"Why Christians should read fantasy"

Interesting article:

https://geeksundergrace.com/books/why-christians-should-read-fantasy/

Fiction and fantasy is only a problem for Christians, if they can only see it through a lens of literalism and legalism.

Personal conviction is the variable, as one Christian could think Harry Potter is fine and another Christian could think Harry Potter is wrong, and both be right to themselves. Herding and policing the conviction of others, is a whole other story...

The only "fantasy" I like these days is watching detective / crime shows and movies because I like seeing criminals being stopped and/or brought to justice.  Because God's knows there isn't much of that happening in real life these days.

Check out Christian author/former pastor Mike Duran.  He's awesome.

Interesting article (good read).

When I was a young Christian I was always surprised by what fantasy my more mature Christian brothers found as "acceptable" for their family consumption (all were adult men with children like myself).

Most of them would never allow their children to consume the Harry Potter movies or books, but most found the Lord of the Rings/Hobbit books just fine.  I'm not sure I saw the difference myself (still don't really).  I knew one guy who wouldn't let his kids watch/read anything with witchcraft in it at all.  However he was a huge Marvel and Pixar fan (this was well before most of the current crop of Marvel films).  I asked him one time what was the difference between superhero power (such as Spiderman or the Incredibles from the Pixar films) and the powers the people had in the Harry Potter books/films.  His answer (in short) was basically that super heroes could have gotten their powers from God, while anyone in the Harry Potter genre obviously got their powers from witchcraft. (not sure I bought that as a reasonable explanation since both were pure fiction).

Staybrite wrote:I'm not sure I saw the difference myself (still don't really).

The good thing about a personal conviction, it doesn't have to make sense to that person.  'It doesn't feel right' is more than enough to justify adhering to said conviction itself, but when it comes to applying it to kids or other people, there's another layer of nuance involved.  

Lack of consistency can really muddy the situation for other people.  I recall from my childhood, a friend's mom taking the LEGO ghost out of his castle set because she felt it represented an evil presence amongst his toys or something like that.  ....but there was never a peep from her at all, when he played the PacMan game he owned at home.  

This was like, 7th grade.  We never questioned or confronted his mom, but this ended up being little more than a joke behind her back, because it was obvious to us that I guess some ghosts were ok to her, and some weren't. 

Should she had a hard stop at anything ghostly, there may have been at least some reflection by us kids, on negative spiritual forces, because of her reaction and what she was saying.  Since this was noticeably selective instead (about some ghosts and not others), it just ended up being little more than 'friend's mom's silly ghost quirk' that we all chuckled about.

ThomasEversole wrote:

Staybrite wrote:I'm not sure I saw the difference myself (still don't really).

The good thing about a personal conviction, it doesn't have to make sense to that person.  'It doesn't feel right' is more than enough to justify adhering to said conviction itself, but when it comes to applying it to kids or other people, there's another layer of nuance involved.  

Lack of consistency can really muddy the situation for other people.  I recall from my childhood, a friend's mom taking the LEGO ghost out of his castle set because she felt it represented an evil presence amongst his toys or something like that.  ....but there was never a peep from her at all, when he played the PacMan game he owned at home.  

This was like, 7th grade.  We never questioned or confronted his mom, but this ended up being little more than a joke behind her back, because it was obvious to us that I guess some ghosts were ok to her, and some weren't. 

Should she had a hard stop at anything ghostly, there may have been at least some reflection by us kids, on negative spiritual forces, because of her reaction and what she was saying.  Since this was noticeably selective instead (about some ghosts and not others), it just ended up being little more than 'friend's mom's silly ghost quirk' that we all chuckled about.

Great point. I'm sure I have personal convictions that make little to no sense to others as well.