Ed Brayton is a freelance writer and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Ah yes, an old fashioned book burning in Louisiana:
"It is allowed for Harry Potter to be taught in our schools, but not the Bible," International House of Prayer pastor James Crawford said during the Shreveport Regional Unity of Faith Revival.That is one reason pastors from several denominations and races ripped pages from "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone." Those and pages from a pornographic magazine were put into a burn pit and set afire as praises bellowed from the congregation.
I think I've seen this movie before, but the version I saw was subtitled for those who didn't understand German. My favorite part:
"As I tore the pages, I felt a generational curse of immorality and perversion breaking off my family," Adriane Banks said. "I felt it."
No, you moron, what you felt was the thrill one gets when they're part of a mindless mob. It's extraordinarily dangerous, especially when the mob is made up of unthinking rubes like you. By the way, I love the fact that the church is called the International House of Prayer. I'm guessing they have little containers of Holy Syrup on every table.
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The fact that they think that Harry Potter is "taught" in schools in the same sense in which they would like to see the Bible taught is sufficient evidence that these people are idiots.
Posted by: Bill Poser | June 10, 2008 9:35 AM
...little containers of Holy Syrup on every table.
My eyes were still a bit scabby and my first sip of coffee hadn't kicked in when I read this post.
"International House of Pancakes has a pastor?!! Who preaches and burns books??!!WTF??"
Never mind.
Posted by: Mary Talley | June 10, 2008 9:38 AM
What are they talking about? The Bible can be taught in schools, as literature, just like Harry Potter. Are they upset that unlike Harry Potter it's not referred to as fiction?
If that's their beef I could get behind them. Though I'm not too fond of burning books... or perfectly good porn for that matter.
Posted by: Abby Normal | June 10, 2008 9:42 AM
"Those and pages from a pornographic magazine were put into a burn pit...."
Helen, I'm headed on down to the porno shop to do the Lord's work. I'll be back in 30 minutes.
Posted by: Monsignor Henry Clay | June 10, 2008 9:45 AM
Abby: They kept the good stuff for themselves, this was just the trailer-park skanks with tatoos and lots of piercings. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
I am amazed that such a bland series of books can raise such a fuss. Or that the Narnia books (the worst fiction Lewis ever wrote) elicit such excitement among Fundamentalists. After all, they don't read anything (not even their Bibles), so why are they so upset about all the funny squiggles on the page?
Posted by: kehrsam | June 10, 2008 9:50 AM
Many years back, there was a preacher in Boulder who tried to revive the fire-and-brimstone book burning; of course, a lot of folks, including my roommates and me, showed up to protest/mock him.
It was actually a pretty tepid event. At one point, one of my buddies complained, "Somebody burn something, it's cold!"
Posted by: Squiddhartha | June 10, 2008 10:00 AM
"After all, they don't read anything (not even their Bibles)"
This is too true. Sometimes I wonder if anyone more religious than a deist has ever gotten all the way through he thing, or, more precisely, if anyone has gotten all the way through the thing and emerged anything more reliigous than a deist.
So much of Christianity is purely cultural: Just ask someone picketing planned parenthood to direct you to the passage in the Bible that prohibits abortion...
Posted by: Jason Failes | June 10, 2008 10:03 AM
I want to see the Harry Potter exam that students in Louisiana apparently must take to pass English. Oh wait, there isn't one?
Posted by: Eliza | June 10, 2008 10:09 AM
International House of Prayer? Come on, it's gotta be a joke. I think you've been Poe'd, my friend.
Posted by: Joe V. | June 10, 2008 10:16 AM
"Those and pages from a pornographic magazine were put into a burn pit...."
..but only the articles and interviews; the preacher kept the pretty pictures for further study of the devil's work.
Posted by: Winnebago | June 10, 2008 10:20 AM
Yes, I've read it through quite a few times, with faith yet intact. But yes, those who thump their tubs the loudest often are the most ignorant and legalistic.
Posted by: kehrsam | June 10, 2008 10:38 AM
Oh, you can. I know plenty of folks who are quite literate in the Bible and still have their faiths intact.
