Conservatives for Harry Potter

Certainly not all of them since Dobson and other social conservatives of the Evangelical type seem to think they promote devil worship, satanism, and magic. But saner folks over at the National Review, bless them, think the Harry Potter books are great. Here's Mark Krikorian's defense against the Dobsonites:

The absurdity of claims that Rowling's stories somehow promote satanism or the occult was clear from the beginning, but having just finished reading the final book, I have to say that Dobson et al. owe Rowling an apology. It's not just that all the magic is a benign part of the fairy tale, like Cinderella or Snow White; it's not even just that the series "reinforces a core Christian belief that good and evil are not just socially constructed," as the op-ed I linked to says. More than all that, there's no way you can read the finale of the last book and not see it as "unambiguously Christian."

One more reason to read HP VII. Rick Brookhiser provides an historical reason for the hiding of the magical world from Muggles, as portrayed in the books:

I noticed in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows that the witches and wizards of England decided to hide themselves from non-magical people in 1689—the year the Whigs nailed down their triumph in the Glorious Revolution.

[I can see the exam question now: Take out your blue books and write a five page essay discussing the significance of 1689 on the world of magic, relating it to the Glorious Revolution]

Krikorian, btw, wonders what the Christian conservatives are going to do when they get a load of a real anti-Christian work like The Golden Compass. Good question since Carmen and I have been wondering for some time if the projected movie will lead to a filming of the whole Dark Materials trilogy, especially the last one where it is clear that they are waging war on the forces of a senile old god named Jehovah. Or something like that.