Last summer I decided to get acquainted with Harry Potter. When he first arrived on the literary scene several years ago, my husband and I decided that we as a family did not need to intimately know a wizard child going to wizard school. Recently I noticed many Christian parents allowing their children to get to know Harry quite well. I thought perhaps I had been wrong-too hasty in my judgment--so I decided to do some research. I prayed for God's guidance and protection as I did three things.

First, I researched each reference in the Bible to witches, witchcraft, sorcerers(ies), soothsayers, wizards, etc. (forty-six in all). As I did this, I also investigated the Hebrew and Greek definitions for each of the words, to see exactly what these words meant. Second, I read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the fourth book in the series. Since I did not have time to read all four books, I chose Goblet of Fire because it is characterized as the "darkest" so far.  Each of the next three books is supposed to get "darker"--whatever that means.  I wanted to get to the heart of the complaints about Harry, and I figured the fourth book would take me to the core of the problem, if it existed.

When I finished these two projects, I began reading Harry Potter and the Bible by Richard Abanes, who is the author/co-author of nearly a dozen books on cults, the occult, and world religions. Mr. Abanes has already done exhaustive research, which he carefully documents, on all four books, which the average parent does not have time to do. My prayer is that this article will help parents discern how intimate they want their families to become with the very popular child-wizard, Harry Potter.