When the Harry Potter books really started to get popular in the early part of the last decade, I had some family who didn’t let their children near the books. A Christian family, their attitude was that its magical/make believe narrative was basically a negative influence on impressionable young minds.

In Apr. 2010 I wrote on Robert W. Jenson’s piece “How the World Lost its Story,” from First Things, an article originally pointed out to me by Ben Novak. In it, Rev. Jenson argues that the world, and all the events within it that end up impacting the narrative of our own lives, need to be comprehendible — that all the stuff we encounter has to have a point, and that for our civilization’s most creative periods it has been Christianity’s “story and promise” that satisfies that need and explains our place within the world:

[Today, many] simply do not apprehend or inhabit a narratable world. Indeed, many do not know that anyone ever did. The reason so many now cannot “find their place” is that they are unaware of the possibility of a kind of world or society that could have such things as places, though they may recite, as a sort of mantra, memorized phrases about “getting my life together” and the like. There are now many who do not and cannot understand their lives as realistic narrative. John Cage or Frank Stella; one of my suburban Minnesota students whose reality is rock music, his penis, and at the very fringes some awareness that to support both of these medical school might be nice; a New York street dude; the pillar of her congregation who one day casually reveals that of course she believes none of it, that her Christianity is a relativistic game that could easily be replaced altogether by some other religion or yoga—all inhabit a world of which no stories can be true.

The Christian can know definitively that at least one story is true, and that is Christ’s redemption of a failed mankind, and his promise of salvation amidst the storied chaos of humanity’s long feud with its own passions.

So I sympathize with the Fortress America approach toward Christian living, with The Village-ificaton of Christianity where if we simply somehow shut out the bad, or that which could lead us astray to a sufficient degree, our own culture that is privy to the true story that Christianity tells the world can triumph.

I get it. It’s comfortable. It might work to some degree. It is perhaps a uniquely American approach. As a Catholic, I also believe it’s wrong. And I’ve come across no better explanation of why than Paul Joiner’s four-part series on Patheos “Should a Christian Read Fairy-tales?” (I, II, III, IV).

The book of Daniel was written, in part, to teach Israel how they were to live as exiles.  Certain young men who were good looking and smart were to be taught the “language and literature of the Chaldeans [Babylonians])” (Daniel 1:4).  Daniel lived in exile among the Babylonians.  As one of the best and brightest of the exiles, he was to be taught the “language and literature” of the Babylonians.  And, throughout his life Daniel doesn’t object to learning the stories of Babylon.  He only objects when he is required to worship the false gods of the occupying nations, e.g. Darius the Mede (Daniel 6:10).

So, it is commendable as sojourners to know the world’s stories, read the world’s literature, and still remain faithful to the Lord. … not only is it biblically permissible, it is biblically commendable.  The Christian should be reading and watching the stories of the world.

We can’t hope to serve our purpose as Christians (either of salvation or conversation) if we fail to engage the world, and this include its fairy tales. We can shield a child for a time, but to do so at length would be to leave them ill equipped to confront the world and its story in a way that we can offer it Christ’s promise.

And that promise of salvation and of meaning and purpose is what lends flavor to the entire struggle. This is why I want to be a joyful Christian and faithful Catholic, because narrative purpose and knowledge lends us savoir faire, a ready reserve so that even in the worst moments and at its most depraved or convoluted, there’s real weight and beauty in our vision of this place.