I have spent way too much mental energy on the question of, “Should a Christ-follower watch movies, read books, or have anything to do with the idea of magic in fiction?” that Eric posed earlier this week. My final answer is buried down in 40 something comments so I just wanted to highlight it here and possibly get some other folks’ opinions. The question is based on these verses found in Deuteronomy 18:

Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD…

It is such a controversy in Christian circles because of books and movies like The Chronicles of Narnia and Lord of the Rings that involve magic and sorcery but are written by Christians — even touted as being Christian allegory. I think I finally articulated why it is okay for a Christ-follower to enjoy the genre of Fantasy and Fairytales. Here it goes:

In Deut. 18 we have the law listing out specific actions. It’s easy to focus on the labels and the actions themselves, and not see the purpose of the law and what it is really prohibiting.

In reality these passages are not about restricting supernatural actions (AKA: miracles, predicting the future, speaking to the dead, etc). If they were then many of the Patriarchs, prophets, Apostles, and Jesus himself would be guilty of just about all of these. They are about prohibiting the worship of and calling on of evil spirits — whether to speak to the dead, manipulate the environment/people, or to see the future.

Though the actions listed in Deuteronomy and what we see in the genre of Fantasy appear to be the same — much like (thou shall not) murder and God commanding Israel to slaughter entire nations — this portion of the law is not about the physical actions themselves but the authority behind the action.

In a fictional story that involves magic, unless otherwise specifically stated, there is no truth in saying that demonic spirits are the authority behind the actions and the resulting effects — it is only the idea of supernaturalism itself.