Re: No, Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" isn't Christian

[The Original Sixth]

No, Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” isn’t Christian

Jonathan Poletti is the typical hatchet man when the media needs someone to spout insane bullshit about Tolkien's work. Whether it's him claiming that Frodo was gangraped by orcs or secretly lusted his servant Samwise. He's recently taken it a step further by claiming that Tolkien's work isn't Christian.

In the fantasy world Middle-earth, there is no religion.

This seems like a problem to people trying to see The Lord of the Rings as a “Christian” work. As the literary critic Edmund Fuller noted:

“In this story there is no overt theology or religion. There is no mention of God. No one is worshipped. There are no prayers…”

There are no churches. Or prophets, or temples, or holy ground.

There is no Bible, no scriptures, no God, or a means of studying God. But Christians try to call it ‘Christian’ — out of sheer assertion.

This is simply inaccurate. Let's deep dive into this.

Fellowship of the Ring

'Behind that there was something else at work beyond any design of the Ring-maker. I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker. In which case you also were meant to have it. And that may be an encouraging thought.' -- Gandalf

"...Our paths cross their seldom, by chance or purpose. In this meeting there may be more than chance, but the purpose is not clear to me, and I fear to say too much." -- Gildor

"Eh, what?" said he. "Did I hear you calling? Nay, I did not hear: I was busy singing. Just chance brought me then, if chance you call it." -- Tom Bombadil

Just these three examples point to a higher power that is guiding Frodo and the other hobbits. There is also a few more obvious impressions from Tolkien's Christian views. Namely that of the Fellowship setting out on the 25th of December and the Ring being destroyed on the 25th of March. That would be Christmas and Easter respectively.

The Two Towers

'Naked I was sent back -- for a brief time, until my task is done. And naked I lay upon the mountain-top. The tower behind was crumbled into dust, the window gone; the ruined stair was choked with burned and broken stone. I was alone, forgotten, without escape upon the hard horn of the world. There I lay staring upward, while the stars wheeled over, and each day was as long a a life-age of the earth..." Gandalf the White

'...Saruman!'he cried and his voice grew in power and authority. 'Behold, I am not Gandalf the Grey, whom you betrayed. I am Gandalf the White, who was returned from death. You have no colour now, an I cast you from the order and from the Council."

In the Two Towers, it is revealed that Gandalf did indeed die (though not from the fall off the bridge, but rather in a duel atop a mountain) and was returned. Indeed, in both the above quotes, Gandalf is referring to being 'returned' or 'sent back' as if by a higher authority. This is the setting's version of the Most High. Indeed, the very shift of Gandalf from Grey to White is in and of itself a transfiguration, similar to what occurred with Christ. Gandalf was sent back, transformed.

Tolkien wasn’t regarded as a ‘Christian writer’.

That was the appeal. As the Tolkien scholar William Ready noted in 1969:

“One of the great things in favor of Tolkien, in the opinion of many of his readers who have rejected formal religion, and they are in the millions, is that there is no religion in The Lord of the Rings…”

This is a point made by C.S. Lewis himself. In a review of The Lord of the Rings, Lewis wrote that “there are no pointers to a specifically theological, or political, or psychological application.

I have a better idea, let's ask the writer what he thought:

The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like 'religion', to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism

You know, instead of looking to people who are not Tolkien, talking about what's going on in Tolkien's head.

Tolkien didn’t want his work associated with any religion.

He said so, over and over. In a 1955 letter to his publisher, he pushed back against efforts to ‘interpret’ his work:

“It is not ‘about’ anything but itself. Certainly it has no allegorical intentions, general, particular, or topical, moral, religious, or political.”

As his work was being scoured for religious meaning, he would say that it was mostly just entertainment. He wrote a fan in 1958:

“As for ‘message’: I have none really, if by that is meant the conscious purpose in writing The Lord of the Rings, of preaching, or of delivering myself of a vision of truth specially revealed to me! I was primarily writing an exciting story in an atmosphere and background such as I find personally attractive.”

He could also refer to it being a bit religious—putting ‘religious’ in quotes. In another letter he called his fantasy of Middle-earth “a monotheistic world of ‘natural theology’.”

That does not mean ‘Christian’.

This is the author bending the truth:

It is not “about” anything but itself. Certainly it has no allegorical intentions general, particular or topical; moral, religious or political. The only criticism that annoyed me was one that it “contained no religion” (and “no women” but that does not mater, and is not true anyway). It is a monotheistic world of “natural theology.” The odd fact that there are no churches, temples or religious rites and ceremonies, is simply part of the historical climate depicted. It will be sufficiently explained—if (as now seems likely The Silmarillion and other legends of the First and Second Ages are published. I am in any case myself a Christian; but the “Third Age” was not a Christian world.

