J.K. Rowling and the Curious Case of the Christian and Woke Moral Panics
Facts are only offensive to those who have taken refuge in fantasy.
INTRODUCTION
I first wrote the Christian moral panic part of this essay seven years ago for my Master’s in Religion whilst studying at the University of New England. Since then, I have been watching a very similar moral panic unfold from the Woke-Left over J.K. Rowling’s comments regarding sex and gender, which I can confidently say from the outset were in no way “transphobic.” I know this because before writing this essay, I read every one of her statements concerning the issues of sex and gender to ensure I wasn’t inadvertently allying myself with actual transphobia.
A few weeks ago, a friend directed me to an excellent podcast series by former Westboro Baptist Church member Megan Phelps-Roper, who interviewed J.K. Rowling and unpacked both moral panics. The podcast series is aptly entitled ‘The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling.’ If you get nothing else from this essay, please at least take a listen to this brilliant series.
J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, which began with Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, has achieved immense success both on bestseller lists and at the Box Office. Yet the controversy surrounding this series has, in numerous conservative Christian circles, matched and even exceeded the intensity of its fanfare. Some Christians, like Rev. Douglas Taylor, have even gone so far as to hold public book burnings, alleging that J.K. Rowling’s “sinister” series has real and tangible ties to the occult and witchcraft.[2]
Here is where we find our first point of comparison between the fundamentalist Christian and extremist Woke moral panics surrounding J.K. Rowling. On the 26th of March, 2023, unhinged Woke trans activist Tess Hall posted a video of her burning J.K. Rowling’s book in a firepit posted below.
Let’s do a quick concept association exercise. When I say “book burnings,” you think what? Yeah, me too.
Extremist ideologies generally employ cancellation and censorship as a means to control the desired narrative and enforce ideological hegemony on the group, and society at large. Hitler did it, Stalin did it, Mao did it, Pol Pot did it, Christianity does it, Islam does it, Scientology does it, and Wokeism is also doing it. I won’t linger on this point any longer as I have already discussed this in another lengthy piece: ‘Wokeism and Religion: A Studies in Religion Perspective.’
The cognitive dissonance this fact will cause amongst those whose minds are held hostage by Wokeism will no doubt compel them to find rationalizations and excuses to assuage the mental discomfort created by the realization that they too are just as extremist and bigoted in their ideological thinking as Conservative Christians and Nazis. Here, let me help you with your rationalization for a moment. “Tess Hall is just one case of book burning and the Nazis did it to censor on a massive scale.” In a Newsweek article, J.K. Rowling Book Burning Videos Are Spreading Like Wildfire Across TikTok, Emma Nolan writes:
‘A new TikTok trend has emerged this week as former "Harry Potter" fans protest author J.K. Rowling's widely criticized views on trans people by burning copies of her books.
One video, posted by TikTok user @elmcdo shows a number of "Harry Potter" books being placed on a burning pyre.
"You have to stop using 'death of the author' as an excuse to have your cake and eat it too," the voiceover says…The voice-over continues: "The positive impact that J.K. Rowling's work had on millions of readers does not negate how her hateful lobbying has affected the trans community.
"This doesn't even touch on the harmful fatphobia, racism and valorization of supramacists and child abusers in her most famous work."‘
One can see in this Woke believer’s statement the ideological touchpoints focused around Wokeism’s doctrine of ‘Identity Politics.’ And it is quite a curious point of irony that this Wokeist raises the issue of child abuse, however I will leave this point hanging, but I am pretty sure many of you will know what I am hinting at. Book burnings haven’t been the only form of cancel culture weaponized against J.K. Rowling, because there have been death threats, bomb threats, threats of violence and rape, vile abuse, attempts to cancel her as an author, doxing, stalking, etc, etc.
