Dear Friends in Christ

Lastnight I sent out an E-mail advising of an article about the Harry Potter books and their satanic influence upon the young in our society.  I have since been advised that the article is satire and that the interviews described therein never actually took place.  In particular, I received a number of E-mails from Alan Morrison, one of which I have copied below because it has a link to authentic material about the Harry Potter books on the Crossroad Website.

I am sorry for any inconvenience that I have caused by my premature "excitement" over this issue and thank all the people who have contacted me with info about The Onion article.  Please forward this information on to your contacts.

Yours in Christ's service  -  Hughie Seaborn


----- Original Message -----
From: Alan Morrison [address removed by request]
To: Diakrisis Mailing List [address removed by request] Sent: Sunday, 17 September 2000 4:03
Subject: Harry Potter Article -- Spoof, not Proof...


> Dear Friends:
>
>     I keep receiving notification of an article about Harry Potter in a
> magazine called "The Onion".  The article is entitled "Harry Potter Books
> Spark Rise In Satanism Among Children".  This article is currently being
> promoted in many Christian circles -- especially fundamentalist ones -- as
> proof that Harry Potter is satanic.  While I have not the slightest doubt
> that Harry Potter books promote witchcraft among young people, the problem
> is that we need to ensure that we use intelligent, truthful criticism as
> proof of our case.  "The Onion" magazine is a satirical journal, and the
> Harry Potter article it has published is a complete spoof, which is intended
> to lampoon a hyper-fundamentalist scare story about Satanism.
>
>     The article purports to contain children's comments about the influence
> Harry Potter books have had on their interest in Satanism, plus extracts
> from a purported interview in the London Times with Harry Potter authoress
> J.K. Rowling in which she says some pretty off-the-wall things about Satan
> and the Lord Jesus.  The problem is that there never was any such interview
> in the Times on that date.  That "Onion" article is a wind-up, designed to
> play on the fears of naive Christians who have an inordinate fear of Satan.
> If someone sends it to you, please don't promote it as proof of anything,
> other than that the editors of "The Onion" have a rather sick sense of
> humour.
>     The spoof Harry Potter article itself is available at
> http://theonion.com/onion3625/harry_potter.html .  Also, just so you can see
> that the magazine is solely satirical and spoofing, visit their article
> archive site at http://theonion.com/archive/archive_society.html .
>
>     Now if you want some good and trustworthy articles about Harry Potter,
> which engage in genuine criticism from a Christian standpoint, go to
> http://www.crossroad.to/ where you'll find four interesting pieces.
>
>     Please forward this letter to as many people as you can so they'll be
> forewarned about the satirical nature of "The Onion", and the fact that it
> proves nothing about Harry Potter.
>
> Your servant, in Christ Jesus,
>
> ALAN MORRISON
> Director, Diakrisis International
> AM@diakrisis.org
> http://www.diakrisis.org
>