Several things important to remember. One is that Rowling's books were written for children, Tolkien's for adults or mature young people. So to compare them in terms of the depth of their writing would be comparing apples to oranges.

But as to the context of this thread and the Boston Globe article itself, as well as the very long, interesting thread which went on for some time here on this issue in relation to the Harry Potter phenomenon, I think there is something larger involved in Christian conservative comparisons of the two.

That something larger, IMO, has to do with the fact that Harry Potter books and film are geared to "impressionable" children who (according to this logic) would find themselves "lost" to the teachings of the church (be it fundamentalist Catholic or fundamentalist Protestant) which prohibit the "magic" and "occult" from being acceptable to true Christians.

Or at least, that was how I read the article.