MAGICAL AND METAPHYSICAL WORDS
On the Christian website Christian Answers, Christian author Ken James writes: ‘The problem is, witchcraft is not fantasy; it is a sinful reality in our world’.[3] In the Christian anti-Potter documentary, Harry Potter: Witchcraft Repackaged – Making Evil Look Innocent, Christian author Robert S. McGee stated:
“If you say there is no real power in witchcraft, then you should have no problem with the Harry Potter books. But there are two problems in your line of reasoning: First of all, you are denying the experience of hundreds of thousands of people who have practiced witchcraft through the ages, plus, you’re saying that God’s warning in the Bible about divination, sorcery, and all the elements of witchcraft is actually worthless”.[4]
McGee’s line of reasoning is infused with illogicality. Firstly, the prevalence of examples of people practicing witchcraft in no way testifies to the efficacy or reality of the supernatural suppositions surrounding its practice, and secondly, McGee’s assumptions that a god exists, and that “he” authored/inspired warnings or even words is a prime example of the fallacy of begging the question.[5] Put simply, to argue that “God warned us about the dangers of witchcraft” begs three significant questions: 1. Does a god exist? 2. If a god does exist, is it McGee’s God? 3. Did McGee’s God actually author/inspire the Bible?
Wokeism also believes in a quasi-supernaturalism when it comes to the magical and metaphysical power of words, and this belief is encapsulated within its human-rights-infringing doctrine of ‘Violent Speech.’ J.K. Rowling has been accused of “killing trans people” with her words alone.
She recently won a court battle against an unhinged trans activist who labelled her a….wait for it, “Nazi.” The implication here is that her words are genocidal in nature, even magically autonomous in their own right, capable of committing genocide against trans people. On this point, even if she were “erasing trans identity” from individuals, which she most certainly is not, failing to acknowledge one single characteristic of a multidimensional human being is not tantamount to killing that whole person. Think about it. One aspect of your personhood is not the sum of your entire person, therefore, even if people do not accept the anti-scientific meme that “trans women are women,” which, let’s face it, they're not, they are not “committing trans genocide” in any way, shape or form. Nor does it necessarily make them “transphobic.” It is utterly ridiculous and exclusively and maliciously intended to stoke the fires for witch hunts against those branded blasphemes and heretics by fanatical gender ideologues.
THE PHILOSPHER’S STONE
The brilliance of Rowling’s portrayal of magic in the ‘Philosopher’s Stone’ is that, like the platform (9 ¾) from which the train to Hogwarts departs,[6] it is only separated from mundane reality by a mere fraction, unlike fundamentalist Christian and Wokeism’s bizarre narratives, which are located somewhere beyond even the realm of Alex Jones. Rowling made Harry Potter’s extraordinary experiences so relatable and so close to the experiences of both average children and the ordinary nostalgias of her adult readers. Natov observes:
‘The two realms, characterized in literature as the genres of romance and realism, are located in the imagination, which is, always, created by and rooted in the details of everyday life. In fantasy, always we are grounded; the unconscious invents nothing, or as Freud put it, “In the psychic life, there is nothing arbitrary, nothing undetermined” (qtd. in Todorov 161). The realm of the fantastic, based on the unconscious, is firmly and inevitably a reconfiguration of everyday reality, transformed and disguised though it may be’.[7]
According to Natov, it is Rowling’s ingenious enhancements and amplifications of ordinary objects such as the living portraits of headmasters and headmistresses at Hogwarts, arguing and biting books and candy flavours which include vomit, ear-wax and booger, that make Rowling’s portrayal of magic ‘call attention to the awe and wonder of ordinary life’.[8]
THE CATALYST FOR CONTROVERSY
Had Rowling made Harry depart for school from platform ten, on an ordinary train, bound for an ordinary school, and had he been merely an ordinary boy, the story would have still been an entertaining tale centred around the heroic orphan archetype.[9] Yet Rowling’s unique blend of realism and fantasy is what made Harry Potter a fictional icon of our age. However, the qualities and nature of that fiction, i.e., the witchcraft, wizardry, the occult and sorcery, is also the very source of the Christian controversy surrounding the Potter series.
