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MEDIA ADVISORY, July 24 /Christian Newswire/ -- ChristiaNet.com, the world's largest Christian portal with twelve million monthly page loads, conducted a new poll by asking the question, "Is reading Harry Potter books a sin?" The participants were given three choices; "Yes", "No" and "Unsure". Bill Cooper, President of ChristiaNet says, "Christians need to be prepared to protect their children from evil being passed off as an acceptable form of entertainment."

Out of 3,126 participants, 41% responded "No" to the poll question. Most in this group felt the Harry Potter books were merely fictional stories about good versus evil read only for entertainment. As one reader stated, "It's no more a sin than reading other fantasy literatures." Many compared the books to stories such as "Lord of the Rings" or "The Chronicles of Narnia" where the use of magic and sorcery exists. Others acknowledged that witchcraft is a sin, but as long as the reader was not reading for the purpose of acting out the principles of witchcraft then reading the books would not be considered sinful.

Because the books encourage witchcraft and expose the occult to its young readers, thirty-five percent of those polled felt reading Harry Potter books is a sin. Many Believers expressed their concerns with comments like "The Bible says that witchcraft is a sin". While others quoted Scriptures like 1 Thessalonians 5:22 that states, "Abstain from all appearance of evil." Some in this group were extremely animated in their responses such as "Harry Potter is one of the vilest pieces of literature unleashed on our children today."

The remaining 24% of the Christians polled were "Unsure" if reading such books is a sin. The majority of them were not familiar with the Harry Potter books; either had never heard of the series or just had no motivation to read them. The rest of the "Unsure" group leaned toward it not being a sin with comments like "it's just entertainment" and "if God convicts you, then it's a sin for you." With almost two-thirds of the Christians polled believing it's okay to participate in entertainment that does not glorify God, one might ask the question, "Are Christians really any different than non-Believers?"

To expose different types of sinful entertainment, ChristiaNet has just released a series of Free Entertainment Tracts. Using the latest interactive ecard technology, ChristiaNet has made it simple to share these funny yet informative ecards with friends and family.