I wouldn’t say it played a large role in publicizing or promoting the book. The uptight “OMG it’s Satan” people reacted to the series after it became popular, in the same way they had a little moral panic over D&D in the 80s, or the recurring one about Halloween. Not mainstream by any means.

There were people who got bent out of shape about Harry Potter, but there are always those people. It happened with D&D and Doom as well.

There seems to be people in the world who really need something to be upset about.

I was finishing Prisoner of Azkaban (My teacher in school loaned the first three books. Thanks, Miss Miller!) when my mom and grandma suddenly started asking me about the series. It quickly became your typical republican Christian fixation. Mom and grandma were telling me to stop reading the books, and that it was a “manual for witchcraft”. Like, as in a literal set of instructions to cast spells and stuff, not stories. Naturally, everything they were telling me about Harry Potter made absolutely no sense to me. Now that I think about it, this was probably the point in my life where I started doubting religion.

The news made a deal of it, but being surrounded by religious people, I didn’t hear one real person have a problem with it.

No. It was manufactured drama.

I’m not from the US, so that does not apply.

It became popular here (talking about the first book before the others were written) because it was a well written story.

It got a lot of people, both adults and kids, who did not normally read for pleasure to read it. I don’t remember hearing much about the religious stuff in the USA but I think part of its success was that people who didn’t read much read it and liked it.

At the time I was part of the religious right. I don’t remember the books being directly targeted, but I do recall what could be considered a bit of leftover satanic panic as well as anti secularism.

I found out about the books when people at work were discussing them. I personally was interested in fantasy my whole life and was partially put off by the idea of witches, but since it wasn’t a satanic manual of evil I was okay with it.

I think the churches got wind of it too late, and while some people totally read it because it was forbidden, I don’t think it was ever considered counterculture.

There were a few schools who banned the book or removed it from their libraries. That was headline news though because for the most part the books were universally pretty much loved.

I feel like Harry Potter became mainstream/popular in my area roughly around the release of the third book. Or at least that’s when I remember becoming aware of the series. I was in elementary school and attended a small non-denominational christian school. It kind of just depended on the families, some were fine with it, like mine was. My mom read the first book to my younger brother and I as part of our nightly reading together. It was just emphasized that this was a fun fictional story and not real. There were other families who didn’t like the concept of magic but were otherwise ambivalent, and of course some were convinced it was all a ploy by satan trying to convert children to witchcraft. The details are all pretty fuzzy, but I think the stances generally tended to follow the denomination of the family, but not always.

I’m very close with someone who now loves the stories but was not allowed to read/watch them as a child, as their parents did not approve of the “witchcraft” in them. I would say it’s not typical, but there were definitely some people that bought into the hysteria