Poll: Harry Potter

[Fidelio]

My daughter likes the Harry Potter series. I watched the first two movies with her. They were engaging, but I do feel uncomfortable with all the magic, especially that portrayed as "white magic." I do not desire to watch any more of it and would not let my kids watch it when under my control, but as my daughter is 29 years old, she is going to do what she will, and she has a Lutheran pastor who supports her in it.

I do very much enjoy Wagners Ring (Der Ring des Nibelungen), which is four operas totaling 15 hours of great music.
Brief summary here:
http://www.umich.edu/~umfandsf/symbolis ... ngsum.html
Wagner's Ring is written from mostly the same legends and mythology as is Tolkien's Ring, but the two are very different.

[AnthonyMartin]

i’m pretty much where you are in response (to everything children bring home).

We attended a very Conservative private school but my parents took us to the public library every two weeks with almost no restrictions. I was a misfit at school but fit in with the books. From 13-16 I read the likes of Tolstoy, Dickens, Solzhenitsyn, Hugo, Tolkein, Lewis, Sartre, and many others, some great some not so great. My dad would engage the thoughts to some extent. There were certainly some authors I read that would have been better had I been shielded from, but over all engaging the thinking was helpful and enjoyable for me.

[temporal1]

My daughter likes the Harry Potter series. I watched the first two movies with her. They were engaging, but I do feel uncomfortable with all the magic, especially that portrayed as "white magic." I do not desire to watch any more of it and would not let my kids watch it when under my control, but as my daughter is 29 years old, she is going to do what she will, and she has a Lutheran pastor who supports her in it.

I do very much enjoy Wagners Ring (Der Ring des Nibelungen), which is four operas totaling 15 hours of great music.
Brief summary here:
http://www.umich.edu/~umfandsf/symbolis ... ngsum.html
Wagner's Ring is written from mostly the same legends and mythology as is Tolkien's Ring, but the two are very different.

ELCA Lutheran pastor? i doubt all Lutheran pastors would agree, but not certain.
we were ELCA for years, not since the early 2000’s.

from your posts, i’ve been wondering about your interest in music. are you a musician, do you teach?
(interested, not intending to be invasive.) no response necessary.

[temporal1]

i’m pretty much where you are in response (to everything children bring home).

We attended a very Conservative private school but my parents took us to the public library every two weeks with almost no restrictions. I was a misfit at school but fit in with the books. From 13-16 I read the likes of Tolstoy, Dickens, Solzhenitsyn, Hugo, Tolkein, Lewis, Sartre, and many others, some great some not so great. My dad would engage the thoughts to some extent. There were certainly some authors I read that would have been better had I been shielded from, but over all engaging the thinking was helpful and enjoyable for me.

my granddaughter may think similarly one day, i.e., she reads! now 6th grade.
not all children have this interest/ability/motivation. parents must try to discern for each child.
and pray for wisdom.

she was in a not-strictly conservative Catholic school, K-3rd grade.
her mother and i were not Catholic, her father is a non-practicing Catholic that claims Catholicism (whatever that is. and, there seems to be a lot of it).

i was glad my daughter chose the Catholic school (over public schools in their ultra-lib city location).
now that the child is in public schools, i am deeply grateful for those early years.

the Catholic church and school are near her public schools, i try to keep her involved in mass and CYO, etc. .. she once told her mother she wished she could go to school “where everyone was the same religion,” altho she has all sorts of friends in public schools. there she has learned, she must not speak of Christianity, this is an insult to others.

Harry Potter is A-OK!

[Fidelio]

ELCA Lutheran pastor? i doubt all Lutheran pastors would agree, but not certain.
we were ELCA for years, not since the early 2000’s.

from your posts, i’ve been wondering about your interest in music. are you a musician, do you teach?
(interested, not intending to be invasive.) no response necessary.

Actually her pastor is Wisconsin Synod. There really doesn't seem to be much in the way of standards with conservative Lutherans other than accepting everything they teach. Doctrine is the focus. When I noted how much better people in some of the Reformed churches live, one Wisconsin Synod pastor told me that Lutherans are concerned with getting people into the next world, whereas the Reformed are concerned with making this world a better place.

My music journey has been in a lot of places. I started out in kiddie songs of course, but in my teens and early twenties was heavily into rock music with some excursions into classical. Then it was Christian contemporary when I was born again (glad I got over that). I listened to a lot of blues, particularly Johnny Winter. In fact my favorite non-classical artists include Johnny Winter, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Tom Feldmann, and Stryper, other than Stryper, I have not listened to much of the rest recently. Classical I mostly am into opera but also have a lot of symphonic works, and some oratorios, particularly Messiah and Elijah.

Tom Feldmann does the early blues music and includes a good amount of gospel songs, which the early bluesmen did play.
http://www.TomFeldmann.com

Stryper is hard core heavy metal played by Christians with christian world view permeating their songs. They are audacious and satisfy my old craving for rock music because I just could not stomach secular rock anymore, and quite a bit of it I could not stomach before I was a Christian.

[AnthonyMartin]

i’m pretty much where you are in response (to everything children bring home).

