You Know, Hatred & Vitriol Aren't Virtues

It's a rare day that I completely agree with Mark Shea about anything not a settled question of dogma. But here (and I gather he's picking up on another blogger) he touches on something that really bothers me about the anti-Potter side of the Potter wars. I just read the book he's defending, and a more gentle and balanced approach couldn't be hoped for. In essence she says, here's what people are worried about, parents should read the books themselves and come to their own conclusions, and now, here's what I find in the books that's good --but let's all remember, people, that no one has to read Harry Potter. Nor are they forbidden to do so.

Reasonable, right? This hasn't prevented vitriolic attacks against her. About which Shea makes the following points:

• You make Faith look stupid:

  Catholic Harry haters and the kidz at Lifesite do such damage to the reputation of the Faith and to perfectly good Catholics by their censoriousness. Critique the books as works of art all you like. But *stop* telling lies about Ratzinger "condemnation" of the books and *stop* treating people who like the books as though they are monsters of iniquity who care only about a buck, who want to destroy the Faith, and who are objectively wicked. You only succeed on making yourself (and the Faith) look stupid to normal people, in addition to bearing false witness against your neighbor and putting you soul in jeopardy over an astoundingly trivial matter. Nobody goes to hell for disliking Harry Potter. However, it *is* possible to go to hell for murdering somebody's good name without cause.

• You're only hurting yourselves:

  Beyond the sheer nastiness, however, is also the folly. Here is one of the few rays of real light in pop culture: a story which, in my opinion, you have to be stone blind not to see both moral goodness and plain-as-day Christian themes and imagery--and Christians don't merely ignore it, they make it the special focus of their fixed and implacable hostility. There are tens of thousands of things in our culture that really are aiming to destroy the souls of our kids. This is one of the rare moments where a pop culture phenomenon is actually on our side--and a depressing number of Christians (including Catholics who ought to know better) are shooting themselves in the foot.

Shea doesn't say this, but I do. I leave alone those who simply aren't engaged by the books. (I wasn't for years, vol. I rather bored me, I only caught the bug last month, when I read the last volume to know whether my kids should read it. Then I went back and read the rest.) And I also leave alone parents who simply decide they have to draw a line someplace. Fine. "No witches" is an easy-to-understand line of demarcation. But the argument I see most often in discussion --and even from a very fine writer whose own novels I love -- ultimately amounts to sola scriptura. Only explicit analogs to Christianity are to be tolerated.

• Do they not understand that in an age hostile to religion, any explicit reference to it awakens the reader's defenses?
  
• Since when is that the Catholic approach to the arts? A people incapable of recognizing friends in the field will never renew the culture --they are asking to live in the Catholic ghetto, where things may be pious, but not necessarily good or beautiful.