Suffice it to say that my mother was not happy. She had just recently found God again (no offense to the religious folk in the class) and according to her Good Book, Harry Potter was going to put me on the Highway to Hell.
Now I saw this online a few weeks ago and knew I needed to save it for the first week of discussion. What is this woman doing? Telling these people that a fictional character is the enemy of her God?
This is part of a sermon I found posted on Tumblr denouncing Harry Potter and his magic as Satan's work.(Jesus Camp, 2006)
I needed to be saved from the dark forces that were clearly taking hold of me. By this time, I had decided for myself that organized religion was not for me and had stopped worshiping. Of course, this was another sign of my descent into madness and witchcraft.
I'm not saying this is representative of all religions everywhere but I had my fair share of experiences as a child and it says a lot about the power and pervasiveness of this text and its fans that sermons like this have gone on and still do go on around the country.
In 2012, the Harry Potter series was the most banned collection of texts in the country. Meanwhile, fans of all ages, choose Houses, live the dream of going to Harry Potter world, cosplay to the extreme and create original content all of the time, in spite of being told no.
Telling children it's wrong to read Harry Potter is stupid. Don't make them read it if they don't want to but it's definitely a part of the fabric of our generation.
I know I desperately waited for my Hogwarts letter, realized I was in America and thus would be attending the Salem Witche's Insitute, concluded that it was an all gir's school and waited for someone to tell me I was magical