However, I don't know anyone who's ever read the whole thing thoughtfully (rather than as an attempt to memorize verses to get ribbons) and had their biblical literalism emerge intact. It would be very tough to do without some heavy compartmentalization, I would think.
Posted by: NonyNony | June 10, 2008 10:59 AM
NonyNony,
I know many such people. It takes quite a bit of thought to come up with the additional stories and explanations necessary to pull all the Biblical passages together into a cohesive narrative. In fact, with imagination and some hard work, it's possible to pull almost any random series of remarks together into a cohesive narrative.
I once attended a communication seminar focused on organization during which people were divided into groups and given a brief time to try to arrange a list of disconnected, partly contradictory, and rather odd sentences into anything that made sense. Using just the provided sentences, none of the other groups succeeded in anything beyond vague poetic connections.
Our group, actually knowing something about cohesive organization, imagined the framework of a play in which a Victorian woman murders her husband, and used the sentences from the list as various pieces of dialogue. For example, the Victorian setting allowed us to handle the provided sentence "Scrub my back and hand me my rubber duckie" by setting the action in a kitchen where the the husband was in a hip bath by the fire.
By creating a framework in which about 95 percent of the total was our own imagination and only 5 percent the provided sentences, we produced a compelling explanation that made it seem we must have the "right" interpretation.
Biblical literalists do much the same thing. They don't just compartmentalize in order to accept contradictory statements; they create a meta-story in which all the Bible verses make sense.
Posted by: JuliaL | June 10, 2008 11:27 AM
Rowling herself would be the first to admit that she was strongly influenced by the Narnia & Lord of the Rings series. And of course both C.S. Lewis and Tolkien are held in high regard in Christian circles. I would go as far as to say that if Narnia and Lord of the Rings had never been written then there never would have been a Harry Potter series.
Posted by: Cheddar | June 10, 2008 11:31 AM
Jason Failes, there is a prohibition against abortion in the Bible, at least one you could logically reach for if you believed that a fetus would be viable outside the womb.
It's the 10 Commandments, thou shall not kill. They really believe a 3 to 5 month fetus is a full human life while the rest of us know that premies have a pretty difficult path ahead of them.
But most of them miss the commandment about the idols. The cult of Jesus Christ, or better yet the Virgin Mary? Violate any commandments lately?
Posted by: Tony P | June 10, 2008 11:47 AM
Although I am a athiest I do belive the following quote by Dame Rebecca West fit the situation, although it says banning I think burning is even worse.."God forbid that any book should be banned/burned. The practice is as indefensible as INFANTICIDE". These people are completely bat shit insane.
Posted by: Ex Partiate | June 10, 2008 11:50 AM
You are exactly correct. I once pointed out to my father that the Bible gives three conflicting accounts of who killed Goliath. He "reasoned" that there must have been three identical Philistine giants named Goliath "whose staff was as a weaver's rod" (same description in all three versions) in the city of Gath. David killed one of them, and Elhanan son of Jaar-Orem killed the other two. I asked him if upon hearing three conflicting stories about "George Washington, president of the USA" he would conclude that there must have been three Presidents named George Washington. He said no, but Washington isn't in the Bible.
People can come up with all kinds of bizarre inventions to shield their treasured beliefs from doubt and uncertainty.
Posted by: Wes | June 10, 2008 11:54 AM
You know, burning books, or otherwise forbidding them, is the quickest way to give them that allure of "forbidden fruit" which essentially guarantees that many of these kids will go to great, if secretive, lengths to read them. Look what happened when Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye" was initially excoriated as vile pornography--it became a campus must-read for decades.
But then, these symbolic (and actual) book-burners never learn the lessons of history. They're too busy condemning and burning books to actually read them. That's why they keep repeating themselves, over and over and over....
Posted by: gary l. day | June 10, 2008 11:55 AM
They burned porn? Now that's outrageous!
