An alternative title is Rating Morgan and Paul’s Harry Potter Video. However, I’m trying to up my clickbait game. Also, feeling myself because my B.Dawn ramblings got posted to reddit, where I use to post on nosleep haha.

Anyway, gonna go back to trash posting asap but I recently watched Soul, I’ve never watched/read Harry Potter. Fun story: when I was like 7 or 8 my Great Aunt brought me the first book in the Harry Potter series for Christmas; my mom threw it in the trash because witchcraft.

Needless to say, Morgan and Paul approach this topic wrong as it’s not their job to tell Christians what to watch – the proper question is, “does watching Harry Potter or Soul benefit me and my relationship with God or nah?” If you feel the need to even ask this question, your conscience has answered for you. That said – it’s a smart title. +1.

They begin by talking about Soul. Morgan says “as an adult” she liked it, but kids wouldn’t understand it, then says something about it having nothing Biblical in terms of the afterlife. Thematically, Soul isn’t abut the afterlife so w h a t? Also, kids don’t understand most Biblical stuff. Back when I taught Sunday school, I did a lesson on the plagues of Egypt. After watching the video where God kills the Egyptians first born sons, one child about five, said during question time something like, “Why would God kill them just because they didn’t obey?” all big eyed and adorable. Kids do understand quite a bit, but how does one explain to a child, who thinks disobedience is not listening to their parents when they say, “put your toys away”, why God would kill the Egyptians simply because they “didn’t obey”? If Morgan’s logic here is that kids shouldn’t watch Soul because they won’t get it, well they also not teach kids most of the Old Testament.

Morgan’s overall reply is actually reasonable (except for not wanting her kids to have an imagination – w h a t?) Anyway, + 2.5.

Paul brings up Aladdin, which he loved as a youngin so +1. He mentions how Aladdin et. al prayed to Allah (Islam aside, that literally means God) and some other things, so he’s a bit iffy about it. But like Paul is still a Christian as an adult who is not praying to Allah, so like what exactly is he trying to say? Watching Aladdin didn’t greatly change his faith. (Also, my parents wouldn’t let me watch Aladdin as a child either because magic). Again, his answer is actually decent in that he talks about giving room for people that have personal convictions. + 2.5 points.

A little later, they start talking about Harry Potter (which I haven’t seen so can’t really judge).

They day magic and witchcraft is against the Bible; Paul says his spirit was grieved, which ok. Not all of us can handle a little magic without having an existential crisis I guess. But we all have different stumbling blocks for our faith, so this is a fair point. + 0.5

Then, Morgan starts talking about how she struggled with depression, anxiety, etc. as a teen and seemingly blames Harry Potter on it. Weird as I also struggled with depression and anxiety as a teen, yet I never read Harry Potter. I did read Berserk in high school, so maybe that was it.

They start talking about witchcraft, New Age, Narnia, even finding some witch married to a warlock who said the vibes of Harry Potter were off even by her wicked witch-like standards. Narnia = good because the witch = clearly bad. As if somehow her being a witch makes her bad, rather than her just generally being a bad person. I take it they don’t like complex characters and are the main reason Christian fiction is dumb. -0.5 points.

The video could essentially be summed up as, “it’s a personal conviction,” which is the correct, Biblical answer. If it’s not explicitly in the Bible, that means as individuals we have to seek God for ourselves to find out what the individual will of God is for our lives.

This livestream however, and the questions asked during it, highlights my biggest issue with most Christians, which is a lack of ability to think for themselves, hear from the Lord personally and figure out what God wants you to do, and then trust those convictions and decisions without getting defensive or judgmental when others make different choices. The fact that some of M & P’s viewers find Veggie Tales scary and have an issue with fantasy, while they don’t, attests to the fact God has given us various convictions and boundaries, and that doesn’t mean some of us are living in sin, or more holier than others for abstaining from certain things. It just means that what God allows one person to do (because it won’t affect their relationship with Him), He doesn’t allow others to do (because it may).

To me, that’s not a difficult concept to comprehend and accept, yet some Christians will create entire cults based on their personal preferences *coughs in Duggar* and are generally unable to mind their own business.

My second problem (outside the fact Morgan and Paul are overly conservative and thus, everything they say is filtered through that (not Biblical) bias) is why ask Morgan and Paul, who have zero theological training, how you should live when you should be asking God and digging into scripture? Objectively, the people asking have the same qualifications as these two, so it’s not like they can give anyone an answer they won’t be able to glean from the Bible themselves.

Last, Morgan and Paul shouldn’t really be answering these questions at all – they should be encouraging their viewers to dig into scripture. It’s telling nay a Bible verse was quoted in this entire video.

The apostle Paul says, “[e]verything is permissible for me”-but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible for me-but I will not be mastered by anything.”

Contextually, Paul was probably talking about like disputes among believers who were taking each other to worldly courts over civil matters. He was like ‘yeah sure you can do that, but is that actually beneficial for the church?’ Why go before worldly folks to judge between two Christians rather than the church? But I think the verse can be applied to various issues that aren’t plainly spelled out in the Bible.

As Christians, we can watch Harry Potter and Soul, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be beneficial for our relationship with God. Fortunately, life is going to look different for each of us and one won’t find the answers to some questions unless we seek the Lord ourselves. Christians really ought to take a more proactive stance on their faith and stop relying on Christian influencers and politicians to tell them how to live.

The beauty of having a relationship with Jesus is that we’re now in direct relationship with God. We don’t have to rely on the middle man to discover the Lord’s will for our lives, we can go straight to the Source and ask Him if we can watch Soul (10/10 movie btw). It’s a privilege we shouldn’t neglect.

Video Rating: 6.5/10. 3 Points deducted for lack of scripture backing up what they say and an extra 0.5 points as they generally they could’ve been more succinct, even on a livestream.