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Dear Reader,
I once overheard a debate about magic in children’s books in a church that had a copy of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in its library. The antimagic contingent won the argument, mainly through strength of personality.
At the time, I dismissed such concerns as narrow-minded. Then I became a parent and started thinking about what my kids were reading. I realized not all magic is created equal.
In On Magic and Miracles, Marian Jacobs offers diagnostic questions for evaluating real-life supernatural claims and the nature of magic in fiction. The topic is timely. We’re seeing an upsurge in interest in the occult among young people.
Christians need wisdom to discern attempts to control demonic forces from harmless make-believe. Stories shape our moral imaginations, so we need to choose what we read and watch carefully.
Yet magic need not vanish from our shelves. As Ginger Blomberg observes in her review, “Some stories with witches in them can be extremely edifying for Christian readers, and, at the same time, it’d certainly be wise for Christians to avoid some stories with priests in them.”
Knowing good from bad isn’t narrow-minded. It’s a sign of wisdom. That’s an important virtue to cultivate in our media-saturated world.
Happy Reading!
Andrew Spencer
Associate Editor
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New from TGC
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Book Review
Ginger Blomberg
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“‘On Magic and Miracles’ reminds Christians to approach stories of the supernatural, whether those stories illuminate God’s truth or come from territory held by the Devil, with discernment. We can also approach them without fear, knowing God is the lord of the supernatural.” Read the review.
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Book Review
Nathan A. Finn
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“The medieval Catholic Church mostly limited calling to the clergy and members of monastic orders. During the Reformation, the Lutheran and Reformed traditions emphasized the priesthood of all believers. Though not as well known as the reformational recovery of justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, the vocational Reformation dramatically changed how Protestants think about the Christian life.” Read the review.
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Book Review
Eric Schumacher
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Book Review
Michael Abraham
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Links for the Reading Life
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Carlos Lozada, “How I Built My Ruthless Summer Reading List” (The New York Times)
“I acquire far too many books, usually under the theory that I will get to all of them someday, ‘someday’ being the most elastic of reading time frames. Some of my somedays have lasted decades, and many more have yet to end.
“The illusion of someday is sustained in part by the anticipation of summer, a magical place of reduced obligations and infinite time, when all things unread will find their moment in the sun. And so I engage in a ritual as intrinsic to the season as bug bites, flash floods and heat advisories: assembling a summer reading list.”
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Amelia Nierenberg, “A Rare Copy of ‘The Hobbit’ Is Found on an Unassuming Shelf” (The New York Times)
“Caitlin Riley, a rare books specialist, was flicking through photographs of tattered volumes from a routine house clean-out this year when she stopped, shocked, at a familiar green cover.
“There, between the pictures of faded 20th-century reference books and crumbling veterinary tomes, was ‘The Hobbit,’ proud and nearly pristine. Could it be a first edition glinting up from the muck, she wondered, just as Sméagol’s cousin once saw the ring shimmering from a riverbed eons ago?”
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The Gospel Coalition
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