If Rowling did not employ her unique blend of realism and fantasy that underscores the popularity of Harry Potter, it is unlikely her series would have achieved iconic status, which in turn would have probably meant that it would not have registered on the radars of ideological extremists, both Christian and Woke. The Christian fundamentalists who have failed to appreciate the imaginary nature of Rowling’s particular ‘reconfiguration of everyday life’ view Harry Potter as a sinister gateway to what might reasonably be described as an equally imaginary evil. Hence, it may be argued that the immense success of the Harry Potter series, which made Rowling the second richest woman in Britain and nearly sparked a trade war between the US and Britain, was the catalyst for the controversy surrounding the series; a controversy so intense that it saw book burnings by Christians and made Harry Potter ‘the most frequently challenged’ book of 1999.[10]
THE CHRISTIAN MORAL PANIC
By 2010, Harry Potter had topped the bestseller lists in both the UK and the USA and the films based on the seven Potter books earned over $200 million each, and over $750 million worldwide.[11] According to Time Magazine, the Harry Potter series has sold over 450 million copies worldwide and been translated into 73 foreign languages.[12] The global success of Harry Potter has meant that millions of children around the world are familiar with, if not fans of, Harry Potter.[13]
The success of Potter became the catalyst for the Christian moral panic which gripped conservative Christendom in relatively recent years. Millions of children were, and remain, heavily influenced by Rowling’s relatable boy-wizard, and so many children want to be Harry Potter and even attend Hogwarts.[14] The rise of “Pottermania”[15] meant that scores children were becoming interested in the world of Harry Potter – a world of witchcraft and sorcery, which, for Conservative Christian parents is believed to be the exclusive domain of the “Devil”.[16] The nature of Rowling’s Potter series, which draws upon her major at university, mythology,[17] may be argued to be the substance or source of the moral panic among many Conservative Christians.
Soulliere, drawing upon Cohen’s definition, describes a ‘moral panic’ as a period of heightened concern over some group or issue in which the societal reaction is disproportionate to the actual seriousness of the event’.[18] Applying Cohen’s ‘moral panic’ to the disproportionate reaction among Christians over the Potter series, Soulliere remarks:
‘The legacy of the Potter Panic seems to be mostly in inciting debate, at times contentious, within the larger and diverse Christian community (see Creegan 2000; Jackson 2007; Toalston 2000; Wingfield 2001). This debate has raged for nearly a decade and has encompassed Christians from diverse religious groups as well as from varying backgrounds’. Soulliere argues that the failure of conservative Christians to induce a full-blown moral panic lay in a number of factors: The fringe-nature of those trying to induce ‘Potter Panic’, the diverted attention of panic-inducers, who at times became distracted by other “evil” authors and publications, and challenges to the ‘Potter Panic’ by others within the Christian community, who view the Potter series as harmless and even enjoyable and Christian-like fantasy.[19]
An example of the resistance to the ‘Potter Panic’ within the Christian community can be found in John Granger’s book, Looking for God in Harry Potter. Whilst sharing fundamentalist Christian concerns regarding the “dangers” associated with the occult and demonic forces, which Granger argues is a common concern in all of the world’s major religions,[20] Granger writes:
‘But I do think that her [Rowling’s] secret world within our world coincides with rather than contradicts the worldview of Christians’.[21]
THE POTTER PANIC VS THE WITCH CRAZE
Granger argues that in a world that has become purely rational and grounded in a scientific understanding of reality, Harry Potter is a breath of fresh air for those who ascribe to a less-than rational, religious worldview.[22] And here is where we might find an important omission within Soulliere’s assessment of the failure of fundamentalist protagonists to produce a full-blown moral panic over Rowling’s series. Soulliere concedes that the ‘Potter Panic’ was more pronounced in the US, where Christian fundamentalists have the greatest foothold,[23] and it may be precisely this factor that predominantly resulted in the failure of the kind of full-blown moral panic experienced in late-medieval Europe, Britain and America over the perceived threat of witchcraft.
Let me take a moment to now draw a distinction between the more localized US Christian moral panic versus the global Woke moral panic surrounding JK. Rowling. Of all the Western democratic countries, the US is the most fiercely religious. Other developed secular countries, like Australia, for example, do not share in the rampant religiosity of the US, meaning, the moral panic was largely but not exclusively extinguished within the boarders of the US. Wokeism, on the other hand, existing in the age of global social media, has spread across the planet like wildfire, ensuring that the Woke moral panic is continually fed plenty of oxygen to keep blazing around the world for much longer than the previous Christian moral panic.
