Paul LeClerc, president of the New York Public Library, held up "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," the relished fifth installment. It was author J.K. Rowling's "special wish" to give the book to the library to honor New York City's tenacity since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The Nadaq sign in Times Square boldly advertised the book's release. Nearby, a Toys "R" Us store urged children to show up dressed as their favorite character. The first to line up to buy a book was a young woman who parked herself in a lawn chair at 2 in the afternoon.

The only antidote to a world in which the NY Times has a special Harry Potter section is to read Betty Bower's Has Satan hired a better ad agency than the Lord?

Some samples:

I note with no surprise that throughout history, religions that foolishly choose to promise excruciating pain and embarrassment to believers after they die never manage to be embraced by all but a few mordant masochists. Savvy people shopping for a new faith shrewdly demand extravagant incentives from any group that courts their patronage. Of course, when one is making cold calls to people in first century Palestine, promising something better is all but impossible not to do. Just mention antiperspirant! To jaded American Christians, however, the pot must be sweetened somewhat. Therefore, Heaven is seemingly decorated by Carmela Soprano, sporting gaudy gold paved road and has everyone wearing excessive jewelry, such as crowns, before 5pm.

...

Christianity has always been blessed with nimble marketing, able to shift campaigns to adapt to the vicissitudes of the both the spiritual and political marketplace. Once Adolf Hitler was able to draw upon centuries of Christian anti-Semitic and anti-homosexual inflammatory rhetoric to employ both clergy and congregation to exterminate both, it became impolitic to associate with someone who lost a war. Therefore, True Christians(tm) wisely distanced themselves from him by simply passing him off as "anti-Christian." (Yes, it was disingenuous and misleading, but so is Palmolive's claim to be anti-bacterial.)

...

Just when we were patting ourselves on the back over convincing unsaved Americans that Islamic Fundamentalist fanatics, who believe they act for God in killing Americans (stock brokers), are substantively different from American Fundamentalist fanatics, who believe they act for God in killing Americans (abortionists), along comes Satan with the most clever ad campaign for the nonsensical since the Catholics claimed Mary died a virgin: Harry Potter.