Burning Harry Potter

A Good, Old-Fashioned Book-Burning

Christ Community Church members enjoy a good, old-fashioned book-burning.
(Sorry, I don't know the origin of this photo. If you know, please contact us.)

Here's the story, as reported on the API wire...

New Mexico Church Protests Potter
Monday December 31 11:04 AM ET

ALAMOGORDO, N.M. (AP) - As hundreds protested nearby, a 
church group burned Harry Potter and other books. 

Jack Brock, the Christ Community Church founder and 
pastor, said the books burned Sunday were ``a 
masterpiece of satanic deception.'' 

``These books teach children how they can get into 
witchcraft and become a witch, wizard or warlock,'' 
Brock said. Members sang ``Amazing Grace'' as they threw 
Potter books, plus some other books and magazines, into 
the fire. 

Across the street, protesters chanting ``Stop burning 
books'' stretched in a line a quarter of a mile long. 

``It may be useless but we want (the church) to know the 
community is not behind them,'' said Joann Booth, who 
protested with her four grandchildren. One protester 
dressed up as Adolf Hitler. 

Brock told the congregation that he viewed the attention 
the church received as a blessing. 

``There are those that are doing their best to make us 
look bad.'' Brock said. ``But because of this, I've been 
able to preach the gospel around the world.'' 

A letter to the Alamogordo Daily News inviting the 
community to attend the fire sparked debate in the town 
of 36,000. On Tuesday, protesters held signs reading 
``Book burning? Shame on our town'' in front of the 
public library. Inside was a display highlighting the 
books.

And here's what one citizen had the courage to say about it:

From: HOWL2000@WildRice.com On Behalf Of M. M. Brown
Sent: Tuesday, January 01, 2002 11:40 AM
To: HOWL2000 Mailing List
Subject: Howl - Comments from a book burning protestor

As one of the protest that took place during this burning, I would like to
apologize to you all for such ignorance as exists in my town.
Unfortunately, Pastor Brock has managed to brainwash his congregation into
believing his agenda of hate and intolerance. He hates Halloween, he hates
Harry Potter..he hates anything he doesn't agree with.
This man has managed to ensure that our local library doesn't feature
displays at all because we had a SMALL display of self help books for gay
pride month and threw a major snit. It nearly divided our community. This
has just driven the wedge in further.
My daughter and I participated in the protest because we feel that the
written word is just as sacred as any relic or religious belief. I don't
think she believed they would really burn those books, and when 
she saw the fire, she cried. It scared her and made her incredibly sad that 
our town had fallen so low.
Alamogordo is not the town that burned Harry Potter, though. Alamogordo is
the town where a little minded, ignorant former used car salesman followed
in the footsteps of such persons as Hitler, Stalin and Bin Laden 
and has set back this little town 100 years.

It's disgusting and more than a little depressing to think about. But I've
been telling people for years that this man wouldn't be happy until he got
something liek this going. He's the one who's behind the annual "Halloween
is an abomination to God" campaign every October. It's enough to make one
retch.

Monica Brown
Community Life Reporter
Alamogordo Daily News

P.S. For those who say our newspaper fueled this fire, I would like to
disagree. We had not intended to cover the story unless we could get
information from both parties. Pastor Brock got his say first. To us, NOT
saying anything about a book burning in the year 2001 would make it possible
for such things to happen again. Remember, silence isn't always golden.
Sometimes it's down right dangerous.

In his response, Pastor Brock carefully downplayed the anti-Potter theme of the bonfire and the sermon that proceeded the announcement of the upcoming fire. He attempted to make it sound like a type of religious therapy, wherein church members released from their lives any sort of thing that they thought kept them from Jesus. And that some sort of anti-Christian bias in the media turned it into a circus.

Anyone who has gone to the church web site and listened to the 2.2 meg download of Pastor Brock's sermon of 23 December 2001 one will realize that his current protestations are a swift about-face, if not downright lies.

Brock's sermon is squarely aimed at Harry Potter. He compared the story of Harry's birth with that of the birth of Jesus, implying plagerism. He blamed Harry for encouraging drug use and paving the way for the end of the world. He compared Harry to Satan himself! And he promised to burn at the bonfire not only books about Harry Potter, but Harry Potter in effigy.

This is a far cry from Brock's claim that it was a general, cleansing bonfire that happened to attract a couple of Potter books. Should we believe Pastor Brock when he said that he merely "referred to the popular Harry Potter series as an example of our society's growing preoccupation with the occult." Sounds more like a lie.

So, tell me Pastor Brock, who was it that Scripture calls the "Father of Lies?" Could it be Satan? I thought so!

Thank you for visiting. Your comments are welcome.
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