Yet another noxious and flammable aspect of Wokeism that keeps the fires burning for this “deadly witch,” is its penchant for litigating well into the past. This means that even 20 years from now, Rowling’s alleged transgressions against the transgender community will be stored on iPhones and computers as fuel for the fires of their fundamentalistic Woke witch hunts. Anyway, back to the Conservative Christians.
Prior to the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment, the majority of people in Europe and America believed they lived in a world inhabited by, and largely controlled by, supernatural forces.[24] This superstitious environment was fertile soil for the fomentation of the witch craze, which, in Europe and Britain, was the result of a number of natural and man-made coalescing factors,[25] one of which was the publication of the then bestselling “non-fiction” book on witches, The Malleus Maleficarum. Ben-Yahuda observes:
‘It was to become the most influential and widely used handbook on witchcraft…Its enormous influence was practically guaranteed, owing not only to its authoritative appearance but also to its extremely wide distribution. It was one of the first books to be printed on the recently invented printing press and appeared in no fewer than 20 editions….The moral backing had been provided for a horrible, endless march of suffering, torture, and human disgrace inflicted on thousands of women’.[26]
Prior to its publication there was no uniform concept of witches and witchcraft, but the Canon Episcopi held that witchcraft was little more than a vain and largely impotent heresy.[27] The Malleus directly challenged this belief by successfully propagating the notion that there was a diabolical conspiracy to undermine God’s order and that this conspiracy was being carried out predominantly by females at the behest of Satan,[28] or “evil TERF whores” as they are now referred to by Woke. The panic which ensued, as Ben-Yahuda and primary historical sources attest, led to a moral panic that saw policies changed and thousands upon thousands of women strangled, burnt, drowned and hunted with the frenzied enthusiasm of Christians gripped by a terrifying moral panic that later became known as the ‘witch craze’.[29]
Thus, the distinction between the successful propagation of the moral panic in late-medieval Europe, Britain and America and the modern ‘Potter Panic’ is probably the result of the markedly more rational and scientific environment from which Granger saw Rowling’s Potter as a refreshing escape. If such is in fact the case, which both reason and evidence suggest, then Granger’s primary complaint with the modern world was the very quality that gave both Granger and Rowling room to freely express their creativity without being burnt at the stake, drowned, or otherwise harmed.
THE WOKE WAR ON WOMEN
Similar to the proliferation of anti-female sentiment during the medieval witch craze, the new war on women is being waged within the Woke moral panic concerning the identity of transgender women, which the Woke have turned into a dangerous meme: “Trans-women are women.” Yes, trans-women are trans-women, as gender is a social construct and gender dysphoria is a real and naturally occurring phenomenon. However, gender is not divorced from biological sex, but people who suffer this condition are absolutely entitled to have their individual human rights protected and should be allowed to live their best and most comfortable lives, but only to the extent that those efforts do not trespass upon the rights of others. No sane and compassionate person would believe otherwise.
Having said this, the meme “trans-women are women” is taken so literally as to bring into question the very existence of biological sex, and women are being hunted down, violently attacked, viciously abused, threatened and cancelled for attempting to enjoy the autonomous rights they have bravely fought and died for over the last few centuries. You don’t get to come in at the last hour and just trample all over women’s rights. I’m sorry, but that is cruel, unjust, arrogant, and unnecessary. You have human rights as a transgender human, so trampling on women’s rights to gain special privileges is unnecessary and oppressively narcissistic. So no, you don’t get to have your penis-cake and eat it too. So fuck you and the male privilege you rode in on!
Males are successfully invading and obliterating female spaces and sports as a result of the irrational interpretation of this Woke meme that holds that there is absolutely no difference between a biological woman and one with a beard and a cock, who used to be named Stan up until about two weeks ago when he was arrested and convicted of raping women. Some allegedly trans people (autogynephiles) are even making videos pretending to have periods, or claiming that they can get pregnant without wombs. It is pure insanity.