This is the wider context of what Tolkien had written in his letter. It is true that there was no specific allegorical intention. He in fact, is annoyed when people complained that "it contained no religion" and directly rejects this. Little wonder why Pelotti hacked the paragraph apart to twist its meaning for his unfortunate readers.

In his lifetime, Tolkien made no public reference to a private religion.

In 1977, Humphrey Carpenter published a biography that discussed Tolkien having been Catholic. Carpenter notes the resulting confusion:

“Some have puzzled over the relation between Tolkien’s stories and his Christianity, and have found it difficult to understand how a devout Roman Catholic could write with such conviction about a world where God is not worshipped.”

The Lord of the Rings could easily be read as anti-Christian — it being a story, after all, featuring wizards, magic, and demonic beings.

This may come as a shock to those unfamiliar with their bibles, such as Pelotti, but there are wizards, magic, and demonic beings in the Bible.

LOTR has deep critiques of men in power.

There’s no racism, misogyny, homophobia, compulsory heterosexuality or theocracy — all standard in “Christian stories.”

Not that Christianity promotes racism, theocracy, misogyny--but there is plenty of racism in Lord of the Rings. This was apparent at the Council of Elrond, as well as other character statements throughout the story.

Discussion of sex — that great Christian obsession — is muted, but Tolkien’s vision is deeply ‘queer’. It centers not on romances between men and women, but on bonds between male Hobbits who ‘read’ as non-masculine.

I would hardly call sex a great obsession of Christianity. Nor is there any sexual or romantic relationship among the Hobbits. They are in fact, close friends. Had Pelotti developed a deep relationship with someone that he did not wish to bed, he might be aware of this. Women aren't the only ones who can have deep platonic love for other people.

A less ‘Christian’ story could hardly be imagined.

It takes a great deal of mental loops to misconstrue LotR as anything but Christian. The ring is the physical incarnation of temptation. Sauron is repeatedly thwarted not by powerful heroes doing amazing things (although this is involved), but by people choosing to do the right thing. Repeatedly, throughout the story, it is the choice to do what is right that changes the story for the better, where as those who do wrong end up in a dreadful state. Borimor falls to sin when he tries to take the ring, but redeems himself by sacrificing himself to save Peregrin and Merry. Sauruman is a wise and powerful angelic being, but through hubris and his own lust for power and order, betrays his order and is in the end, reduced to a harmless spirit. Wormtongue, a once valued and esteemed advisor to the King of Rohand, loses his position for a defeated master, who treats him like a slave--until Womrtongu turns on his master and shot by arrows.

Indeed, his work openly challenges Christianity.

Christians ignore a lot — like Tolkien writing extensively about reincarnation. He worked the theme into the plot of The Lord of the Rings. He seems to have believed in the idea personally.

Confronted about it by a Catholic in 1954, Tolkien denied the Catholic church had knowledge of the afterlife. As he explains, he does not see how:

“…any theologian or philosopher, unless very much better informed about the relation of spirit and body than I believe anyone to be, could deny the possibility of re-incarnation…”

He clearly did not believe in the traditional ‘Heaven’ and ‘Hell’. He could easily be read as not Catholic at all. He was clearly not ‘devout’.

This is again, Pelotti butchering Tolkien's letters to get the results he wants. In the letter that Pelotti is quoting, Tolkien is responding to criticism by a reader over elves reincarnating. Tolkien's response was while that may not have been good theology, it was well within the realm of metaphysics. Nor did it apply to humans. Nor did it suggest what Tolkien thought of the afterlife.

Scholars have found LOTR is “not Christian.”

Christians who listen only to their own hack commentators and screaming preachers are unaware of what actual scholars are saying. Brian Rosebury writes in Tolkien: a Cultural Phenomenon:

“Not only is Christianity not literally present, there is no surrogate for it or allegorical structure suggestive of it.”

A 2013 paper by Claudio A. Testi, “Tolkien’s Work: Is it Christian or Pagan?” hashes out the sources at length. There is a spirituality at work in Middle-earth, with vague talk of fated intention to key events, very vague talk of some kind of a deity-force (“The One”), and a mystic ‘Secret Fire’.

There are cues to the Bible—and also to other religious texts. Testi finds “no essentially Biblical contents.”

In which Pelotti cherry picks a handful of scholars and ignores all others to support his delusions about Tolkien's work.

A single letter seemed to clarify Tolkien was a ‘Christian writer’.

