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In Brief... World News Reviewby Darris McNeely and Cecil MaranvilleWizard—Boy Book Boom Wizardry is big business. The latest boy-wizard Harry Potter book is assured of best-seller status before it even hits the bookstores July 8. If you haven't heard of Harry Potter, you will. The series is immensely popular, with the first three books selling seven million copies before the Christmas rush last year. They also topped the New York Times best-seller lists. An initial print-run of over 5,000 copies is considered respectable, but Joanne K. Rowling's latest offering will start with 1.5 million copies! Amazon.com predicts that Rowling's fourth book in a promised series of seven will be "the biggest online best-seller ever." Not surprisingly, the market for Harry Potter memorabilia is mushrooming as well. Can a movie be far behind? The main character is an unusual 11-year-old boy. Raised by abusive foster-parents (relatives), he discovers that he has "special powers" and enrolls in "the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry." Once he masters the magic arts, he is able to confront his parents' murderer. Rowling ages Harry one year with each new book, bringing in issues and interests that are age-pertinent. She promises to introduce a girl in the fourth book. Presented as "good magic" that pursues and overcomes "bad magic," the theme of the books is controversial. Because they are entertaining and easy reading, attracting even young people who are not prone to read books at all, many teachers have introduced the Harry Potter books in the classroom. Challenges to allowing, much less encouraging, their reading in classrooms have been launched in at least eight U.S. states. Passions of Harry Potter's defenders are equal to those who want Harry and his Hogwarts banned from schools. Who would defend books about a child wizard-and why? Christianity Today for one. It reasons, "the literary witchcraft of the Harry Potter series has almost no resemblance to the I-am-God mumbo jumbo of Wiccan circles. Author J.K. Rowling has created a world with real good and evil, and Harry is definitely on the side of light fighting the 'dark powers.'" Christianity Today not only defends the books, it recommends them, saying, the "series is a Book of Virtues with a funny bone. Amid the laugh-out-loud scenes are wonderful examples of compassion, loyalty, courage, friendship, and even self-sacrifice. No wonder young readers want to be like these believable characters." Conservative Christians who take issue with presenting witchcraft in a positive light are ridiculed as excessive, unwilling or unable to "lighten up and allow kids to have some fun." Would such critics judge God the same way? He told His people: "There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination to the LORD, and because of these abominations the LORD your God drives them out from before you" (Deuteronomy 18:10-12). ( Reuters, Christianity Today, January 10, 2000.) Vatican Releases Text of Fatima Vision The Vatican has released the text and commentary on the famous third vision of Fatima. This comes one month after the pope beatified two of the Portuguese children to whom the Virgin Mary supposedly appeared in a series of visions in 1917. Long held a secret in the Vatican archives, the third vision was thought to contain apocalyptic visions foretelling the end of the world. A reading of the text seems to portray a bishop dressed in white who is killed amidst the bodies of other saints and martyrs. The vision is being interpreted as foretelling the attempted assassination of John Paul II on May 13, 1981. The pope has credited the Virgin Mary for sparing his life. It is interesting that the first of the Fatima visions occurred on May 13, 1917. While the visions do not reveal any dramatic future events, the Vatican affirms the "personal revelatory" nature of the visions, thus giving credence to the role of visions to the church's faithful. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, writing in a comment upon the visions said, "'the events to which the third part of the "secret" of Fatima refers now seem part of the past.' Insofar as individual events are described, they belong to the past. Those who expected exciting apocalyptic revelations about the end of the world or the future course of history are bound to be disappointed." The first two secrets have been known for some time. They deal with the outbreak of World War II, divine punishment for human sin and Russian Communism's attempt to eradicate religion. All three visions are officially relegated to past events. In the long-term, those within the Catholic Church, the present Pope included, who represent the cult of Mary worship will likely gain the most. (BBC News.) |
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