Magic in writing

General Christian Theology

Magic stance

 
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Soloist
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Magic in writing

Post by Soloist »

Read these to articles and then articulate either your support for why the authors are right about Christians having nothing to with CS Luise for these reasons or why they are wrong and its just a book series.

http://www.radicalreformation.com/the-h ... tianbeware
http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/006/n ... rouble.htm

In other words, why is magic in books wrong for you or defensible before our King.
For extra fun, a poll.

On a side note, if your opinion has actually changed based off of reading these, I'd like to hear that too.
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MaxPC
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Re: Magic in writing

Post by MaxPC »

We believe that "magic" has at its core, trust and belief in something other than God. Can we say that we trust God completely when engaging in, or reading fantasy about, trusting in spells or other rituals that don't involve God? IMO, the answer is"no".
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temporal1
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Re: Magic in writing

Post by temporal1 »

important topic.
changes i've seen in my lifetime are significant.

when i was young, any reference to magic was questioned, in the least, if not forbidden.
the same with idol worship; celebration of pride for its own pleasure. in homes, churches, and schools, there were lots of messages to reject these things, with scriptural references about the grave consequences.

today, these things are COMMON, esp for children and young people, for reading and entertainment; schools have all these materials readily available, practice them in classrooms. 100% normalized.

today, Christianity is often compared to Greek mythology, as much less interesting than mythology.
or worse than that. school teachers do this "without batting an eye."

i'm uncomfortable with these present trends.
i pray for children and young people to be protected and led to Truth.
i pray for the Holy Spirit to lead them away from empty lies.

our family rejected disney some years ago. no regrets.
i enjoy C.S. Lewis, but have not read his fantasy books.
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cmbl
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Re: Magic in writing

Post by cmbl »

My concerns with C.S. Lewis are less about Narnia per se and more about his views on hell (which I have already heard parroted in my CM setting) and his creation of an intellectual Christianity, as alluded to in the Remnant article.

That said, I would be happy to respect the convictions of men in my church against books containing magic. Meat sacrificed to idols, and all. Also, as someone who spent time in settings where You Have To Read Narnia And Lord Of The Rings, it's sort of nice to not have that anymore.
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lesterb
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Re: Magic in writing

Post by lesterb »

cmbl wrote:My concerns with C.S. Lewis are less about Narnia per se and more about his views on hell (which I have already heard parroted in my CM setting) and his creation of an intellectual Christianity, as alluded to in the Remnant article.

That said, I would be happy to respect the convictions of men in my church against books containing magic. Meat sacrificed to idols, and all. Also, as someone who spent time in settings where You Have To Read Narnia And Lord Of The Rings, it's sort of nice to not have that anymore.
I pitched my copies of the Chronicles of Narnia years ago and took a position against them. I picked them up again in the last several years and reread them, from a somewhat different perspective. CS Lewis was the kind of person who experimented with many different ideas and many different ways of expressing them. I don't agree with his position on purgatory, nor his description of hell as given in The Great Divorce. Yet neither the Chronicles nor The Great Divorce were intended to be theological in nature, and both have some very interesting ideas embedded within them, if we take the time to get to them. Unfortunately, so often people people are offended by the environment of his writing that they don't ever get to the essence.

I see a big difference in how Lewis approaches "magic" and how J. K. Rowling approaches it. The Chronicles of Narnia are allegorical and don't provoke interest in magic like Rowling does. I don't see the two as being parallel.

I'm always interested in probing the intent of the author. Lewis and Rowling are worlds apart in intent.

I wasn't going to post in this thread, because I know that some readers will immediately question my Christianity because of what I've just said. I went through a period of time in my life that I would have done the same. But when I review the results of that in my own life, I'm not impressed. I suspect that God wasn't either.
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lesterb
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Re: Magic in writing

Post by lesterb »

NOTE: I voted "other" in the poll because I don't agree with some of the definitions that some of the options give for magic. I won't go into that, because I don't have time for the amount of traffic that this would generate.

I'll add here, since I forgot in the last post, that I don't think we should be too quick to judge a writer's motives. I don't agree with everything in the books I read, but that doesn't keep me from learning something from most of them. I especially found The Shack to be challenging, though a lot of fundamentalist prophets would really despise me for that. Does that mean that I support the idea of portraying God as an African American woman? Or the way he portrays the Holy Spirit? No, I don't. In fact there are things in the book that I do NOT like. For instance, having the main character's father go to heaven after the way his life is described is a problem in my mind. On the other hand, the section where Jesus challenges the main character on judging is really good. Can I benefit from the latter and disagree with the former? I think so.

That is part of the "real magic" in writing. 8-)
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cmbl
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Re: Magic in writing

Post by cmbl »

lesterb wrote: I see a big difference in how Lewis approaches "magic" and how J. K. Rowling approaches it. The Chronicles of Narnia are allegorical and don't provoke interest in magic like Rowling does. I don't see the two as being parallel.
Very perceptive; I think I agree. (I read some of Narnia and none of Harry Potter, as my mother discouraged me from reading it when I was of that age.)
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temporal1
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Re: Magic in writing

Post by temporal1 »

cmbl wrote:
lesterb wrote: I see a big difference in how Lewis approaches "magic" and how J. K. Rowling approaches it.
The Chronicles of Narnia are allegorical and don't provoke interest in magic like Rowling does.
I don't see the two as being parallel.
Very perceptive; I think I agree. (I read some of Narnia and none of Harry Potter, as my mother discouraged me from reading it when I was of that age.)
comparing Lewis to Rowling is spot-on. i agree, there is no comparison. thankfully, i don't believe my family has been bitten by the Potter bug. i hope it stays that way.

the Potter books/movies are a great example of what children are exposed to, very often with no exposure to scriptures, at all. it's hard to imagine. a marketing phenomena.
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RZehr
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Re: Magic in writing

Post by RZehr »

lesterb wrote:
I see a big difference in how Lewis approaches "magic" and how J. K. Rowling approaches it. The Chronicles of Narnia are allegorical and don't provoke interest in magic like Rowling does. I don't see the two as being parallel.
I appreciate this.
I've only scanned the Chronicles, never really read them and I'm not really interested in reading them. But I guess I don't think it is absolutely horrid to read a book that has magic in it. The Bible has magic in it too. I view all magic as something that is completely unequivocally wrong. I also consider murder, adultery et al wrong.
But that doesn't mean that I will reject reading something solely on criteria of whether it contains sinful activity. History records many wicked things; Yet I have my children learn history, and then I teach them the right from the wrong.

But at the same time, it I don't believe it is healthy to feed on murder mysteries or romance novels. Same with magic books that I don't even know enough about to name.

I think that I am comfortable with someone learning "magic" (illusion) tricks if they so desired as long as they called it what it really is, an illusion.
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Paul
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Re: Magic in writing

Post by Paul »

Great article by Dean Taylor on this subject, really enjoyed reading it!
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