Wikipedia:Today's featured article/December 27, 2007

Religious debates over Harry Potter stem largely from religious conservatives who assert that the Harry Potter stories contain occult or even Satanic subtexts. This opposition crosses many religious lines, with Protestant, Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians and Shia and Sunni Muslims all arguing against the series. In the United States, calls for the books to be banned from schools have led occasionally to widely publicised legal challenges, usually on the grounds that witchcraft is a government-recognised religion and that to allow the books to be held in public schools violates the separation of church and state mandated by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Religious opposition has also surfaced in other nations. The Orthodox churches of Greece and Bulgaria have campaigned against the series, and members of the Vatican hierarchy have voiced opposition. The books have been banned from private schools in the United Arab Emirates and criticised in the Iranian state-run press. Responses to these claims have come from multiple corners, both religious and secular. Both Christians and non-Christians have asserted that the magic in Harry Potter bears little resemblance to the magic of "real life" witchcraft or occultism, and more to the mechanical, fairy-tale magic of Cinderella, Snow White and other fairy tales, and also to the works of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, both authors frequently endorsed by Christians. However, the books' author, JK Rowling describes herself as a practicing Christian and many have noted the overtly Christian references she includes in the final Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. (more...)

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