The purpose of this topic is to address the outcry within the Christian community over what is deemed to be Satanic. Hopefully though this thread we can gain some insight into what is responsible sharing and what is mere circulation of urban legends.
At a personal level, it started with someone sending me a note on the evil of Pokemon, this was followed by other Internet letters on the Satanic nature of Harry Potter and eventually leading to various articles being circulated about preachers being persecuted, children having cancer and Singapore facing an impending doom by earthquake.
On the surface, it would seem that this is a good thing to do – forwarding notes warning other Christians of the various pitfalls in the world. It gets better because there are also very positive notes about the various miracles of God ranging from the heroic fireman at the US WTC building to condemned sinners being saved through the grace of God.
But do these people who send these notes out bother to check the authenticity or origin of the notes. If we are to think through this carefully, we can conclude that any untruth we speak are lies, then spreading an untruth is equally a lie. To go beyond this, the moment we send out something unchecked, we are guilty of coercion with other people to propagate this lie. Are we not admonished to speak only the truth and let our yea be a yea and our nay be a nay?
1. Is JK Rowling a white which and did she make derogatory remarks about Christianity:
http://www.snopes.com/humor/iftrue/potter.htm
http://www.truthminers.com/truth/harry_potter.htm
Both these websites contain credible evidence that the claims were untrue.
2. Fireman Robert Matthews sacrifice at New York WTC testimony
http://www.snopes.com/rumors/matthews.asp
3. Pokemon causes seizure to TV viewers
http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/seizure.htm
Note: www.snopes.com is an excellent reference website for anyone interesting in debunking internet legends. www.truthminers.com is a Christian website.
The issues herein are
1. Not whether I, as an individual agree or not to genres of entertainment like Harry Potter and Pokemon.
2. Not to attempt to change anyoneÂ’s mind with regards to their personal opinions of such genres.
3. To discourage Christians from spreading lies and half-truth indiscriminately.
In our zeal to uphold and spread the good news to the unbelievers we must not attempt to achieve our goals through falsehood. Where is the credibility when we make claims of miracles when they can be proven to be false? Bear in mind that each time this is done, the good name of Jesus is tarnished.
If anyone had followed the TV gameshow “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”, you will remember that during an episode of the children’s challenge, a young boy probably not more than 12 years old was asked if he knew the answer to the full name of JRR Tolkien. The child replied that he did not, the host then asked if he had seen the movie LOTR, the child replied to the surprise of the host: “I did not see LOTR, because like Harry Potter, it is Satanic”.
The thought that came to me was, how did he come to this conclusion? Did he not know that JRR Tolkien was one of the translators of the Jerusalem Bible? JRR translated the book of Job. It is obvious that he did not concluded this himself but was thought to “hate evil” by either his over-zealous Christian parents or pastor.
This brings me back to my title: vigilance or crying wolfÂ…. Please, I encourage all responsible Christians NOT to indiscriminately circulate unproven internet notes. Whether you like it or not, speaking the truth is part of your testimony. Do it right!