Hogwarts Professor

Chuck Colson, once Watergate conspirator, now Evangelical Christian spokesman and leader,  endorsed the Harry Potter series on his nationally distributed radio program, BreakPoint. He gave a big thumbs-up in November, 1999, at the release of Prisoner of Azkaban to the magic of the books, their  morality, and the opening Ms. Rowling created to the tradition of Christian ‘High Fantasy’ in English Literature.  Legend has it that one of the more significant supporters of his Prison Ministry programs called to say he was withdrawing his support if Mr. Colson didn’t retract his Potter endorsement — and retract he did, first with a brief radio announcement and eventually with a full scale warning to parents, the position he maintains today. (A sample of the negative feedback Mr. Colson received in 1999 can be found here.)

I think we’re seeing something similar in recent comments on a Focus on the Family radio program about Twilight. Let’s take a quick look at the Focus history of Twilight reviews, the backlash from Conservative Christians (TM), and the response of a literature professor to the consequent back-pedaling on the radio. [Read more…]

See the video recording here and read about it at the Hog’s Head.

The short version is “It was a lot of fun.” I am very grateful to friends at The Leaky Cauldron (Melissa), The Group That Shall Not Be Named (Jonathon), and Pace University (Prof. Limbach), as well as to Travis Prinzi and James Thomas, my fellow Pundits, for setting up the event and making it as enjoyable and edifying as it was.