Let me state why I think this is so. I feel that many Christians disdain the Harry Potter books because the author of them (J.K. Rowling) is an avowed agnostic. I strongly feel that if Rowling, like J.R.R. Tolkien, was an ardent Christian, then her books would be much better received WITHOUT CHANGING A SINGLE WORD IN THE BOOKS!
After all, Tolkien's LOTR has the same elements that the Potter detractors have been railing about these past few weeks: Magic, sorcery, wizards, trolls, and pure evil.
Some will surely say that the Potter books are bad because they are targeted towards gullible children who might not realize that the world of Harry Potter is completely make-believe. Well I will answer that charge by saying that LOTR was also targeted towards children when it was first published in 1945. The children of that age were much more literate then the children of today, being that there was no TV, video games or rock and rap music to distract them. Even when I went to school in the 1970s, it was different. I remember tackling books like "Moby Dick", "Red Badge of Courage" and "Call of the Wild" when I was in fourth grade. These days, most kids in fourth grade would find these books too hard to read. But I submit that any child (of any age) that is capable of reading Harry Potter and/or LOTR would also be intelligent enough to realize that they are fantasy worlds, not real.
And then there are some who will claim that Tolkien's LOTR is better than Harry Potter because Tolkien's story contains Christian imagery. My Freeper friends, please don't take offense to what I am about to say, but LOTR doesn't contain a SHRED of Christianity. Not even a hint of Christianity. Of course, this doesn't mean that it isn't a great book nevertheless. And it doesn't make Tolkien any less of a Christian by writing it. But you should be able to read it guilt-free without feeling the need to make it something it is clearly not. And the same goes for the Harry Potter books as well.
No offense, but if you think otherwise you don't really know much about Tolkien or his life.
I do think there are enough substantive differences between the two books so that if someone was going to babble on about witchcraft, they'd have a much better case against Harry Potter than against LOTR.
For starters, none of the humans in LOTR really cast spells. That's the province of the non-human wizards and elves. Tolkein also made it clear that magic was going to leave the world when the wizards and elves did. Men aren't able to use "witchcraft" or become wizards. For the religious folk, its the idea of men consorting with the devil or whomever that makes witchcraft evil. But since men can't use magic in LOTR, that potential criticism isn't applicable.