Posted by: Steve | June 10, 2008 12:04 PM
I'm convinced that for many people, the Bible IS their god. How else can you explain their willingness to ascribe incredibly evil acts to "god" in order to maintain belief in the inerrancy of their sacred text.
Posted by: Taz | June 10, 2008 12:31 PM
My dad used to get me to read books as a kid by telling me, "Oh no -- this is far too mature for you." Or "I'm not sure I want you reading this until you're an adult." Or my fave "There's too much sex in this book." INSTANT attraction.
FWIW, I only read the first Harry Potter book because I heard some church group wanted to ban/burn it.
Posted by: AmandaM | June 10, 2008 12:32 PM
Taz,
I think you've put your finger on perhaps the most basic difference between the religious right fundamentalists and other Christians.
Posted by: JuliaL | June 10, 2008 12:39 PM
I'll bet they also burned some Beatles records.
Posted by: Sadie Morrison | June 10, 2008 12:48 PM
Wait now, there's sex scenes in "Catcher in th Rye"??? *Quickly thumbs through copy stolen from High School* No joy :( -DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | June 10, 2008 1:06 PM
Yes, but the point is, there's no basis for that belief in the Bible, either. In fact, in Exodus 21:22-25, it decrees that if someone accidentally causes a woman to miscarry without causing further injury to her (unlikely as that may be), it's a civil matter to be dealt with by payment of a fine. However, if the woman does suffer further injury, that's subject to "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth", because she - unlike the miscarried fetus - is a full human being.
Posted by: Seraph | June 10, 2008 1:09 PM
Wes:
"Hi, I'm Goliath and this is my brother Goliath and this is my other brother Goliath."
Posted by: natural cynic | June 10, 2008 1:13 PM
Ah yes, but do the Golith Bros. all have pets called Eric? -DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | June 10, 2008 1:16 PM
The Bible, Newheart, and Monty Python, all referenced in a single sentence... you just blew my mind.
Posted by: Abby Normal | June 10, 2008 1:25 PM
Wait 'til you see them try to burn a blog post, without damaging their 'puters!
Posted by: threetorches | June 10, 2008 1:35 PM
International House of Ban Flakes.
Posted by: Emory K. | June 10, 2008 1:37 PM
Uhhh, yeah, Mr. Crawford, ever stop to ask why?
Posted by: Dennis N | June 10, 2008 2:01 PM
Seraph has it right. The Bible clearly doesn't count the unborn as "living". "Life", in the Bible, is clearly equated with "breath". Those that don't breath are not alive.
That's why causing a miscarriage is treated merely as property damage, not as murder in the Bible. The commandment against murder is invalid.
Posted by: Calladus | June 10, 2008 2:03 PM
This had me stuck with a wtf, a generational curse from a book that has only been out for a little over 10 years (first one released in 1997)? Generational curse of immorality and perversion... Seems like they believe in magic more than the characters in the book, not that they've bothered to read it and find out the facts like that before declaring it evil, as it's obvious they haven't. Kehrsam though sums it up best saying "After all, they don't read anything (not even their Bibles)," which is far too true.
Would've liked to attend though, just because I've never been to a book burning before, and I imagine I'd have plenty to laugh at if this article contains an accurate portrayal of their antics.
Posted by: Felstatsu | June 10, 2008 2:25 PM
Don't forget the IHOP never-empty carafe of sacred wine (ok, I chickened out on what the carafe is really full of, at least in their minds.)
Posted by: Bob Munck | June 10, 2008 2:35 PM
How dumb do they have to be if they are taught "Harry Potter"?
Posted by: ian findlay | June 10, 2008 2:47 PM
Oh sure, burning books will give you that warm fuzzy feeling, but for real generational deliverance you gotta burn the authors.
Posted by: tguy | June 10, 2008 3:00 PM
Hmmmm. . . .they burned the works of Einstein in Nazi Germany. Now they're burning Harry Potter books? I seem to recall that the ideas of Einstein are remembered, and Einstein himself is a revered figure in the history of science, among other things. Nazi Germany? Well that ended in 1945k to the relief of most of the world. I don't think anybody is going to remember the International House of Prayer, 60 years from now. But I bet they're going to still be reading Harry Potter.
