In the face of growing knowledge about and tolerance of many different faith expressions, we seem to be experiencing an increasing difficulty to define 1) what separation of church and state really means; 2) what constitutes moral or immoral literature in the context of the public schools; and 3) how we should define fantasy literature in the same context. The phenomenon of Harry Potter is a religious phenomenon, precisely because it has forced us to face squarely what it really means to be tolerant of all religious expression in the modern age. The solution may not be to remove Harry Potter from the schools, but to reexamine what separation of church and state really means.

Wagner, Rachel. "Bewitching the Box Office: Harry Potter and Religious Controversy." Journal of Religion and Film, Vol. 7, No. 2. 2 Oct. 2003.

In this passage, Wagner argues that Harry Potter, although a fantasy story series, has brought up many complicated issues that have laid just below the surface of America, which, due to its mixtures of cultures and religions, is comprised of varying (and often conflicting) habiti. Thus, we must now question what separation of Church and State means, and what Church even means. In all, her essay makes us see degrees of competing habiti, and how they can often intermix or repel each other vehemently.