Harry Potter and the Religious Right

My wife is a freak. She is already finished the sixth Harry Potter book that came out Saturday night at midnight (were it not for my sister's wedding she probably would have been there). She tearfully came to bed last night at 11:30 proclaiming, "She killed him . . . she killed him . . . I hate J.K. Rowling. [Don't read if you care about this book and haven't read it.] She killed Dumbledorf." Let me assure you . . . my wife is a freak.

A friend of ours works in Kroger's regional office. He told me yesterday that they had sold over $600,000 worth of those books in the past four days. Needless to say I was impressed. That is an amazing sum of money to be spent on a children's book. Then he made some off-the-cuff remark about recieving a bunch of literature from the Religious Right about the sins of magic and such.

OK . . . it was an off-the-cuff remark by him, but it really struck a chord with me. The Religious Right absolutely drives me crazy. We're so fond of asking the question, "What would Jesus do?" and I'd love for those of the Religious Right to ask themselves that question and come up with an honest review of their practices. How 'bout these questions to start us off . . .
* Would Jesus Christ really boycott Harry Potter?
* Would he actually boycott Disney World?
* Come to think of it, would Jesus really boycott anything, next to strip clubs and other establishments that are in your face sinful?
* Would Jesus really jettison Halloween simply because of a "supposed" devilish connection?
* In the 1980's would he have stood beside Tipper Gore and denounced the evils of rock 'n roll music?

Looking back at that ridiculous anti-rock movement of the 80's from 25 years down the road I think it goes to show how the paranoid Religious Right does way more harm than good to the proclamation of the Gospel. It will take more than 100 years to undo the jaded message it has presented in this country in recent years. Would that Christians simply stand up in whatever setting they find themselves and be Jesus to people around them. Not worry about whether the deoderant they are using is supported by some front man of a lesbian band, but just love God and serve Jesus. That's what I want to do. I don't care what deoderant you use.