely transformed heart, mind and soul through a relationship with God will we realize that things like Harry Potter will not infulence us to go over to the dark side.
And maybe when we stop beating the air and fighting straw men (pointless fights our enemy loves to see us waisting our energy on) we will make real headway in no longer insulating ourselves from the world, but in turn entering into the world like a healing virus spreading the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ who transforms our hearts. For that is the point of the great commission. Jesus never said "go now into all parts of the world and protect yourselves from the evils that are around you. Build gated communities that neither protect you nor send out the message that can transform the world. Wait in your bunkers watching the rest of the world continually be ravaged by the effects of sin counting the days until my return." No I think he said something more like "go into all the world and make disciples of everyone baptizing them in my name."
Maybe if we get ourselves out of the trap in which the enemy has us and stop worrying about things like Harry Potter and such things we can begin to think about global injustices (or local), feeding the hungry, and preaching the gospel.