Anne G
Posted by: Anne Gilbert | June 10, 2008 3:34 PM
Posted by: Skwee | June 10, 2008 4:04 PM
The great thing is that J.K. Rowling could have donated a pile higher than their heads of $100 bills for them to burn, and would not have felt a financial twinge at all.
Posted by: Gingerbaker | June 10, 2008 4:08 PM
I remember in the later 50's a librarian wanted to ban all the Tarzan books because they were about a naked guy living with an unmarried naked woman with a naked kid not their own. You can tell she saw or knew about the movie but never read the books.
Or the people who think Frankinstein is about a mad scientist who tried to be god.
This myth is still believed by many and it is totally wrong!
As stated by Mary Shelly it is about a man failing as a parent!!!.
So seeing Harry Potter as a book about magic rather then a kid going thru puberty at school isn't a shock.
It doen't surprise any of us posting here that most book burnings are by people who DO NOT read much of anything including the bible. Reading is right up there with THINKING which a violation of their basic religion.
This does not anger me so much as feeling intense sorrow at the hieghts the sheep herders have risen.
Makes me glad I'm a Tellurian rather then a terran.
(any spelling or grammer errors are the fault of the spell checker)
Posted by: CybrgnX | June 10, 2008 5:03 PM
Yes and no. Frankenstein certainly had allegorical elements pertaining to parenthood and traumatic upbringings, but the book was also a broad critique of the Enlightenment emphases on science and reason at the expense of emotionality and humans accepting what was seen as their place in the world.
Posted by: Sadie Morrison | June 10, 2008 6:29 PM
The practice is as indefensible as INFANTICIDE
There are days when I can defend infanticide.
Posted by: Graculus | June 10, 2008 7:47 PM
There is a pile of books on my shelves at work that I would be happy to burn now that we've finally decided not to use the disgusting software product described in the books. I'm going to have to settle for taking them out to the dumpster, which does not seem sufficiently celebratory.
Posted by: Margaret | June 10, 2008 8:07 PM
Well, I betcha if Reverend Jim Dobson had written "Frankenstein" it woulda had a happy, family values sorta ending with the Mrs. Monster in the kitchenlab--barefoot and pregnant with some undead twins or something.
Posted by: democommie | June 10, 2008 8:44 PM
Nutcase in question Jimmy Crawford:
"It is allowed for Harry Potter to be taught in our schools, but not the Bible,"
Not quite.
When I was an undergrad and was slogging through an English Lit class for my general ed requirements, I had to pick up a copy of the Psalms that was to be read by the class. Problem is - as least according to assclowns like Crawford and the rest of the International House of Pudwacks - it wasn't being taught as theology. It was being taught in order to get the sense of the poetry of the translated Hebraic. I suppose that that's a Really Bad Thing in their view as well, since that would actually put it on a level playing field with the Psalms as it was taught in that English class.
But hey, leave it to the religious Sturmabteilungen to fail to comprehend such subtle matters: after all, they burned an untold gross of Beatles records because of an offhand statement made by John Lennon back in '66, which means that stupidity does indeed flow down through generations.
Posted by: Chris Krolczyk` | June 10, 2008 8:48 PM
Sadie Morrison:
I'll bet they also burned some Beatles records.
Shoulda known someone would beat me to this...
ian findlay:
How dumb do they have to be if they are taught "Harry Potter"?
I haven't looked at Ed's accompanying link yet, but I suspect that the books are - if they're being taught at all, since I have reason to suspect Crawford's shpiel - being taught at the grammar-school level precisely because they're ragingly popular and might actually keep kids interested in reading books.
Keep in mind that this happened in Louisiana, which is a state that once had a rep for having the absolute worst educational system of any state in the US in terms of comparative testing results. I don't know if that's still true, but events like this in Shreveport (which if, memory serves, is where snake-handling nutball Jimmy Swaggart got his start as a minister) don't provide much in the way of reassurance.
