Customer Reviews

The Gospel According to Harry Potter: The Spiritual Journey of the World's Greatest Seeker (Gospel According to)

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I have read Connie Neal's other book's dating from 2002 and always found her points interesting. In the past, she was more "let's all get along" between Harry Potter fans and foes. Now, her latest work is nicely updated and makes stronger Christian comparisons than before since Rowling's series is complete.

Along these lines, I also highly recommend the very compelling "Does Harry Potter Tickle Sleeping Dragons?" by author, Nancy Solon Villaluz also available here at Amazon.com. (Click above on "see all my reviews" to read my review of it.) Certainly, Ms. Neal and Ms. Villaluz's works nicely complement each other in this emerging area of Potter discovery.

I used this book in a Bible study we did for my youth group and I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in seeing just how theological the Harry Potter books are. Your mind will be blow with the verse by verse comparisons and ideas that this cultural phenomenon has with one of the oldest scriptures in the world.

In The Gospel According to Harry Potter, Ms. Neal explores the correlation between Biblical principles and stories and the fictitious world of Harry Potter. She presents over 130 different points. While some were quite obvious, others were a unique look at familiar Scripture. A few of her critiques even caused me to rethink my initial impressions of JK Rowling's work. Each novel is covered in a separate section so that readers can go book by book without any "spoilers". This would make a great base for a group or family Bible Study.

This is the book I will hand to parents who don't want their child to read Harry Potter for religious reasons. Written by a pastor, it is a perfect list of bible verses that affirm the inherent goodness of HP. As an atheist and a scholar of religion, I appreciate this book's value in conservative Christian culture.

For youth who've grown up with the Harry Potter books and for adults who've read them and thought that a lot in the series "could preach", this book gives us more to connect Harry and the rest of the characters with our biblical faith.
The Gospel According to Harry Potter begins with a thoughtful explanation of why Christians (and hopefully people of other spiritual traditions) can read Harry Potter and remain faithful people - there is no celebration of or encouragement to practice witchcraft advocated by the author. Instead we find great connections with scripture, Christian tradition and ethics. This book is a wonderful way to get young people to think about how they make decisions, especially the most important ones, in their lives.

this book opens your eyes to things, in life, and the world and also your religion! makes you think, alot!