Harry Potter, despite my own feelings, is not demonic. A lot of Christians have a problem with magic in pop culture, and how its portrayal seems to encourage its use; apparently children that see spells being used in movies and in books start doing it themselves. Like almost any silly notion there are a number of issues that give this one some credence.
Let's start with "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live". Witches in the Ancient World were a real thing; there were used primarily for cures, curses, and divination. Although the cures were okay, the other were two were a major problem, as only God was supposed to know the future and curses were a serious no-no by any stretch. As such it made a certain sense to dispose of witches whenever they were found, especially those that had no problems using their curses.
Let's go forward all the way to the New Testament, Matthew 5:22-24. Basically, although they are talking about lust, the idea is that whatever you feel is real essentially is real. When it comes to lust the correlation is pretty obvious, as if you feel attracted to another person and are willing to act on it you may as well be committing the sin of adultery; this is where the idea of "committing adultery in your heart" came from. This has been generalized so that it applies to any sin and it has been generalized a bit; in essence, if you even think about committing a sin, you may as well have committed it. Going back to the magic issue, this means that even thinking about about casting a spell makes you a witch, and....well. Yeah.
The problem here is that one group of verses has been applied a bit too generally. The original intent was for there to be an actual intent; you needed to want to follow through with the sin in question. This doesn't refer to mere fantasizing or acting as if you wanted to do it, but an actual desire to do it; there has to be an actual desire to follow through with the idea and see what happens. This is why it applies so well to lust; it's okay to fantasize a little, but once you start thinking about it seriously it can lead to problems. On a relationship level it means that the person may fall out of love, leading to its own complications, while on a personal level it can become a harmful distraction, and get in the way of other pursuits, such as work.
When it comes to popularizing the use of magic, however, it just ain't happening. While they use magic, it's usually not of the usually proscribed kind, specifically divination and curses, and in fact curses are usually forbidden even in fiction while divination is rarely used. At the same time the lack of intent to use actual magic from those watching it makes it hardly the recruiting tool it is suspected of being. Nonetheless, it could be argued that the veneration of Harry Potter could be construed as worshipping a graven image, so there is that at least....
Let's start with "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live". Witches in the Ancient World were a real thing; there were used primarily for cures, curses, and divination. Although the cures were okay, the other were two were a major problem, as only God was supposed to know the future and curses were a serious no-no by any stretch. As such it made a certain sense to dispose of witches whenever they were found, especially those that had no problems using their curses.
Let's go forward all the way to the New Testament, Matthew 5:22-24. Basically, although they are talking about lust, the idea is that whatever you feel is real essentially is real. When it comes to lust the correlation is pretty obvious, as if you feel attracted to another person and are willing to act on it you may as well be committing the sin of adultery; this is where the idea of "committing adultery in your heart" came from. This has been generalized so that it applies to any sin and it has been generalized a bit; in essence, if you even think about committing a sin, you may as well have committed it. Going back to the magic issue, this means that even thinking about about casting a spell makes you a witch, and....well. Yeah.
The problem here is that one group of verses has been applied a bit too generally. The original intent was for there to be an actual intent; you needed to want to follow through with the sin in question. This doesn't refer to mere fantasizing or acting as if you wanted to do it, but an actual desire to do it; there has to be an actual desire to follow through with the idea and see what happens. This is why it applies so well to lust; it's okay to fantasize a little, but once you start thinking about it seriously it can lead to problems. On a relationship level it means that the person may fall out of love, leading to its own complications, while on a personal level it can become a harmful distraction, and get in the way of other pursuits, such as work.
When it comes to popularizing the use of magic, however, it just ain't happening. While they use magic, it's usually not of the usually proscribed kind, specifically divination and curses, and in fact curses are usually forbidden even in fiction while divination is rarely used. At the same time the lack of intent to use actual magic from those watching it makes it hardly the recruiting tool it is suspected of being. Nonetheless, it could be argued that the veneration of Harry Potter could be construed as worshipping a graven image, so there is that at least....
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