Wokeism has handed the keys to the asylum over to the patients and the patients now appear to be running it. I am sorry, but there are differences between biological women and a trans-women. If there were no differences, the term “trans women” wouldn’t exist. That’s just reality. That’s just biology. That’s just science. And here is another point of similarity between nascent fundamentalist Christians and the Wokeists - they both attempt to live within the confines of their own delusions and in so desperately attempting to live in a fantasy world, they both attempt to use personal offense to upend and undermine science at the expense of women’s rights, human rights, gay and lesbian rights, and children’s rights. But facts are only offensive to those who have taken refuge in fantasy.
CONCLUSION
Rowling’s ingenious ability to make the extraordinary ordinary is probably one of the key components to the success of her Harry Potter series. With the catalyst of success and widespread publication of a fictional series about a young wizard who practices occult witchcraft, predominantly US Christian Conservatives became gripped by a relatively mild yet noisy moral panic. The source of their panic was directly related to the occult content, which they viewed as a real and tangible threat to an omnipotent god’s plan for us here on earth. Similarly, the Woke moral panic is based on baseless and imagined metaphysical threats to trans women.
Notwithstanding zealous attempts by radical Christians, the moral panic burned out with only relatively minor incidents. It could be argued that had Rowling published Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in the late-medieval period in Europe, Britain or America, the moral panic would have been far more acute and contagious. Thus, the rationalistic and scientific worldview which prevails in the West, although being a source of complaint for some Christian Potter fans, is the one thing that enables them to enjoy Rowling’s well-researched portrayal of magic in Harry Potter, which, thanks again to the rationalism of our age, these Christians are able to correctly identify as being nothing more than entertaining fiction.
The Woke moral panic surrounding Rowling, on the other hand, does not appear to be abating any time soon, and given Wokeism’s penchant for litigating without forgiveness for an eternity those who trespass upon its doctrines and dogmas, it only looks to be getting worse. It is growing increasingly hostile, combustible and violent, with calls for her financial and physical cancellation by transgender activists and other allied adherents of Wokeism. The frenzied and bloodthirsty cries to “burn the witch” are travelling the globe in split-seconds via social media, thus aligning the Woke moral panic more with the murderous medieval Christian one than the later modern Christian moral panic.
Click here to read J.K. Rowling’s actual position on sex and gender issues in her own words, not someone else’s.
END NOTES
David Serchuk, ‘Harry Potter and the Ministry of Fire’, Forbes Magazine, 1st, 2006, cited at: http://www.forbes.com/2006/11/30/book-burnings-potter-tech-media_cz_ds_books06_1201burn.html, accessed on 11th Jan., 2017.
Ibid.
Ken James, ‘Is the “Harry Potter…” Series Truly Harmless?’, Christian Answers, cited at: http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/harrypotter.html, accessed on 11th, 2017.
Caryl Matrisciana and Robert S. McGee, Harry Potter: Witchcraft Repackaged – Making Evil Look Innocent, Documentary, Jeremiah Films, 2001, cited at: YouTube, accessed on 14th, 2017.
Howard Kahane (ed.) and Nancy Cavender (ed.), Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric: The Use of Reason in Everyday Life, 10th, Belmont, CA: Thomson-Wadsworth, 2006, p. 59.
K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, New York: Scholastic, 1998, p. 70.
Roni Natov, ‘Harry Potter and the Extraordinariness of the Ordinary’, The Lion and The Unicorn 25 (2001) pp. 310–327.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Danielle M. Soulliere, ‘Much Ado About Harry: Harry Potter and the Creation of a Moral Panic’, Journal of Religion and Culture, 22.1, (Spring 2010), cited at: http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA238178966&v=2.1&u=dixson&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w&asid=1fcced6d8a9e18bc88aefe6f95cc2382, accessed on 14th, 2017.
Ibid.
‘Because it’s His Birthday: Harry Potter by the Numbers’, Time Magazine, July 31st, 2013, cited at: http://entertainment.time.com/2013/07/31/because-its-his-birthday-harry-potter-by-the-numbers/, accessed on 13th, 2017.
