Reading Magic

"You're inviting Satan into your home and opening yourself up to him". That's what one of the ladies (a Christian) at work said when we started talking about the Harry Potter series. I disagreed and said I thought there was more of a problem with the romance novels (soft porn for girls) she enjoys. We agreed to disagree.

Kate and I put down our current novels last week to re-read The Half Blood Prince in prep for tomorrow's release of The Deathly Hallows (AWESOME!). I noticed something interesting about the books we replaced - Kate: 'The Hobbit' and Me: 'Kiss Kiss' by Roald Dahl (a collection of short stories) both are from authors in who's writing magic features heavily. I distinctly remember, as kids, Dad refusing to let us read 'The Witches' by Dahl (along with banning cartoons featuring bad guys with red eyes - evil?).

I was wondering if there was such a problem with these two well loved and widely read authors back in their day? Why does Harry pose such a problem? Is it the setting of a magical realm within our reality as opposed to Tolkein's other worlds or Dahl's wildly imaginative parallel?