More from a Spanish-speaking reader … Harry Potter?

Here’s the Q (in English):

Brian. I just finished your book The Secret Message of Jesus in spanish, is great! I really loved it and encourage me to keep looking for the message of the Kingdom of God.
I’m a spanish speaker so i will try to ask you a question about something that happened me today and i would really love to know what do you think about this.
I was born in a christian family and I have decided to follow Jesus like ten years ago.
Five years ago I read the books of Harry Potter and it was ok for me, just literature and didn’t affected my spiritual life, i think.
Today a guy told me, he is like a kind of prophet, that I have to burn those books in order to allow God to do things on my life. I’m really confused. They are just there on my bookcase.
¿Do they have power over me and my spiritual life?

R: Thanks for your encouraging words, and your question. With questions like this, I think Paul has exactly the wisdom we need. In Colossians, he tells us that some people have a “do not taste, do not touch” approach to the faith (we might add “do not read”) – all about rules and taboos. He says that’s not the answer. That approach is “shadows,” but the substance is in Christ, who leads us in the way of love, not law. In 1 Cor. 8-10 and Romans 14, Paul talks about activities like eating meat sacrificed to idols. He lets us know that some people should avoid some things because of their fragile conscience, but for others, it’s not an issue.
As an old literature major, I’m a big fan of literature and its power to awaken our imagination and fund our imagination with imagery that helps us live, think, and believe better. Some people are afraid of the imagination. This “kind of prophet” fellow sounds like one of them. So he should probably avoid Harry Potter himself, but that doesn’t mean you should. Que Dios te bendiga, hermano!