Diana Patterson (ed.), Harry Potter’s Worldwide Influence, Exeter, UK: Cambridge Scholars, 2009, p. 2.
Caryl Matrisciana and Robert S. McGee, Harry Potter: Witchcraft Repackaged – Making Evil Look Innocent, Documentary, Jeremiah Films, 2001, cited at: YouTube, accessed on 12th, 2017.
Michael Ostling, ‘Harry Potter and the Disenchantment of the World’, Journal of Contemporary Religion, 18, No. 1, (2003), pp. 3-23.
Bruce David Forbes, America’s Favorite Holidays: Candid Histories, Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2015, p. 143.
Yurie Hong, J.K. ‘Rowling Speaks of Classics at Harvard Graduation But Not for the Reasons You’d Think’, Gustavus Adolphus College, (June 5th, 2011), cited at: https://classics.blog.gustavus.edu/2011/06/05/j-k-rowling-speaks-of-classics-at-harvard-graduation-but-not-for-the-reasons-youd-think/, accessed on 13th, 2017.
Danielle M. Soulliere, ‘Much Ado About Harry: Harry Potter and the Creation of a Moral Panic’, Journal of Religion and Culture, 22.1, (Spring 2010), cited at: http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA238178966&v=2.1&u=dixson&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w&asid=1fcced6d8a9e18bc88aefe6f95cc2382, accessed on 14th, 2017.
Ibid.
John Granger, Looking for God in Harry Potter: Is there Christian Meaning Hidden in the Bestselling Books, Tyndale House Publishers, 2006, p. 3.
Ibid. p. 8.
John Granger, Looking for God in Harry Potter: Is there Christian Meaning Hidden in the Bestselling Books, Tyndale House Publishers, 2006, pp. 87, 175.
Danielle M. Soulliere, ‘Much Ado About Harry: Harry Potter and the Creation of a Moral Panic’, Journal of Religion and Culture, 22.1, (Spring 2010), cited at: http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA238178966&v=2.1&u=dixson&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w&asid=1fcced6d8a9e18bc88aefe6f95cc2382, accessed on 14th, 2017.
Michael D. Bailey, Magic and Superstition in Europe: A Concise History from Antiquity to the Present, Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2007, p. 215; Brian A. Pavlac, Witch Hunts in the Western World: Persecution and Punishment From the Inquisition to the Salem Witch Trials, Westport Connecticut: Greewood Press, 2009, pp. 22-23.
Wolfgang Behringer, ‘Climate Change and Witch-Hunting: The Impact of the Little Ice Age on Mentalities’, Climate Change Journal, 43 (1999), Kluwer Academic Publishers, p. 339; E. William Monter, ‘The Historiography of European Witchcraft: Progress and Prospects’, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 2, No. 4, Psychoanalysis and History (Spring, 1972), p. 445; Peter T. Leeson and Jacob W. Russ, Witch Trials, p. 12, cited at: http://economics.yale.edu/sites/default/files/witch_trials.pdf, accessed on 14th, 2017; Bengt Ankarloo, Stuart Clark, William Monter, The Athlone History of Witchcraft and Magic in Europe, London: The Athlone Press, 2002, p. 27.
Nachman Ben-Yahuda, ‘The European Witch Craze of the 14th to 17th Centuries: A Sociologist’s Perspective’, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 86, No. 1, (Jul., 1980), Chicago: University of Chicago Press, p. 11.
Rosemary Ellen Guiley, The Encyclopedia of Witches, Witchcraft and Wicca, 3rd , New York: Facts on File, Inc., 2008, p. 50; Canon Episcopi, cited at: http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~marc-carlson/witch/canon.html, accessed on 2nd April, 2016.
Hans Peter Broedel, The Malleus Maleficarum and the Construction of Witchcraft: Theology and Popular Belief, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003, pp. 22-23.
Hugh R. Trevor-Roper, The European Witch-Craze of the 16th and 17th Centuries, Toronto: Penguin, 1990.