We attended a very Conservative private school but my parents took us to the public library every two weeks with almost no restrictions. I was a misfit at school but fit in with the books. From 13-16 I read the likes of Tolstoy, Dickens, Solzhenitsyn, Hugo, Tolkein, Lewis, Sartre, and many others, some great some not so great. My dad would engage the thoughts to some extent. There were certainly some authors I read that would have been better had I been shielded from, but over all engaging the thinking was helpful and enjoyable for me.

my granddaughter may think similarly one day, i.e., she reads! now 6th grade.
not all children have this interest/ability/motivation. parents must try to discern for each child.
and pray for wisdom.

she was in a not-strictly conservative Catholic school, K-3rd grade.
her mother and i were not Catholic, her father is a non-practicing Catholic that claims Catholicism (whatever that is. and, there seems to be a lot of it).

i was glad my daughter chose the Catholic school (over public schools in their ultra-lib city location).
now that the child is in public schools, i am deeply grateful for those early years.

the Catholic church and school are near her public schools, i try to keep her involved in mass and CYO, etc. .. she once told her mother she wished she could go to school “where everyone was the same religion,” altho she has all sorts of friends in public schools. there she has learned, she must not speak of Christianity, this is an insult to others.

Harry Potter is A-OK!

I do think the Conservative Anabaptist world has many times missed out on the value of fairy tale and myth.

I love this essay from Tolkein.

http://heritagepodcast.com/wp-content/u ... eation.pdf

But in God's kingdom the presence of the greatest does not depress the small. Redeemed Man is
still man. Story, fantasy, still go on, and should go on. The Evangelium has not abrogated
legends; it has hallowed them, especially the “happy ending.” The Christian has still to work,
with mind as well as body, to suffer, hope, and die; but he may now perceive that all his bents
and faculties have a purpose, which can be redeemed. So great is the bounty with which he has
been treated that he may now, perhaps, fairly dare to guess that in Fantasy he may actually assist
in the effoliation and multiple enrichment of creation. All tales may come true; and yet, at the
last, redeemed, they may be as like and as unlike the forms that we give them as Man, finally
redeemed, will be like and unlike the fallen that we know.

[temporal1]

AnthonyMartin:
I do think the Conservative Anabaptist world has many times missed out on the value of fairy tale and myth. ..

Perhaps. i could not say.
But today’s world is teaching fairy tale and myth to the exclusion of Jesus Christ.
Which i find deeply tragic.

[AnthonyMartin]

AnthonyMartin:
I do think the Conservative Anabaptist world has many times missed out on the value of fairy tale and myth. ..

Perhaps. i could not say.
But today’s world is teaching fairy tale and myth to the exclusion of Jesus Christ.
Which i find deeply tragic.

They are excluding Jesus. I do not think that fairy tale and myth are causal at all...

[temporal1]

AnthonyMartin:
I do think the Conservative Anabaptist world has many times missed out on the value of fairy tale and myth. ..

Perhaps. i could not say.
But today’s world is teaching fairy tale and myth to the exclusion of Jesus Christ.
Which i find deeply tragic.

They are excluding Jesus. I do not think that fairy tale and myth are causal at all...

i think i see what you mean.
and, ultimately, i do not believe Jesus can be excluded.

“bidden or not bidden, God is present.”
https://www.philipchircop.com/post/1056 ... is-present

NOTE:

VOCATUS ATQUE NON VOCATUS DEUS ADERIT (bidden or unbidden God is present) is commonly attributed to Carl Gustav Jung but it is actually a statement that Jung discovered among the Latin writings of Desiderius Erasmus, who declared the statement had been an ancient Spartan proverb.
Jung popularized it, having it inscribed over the doorway of his house, and upon his tomb. ..

[Aurien]

We attended a very Conservative private school but my parents took us to the public library every two weeks with almost no restrictions. I was a misfit at school but fit in with the books. From 13-16 I read the likes of Tolstoy, Dickens, Solzhenitsyn, Hugo, Tolkein, Lewis, Sartre, and many others, some great some not so great. My dad would engage the thoughts to some extent. There were certainly some authors I read that would have been better had I been shielded from, but over all engaging the thinking was helpful and enjoyable for me.

my granddaughter may think similarly one day, i.e., she reads! now 6th grade.
not all children have this interest/ability/motivation. parents must try to discern for each child.
and pray for wisdom.

she was in a not-strictly conservative Catholic school, K-3rd grade.
her mother and i were not Catholic, her father is a non-practicing Catholic that claims Catholicism (whatever that is. and, there seems to be a lot of it).

i was glad my daughter chose the Catholic school (over public schools in their ultra-lib city location).
now that the child is in public schools, i am deeply grateful for those early years.

the Catholic church and school are near her public schools, i try to keep her involved in mass and CYO, etc. .. she once told her mother she wished she could go to school “where everyone was the same religion,” altho she has all sorts of friends in public schools. there she has learned, she must not speak of Christianity, this is an insult to others.

Harry Potter is A-OK!

I do think the Conservative Anabaptist world has many times missed out on the value of fairy tale and myth.

I love this essay from Tolkein.

http://heritagepodcast.com/wp-content/u ... eation.pdf

But in God's kingdom the presence of the greatest does not depress the small. Redeemed Man is
still man. Story, fantasy, still go on, and should go on. The Evangelium has not abrogated
legends; it has hallowed them, especially the “happy ending.” The Christian has still to work,
with mind as well as body, to suffer, hope, and die; but he may now perceive that all his bents
and faculties have a purpose, which can be redeemed. So great is the bounty with which he has
been treated that he may now, perhaps, fairly dare to guess that in Fantasy he may actually assist
in the effoliation and multiple enrichment of creation. All tales may come true; and yet, at the
last, redeemed, they may be as like and as unlike the forms that we give them as Man, finally
redeemed, will be like and unlike the fallen that we know.

Tolkien is one of my very favorite authors. I'd never heard of him until I was age 14 and temporarily living away from home and a teacher introduced me to The Lord of the Rings.
I had read The Chronicles of Narnia a couple of years before that after hearing The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe on Focus on the Family's Radio Theatre. I had loved the Narnia books but The Lord of the Rings completely blew me away. I rarely re-read fiction books but I've read The Lord of the Rings twice and I've read The Hobbit at least two times.