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So I am a little late to the discussion here, but I can still throw in my thoughts on this. You are saying that any usage of the word magic is essentially us, as the authors, endorsing and invoking the practical art of magic as you describe it. It does not matter the context of the story, the world itself, and the readers’ understandings. Surprise, I do not agree with your stance on this.

I believe that the context of the stories we make matter. Yes, we are Christians who are writers. Yes, we are writers who desire to draw people closer to understanding our viewpoints and faiths with our work. You define fantasy as “something unreal/fictional, that could not be real in our world, placed in a made up world or universe.” If we applied the same logic from magic to this fantasy world, we could never write a story where things are different than they are in the real world.

Let’s boil it down. Saying something that is not true is a lie, and that’s one of the basic Ten Commandments. If we as authors have no freedom to use the literary medium to convey new and creative ideas, then we might as well all just be journalists. As soon as it is established that we are describing a world (a FANTASY world), I say it should be understood that we can use different tools to make the story. Magic included.

If we as writers do not have the freedom to write about things that DID NOT HAPPEN (which can be described as a lie if we are being stone cold about the rules) then I would agree that we should leave magic out of our stories. As authors who can write about half lizard men who wander around fire mountains in search of a piece of ice that never melts if we pleased, I say we can say the word magic without automatically endorsing and encouraging actual real-life sorcery.