Posted by: Chris Krolczyk | June 10, 2008 8:57 PM
A bit from the link that Ed chose not to quote:
The book burning and revival also marked the meeting of a diverse group of ministers, including Elliot McPhatter, of Total Deliverance Church, Young Doo Kim, of the Shreveport-Bossier Presbyterian Church, and John Valdez, of Bossier City Four Square Church.
Ah, you gotta love the "diversity" of clerico-fascist opinion that this happy little gathering represents, don't you?
"We are not concerned with the cultural standard. This standard keeps our congregation holy and our city clean. ...," Valdez said. "We have a supernatural enemy, and we need to be unified to fight. ... We have the same mission."
Events like this "keep our city clean"?
Clean from thought, maybe, but not much else.
Was anyone else as singularly creeped out by that last quote as I was?
Posted by: Chris Krolczyk | June 10, 2008 9:03 PM
Does this mean they are on the same side as Voldemort?
Posted by: kehrsam | June 10, 2008 9:55 PM
Chris:
Considering these are the same folks who argue that the song of Solomon isn't a love poem filled about sex, it's no surprise that they wouldn't consider Psalms to be poetic either. Kind of a shame for them.
That gets fairly well to the heart of the matter when you think about it. The easiest way to make the bible coherent despite all its contradictions is to realize that its a collection of folk tales and stories, shared by a small group of related, but individually isolated, tribes. The reason Goliath dies 3 deaths is because there were 3 stories(at least) of his death, from 3 tribes, each tribe claiming the kill for their own ancestral hero. The reason some stories don't fit is because they belong to different traditions. Heck, Yahweh wasn't even the main god for most of Jewish history, knowing that alone points to many of the prophet stories being either falsified or outright stolen from the other cults.
Posted by: Julian | June 11, 2008 12:32 AM
Harry Potter has literary merit and, unlike the Bible, is actually read by kids because it's well-written and is a work of excellent narrative genius.
Fuck off, fundies.
Posted by: Jacob | June 11, 2008 3:51 AM
Translation: "Yes! Harry Potter! Harry Potter is the reason Daddy used to get drunk and touch me!"
What are we supposed to understand from her reference to her family's "generational curse of perversion"?
Somebody have CPS check up on her kids, please.
Posted by: DaveL | June 11, 2008 6:46 AM
Quoth CybrgnX:
Just for a bit of enlightenment: The sub-title of "Frankenstein" is "A Modern Prometheus," which is a pretty strong reference to a lesser being playing god.
Posted by: ArtK | June 11, 2008 10:44 AM
kehram, havin' some fun with a quote:
"We have a supernatural enemy, and we need to be unified to fight"
Does this mean they are on the same side as Voldemort?
If by "Voldemort" you mean the Big Stupid in force and not the eternal enemy of Harry Potter, yes. Otherwise...
Posted by: Chris Krolczyk | June 12, 2008 6:42 PM
Julian:
Considering these are the same folks who argue that the song of Solomon isn't a love poem filled about sex, it's no surprise that they wouldn't consider Psalms to be poetic either. Kind of a shame for them.
In some ways, it's not their fault: years - or perhaps decades - of fundamentalist creeps ramming a narrow interpretation of scripture (or, for that matter, its very language) down these people's collective throat has essentially robbed them of any ability to look at the Bible as anything but a book whose literal interpretation must (insert robotic Stepford Citizen voice here) MUST NEVER BE QUESTIONED because that would be an admission that fundamentalism - and the worldview that goes with it - might end up being only so much bullshit.
OTOH, the bookburning (and the lack of historical perspective, much less common sense) is on them, especially where the responsibility of the organizers is concerned.
Posted by: Chris Krolczyk | June 12, 2008 6:55 PM
Joe V. - you've obviously never visited Northwest Louisiana, or, as I like to call it, East Texas.
I can't believe these idiots. I wish New Orleans and the Cajun Parishes could just secede from the rest of the state.
Posted by: bullet | June 13, 2008 6:32 PM