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Poor Harry Potter.

As if battling Voldemort, Death Eaters and Dementors wasn't enough, the boy wizard has also endured the wrath of religious conservatives in the decade since J.K. Rowling's books first found their way into the hearts of young Muggles the world over.

There have been book burnings, book bans and even a declaration by one Catholic Church official last year that Harry Potter is "the devil."

But with Potter fans already lining up ahead of the final book release this Saturday, some Christian denominations are now eschewing condemnation for praise, embracing Ms. Rowling's tales as powerful religious fables for our time.

Leading the Potter parable movement is the Church of England. This Saturday, it will release Mixing it Up with Harry Potter, a 48-page guidebook that directs religious leaders how to translate tales from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry into religious lessons.

"People were quick to demonize the fact that the books were all about witches and wizards when they first came out," said the guide's author Owen Smith, a 24-year-old youth worker with St. Margaret's Church in Rainham, England. "That has really softened. They've realized Harry Potter is something we can use."

Mr. Smith started writing the book 18 months ago when pre-teens at the Sunday school where he teaches told him they were far more interested in The Simpsons and Harry Potter than Jesus and apostles.

"We simply weren't reaching them," Mr. Smith said. "And Harry Potter is full of good lessons. It's a hugely moral series of stories about good, evil, love, friends and everything else."

Mr. Smith finished the manuscript within seven months. Church House Publishing, the Church of England's official press, soon accepted it.

He timed the publication for this weekend's inevitable run on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final book in the series.

One lesson in the book uses a scene from the first movie where Harry becomes angry with his aunt and uses magic to make her blow up like a balloon and bob away.

"He let the anger get the best of him," Mr. Smith said. "We teach that we shouldn't sin within our anger."

It was only seven years ago that the Anglican Church denied a request to have the first Potter movie shot at Canterbury Cathedral over worries about the books' messages.

Some congregations this side of the Atlantic are also capitalizing on Pottermania.

Last weekend, 35 high-school students watched the first four Harry Potter movies at the All Saints Anglican Cathedral in Edmonton before going to see the fifth, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, at a theatre.

Between screenings, Angela Bokenfohr, 22, youth co-ordinator with the Holy Trinity Anglican Church, moderated discussions about the biblical themes present in each film.

After the first film the talked about bravery. Some students said Harry's fearlessness resembled the stories of David and Goliath or Jonah and the whale.

"The books are about a young boy making tough decisions," said Ms. Bokenfohr, an admitted Potter fan. "He's having to decide to go off to a strange world. Christian life is a lot of the same. It's not easy to answer the Lord's call."

By linking Potter to piety, Ms. Bokenfohr hopes to make the church more relevant to youngsters. It says the Anglican Church is still very much in touch," she said.

"We're with it. We're a cool church."

Other denominations are vying for the same claim.

At the Church Street United Methodist Church in Knoxville, Tenn., kids attending Sunday school can dress as wizards and learn how Harry Potter's magic resembles biblical miracles such as Jesus's resurrection and Moses's parting of the Red Sea.

Another church has bedecked an entire mansion to look like Hogwarts, the school where Harry learns wizardry, where children can pretend to wizards-in-training.

"We see the books as a positive metaphor to help children learn what character means and about making value judgments," said Chloe Mason Seagrove, director of membership at the All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in Kansas City.

"They are moral teachings for kids."

That certainly wasn't the prevailing view among some denominations when the Potter books first became popular.

Many religious leaders opined that the books promoted pagan practices.

In 2001, a congregation in New Mexico staged a mass burning of Ms. Rowling's book along with Eminem CDs and Ouija boards.

Last year, Pope Benedict XVI's head of exorcism called Harry Potter a "king of darkness" and "the devil."

The entire Potter series sits atop the American Library Association's list of most challenged books of the 21st century.

"People were very quick to demonize Harry Potter," Mr. Smith said.

"But as they get to know the stories they realize that people are not more inclined towards the occult or anything. Just because a child reads Thomas the Tank Engine doesn't mean he'll go out and crash a train."