In 1981, The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, reprinted a 1953 personal letter that Tolkien had written to Father Robert Murray, a Catholic priest, who’d said that Galadriel, the Elf queen, resembled the Virgin Mary.

Tolkien seemed to agree, and added:

“The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision.”

This is often the only letter Christians read, and are unaware that Tolkien was asked many times to reconcile his work to Catholic theology, and his replies were bizarre. He was asked again in 1971 if Galadriel was the Virgin Mary, and replied:

“I think it is true that I owe much of this character to Christian and Catholic teaching and imagination about Mary, but actually Galadriel was a penitent: in her youth a leader in the rebellion against the Valar….

In which Pelotti tries to form a semi-cohesive counter-argument to a rather simple plain fact; Tolkien did consider LotR to be a Christian work. Specifically a Catholic work. And he does this by trying to imply that Tolkien was dishonest in his letter. Nor does he seem to understand plain English. That yes, Galadriel was somewhat inspired by the teaching and imagery of Mary, but that she is not the same. Galadriel was pertinent--that she was sorrowful for her rebellion against the Valar; the upper ranks of the angelic host on LotR.

So Galadriel was Mary…but “actually” not.

And LOTR was ‘Catholic’…but ‘unconsciously’ so? What does that even mean? Tolkien’s story, as we’ll learn, was not a ‘devout Catholic man’ who unconsciously manifested his religion in a fantasy plot.

His story was a publicly Catholic man who had written a non-Catholic work. He was left trying to deal with that problem. The key is on view in the 1953 letter, but Christians only care about one sentence. Let’s read on?

Tolkien seemed to agree that Galadriel is the Virgin Mary, but then undercut the priest’s point by mentioning another woman who influenced him. His whole religion, he adds:

“…I owe to my mother, who clung to her conversion and died young, largely through the hardships of poverty resulting from it.”

Pelotti, thus frustrated in Tolkien outright stating inspiration for Galadriel from the Virgin Mary (although Galadriel is penitent for her past sins) and having directly stated that it was an intentional Catholic work by at least the revision of his work, begins to struggle to find a way to portray LotR as anything but what Tolkien stated it to be.

Tolkien became a Catholic because of his mother.

Mabel Tolkien had become Catholic, and so a scandal to her Baptist family—who persecuted her for it.

That is a Christian story.

As a young adult, he all but apostatized. Or he “almost ceased to practice my religion,” as he wrote in a later letter.

But he got back on board with it, preferring Catholicism at least to the rival Anglican faith, which he called a “pathetic and shadowy medley of half-remembered traditions and mutilated beliefs.”

He seems to have mostly disliked most priests. He refers to the Eucharist with affection, though he’d also say he’d been “too depressed” to go. He seems to have tried to view it as a meditative moment to practice compassion.

Christian fans prefer to ignore this point, but Tolkien’s Catholic advice to his grandson Michael had been to go to a church that will “affront your taste,” and be among people in states of distress. He makes a special note about sympathy for working women (i.e. “women in trousers”).

He adds:

“Go to Communion with them (and pray for them).”

So to try and dissuade sensible readers from taking a man at his word, constructs a narrative in which Tolkien and his mother was abused by Baptists and Catholics (as a whole--while working in a cheap potshot) to set up the excuse for his own baseless "theory" as to what LotR actually is:

This is a story about his mother.

When Tolkien talks about his religion, in the very next breath he is re-telling his mother’s story. In a ‘Christian world’ that punished single working mothers and religious searchers with unrelenting fury, he grieved her.

And his Catholicism was one mode of grieving.

As Humphrey Carpenter writes:

“Indeed it might be said that after she died his religion took the place in his affections that she had previously occupied.”

That LotR was really just one of the ways that Tolkien worked out his mommy issues. Despite lacking any evidence for this, either from Tolkien or a close friend. Don't worry, he's got more academics he's cherry picked to support his absurd notions.

But really, how Catholic was Tolkien?

He made no effort to study theology. He never visited Rome. For all his distain of “mutilated beliefs,” he seems to have deeply loved Santa.

He nursed a lot of doubts. Tolkien wrote in the same 1963 letter of advice to his grandson:

“The temptation to ‘unbelief’ (which really means rejection of Our Lord and His claims) is always there within us.”

Christians like a scene in which Tolkien led his friend C.S. Lewis into the faith. But the details are odd. Tolkien said that Christianity was just like other myth-systems, except for being true — a “true myth,” as he said.

Is that how Christians see the religion?

Tolkien notes in an essay: “The Gospels contain a fairy-story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories.”

To call the gospels a “fairy-story” isn’t what usually passes for Christian talk.

And then Pelotti, being confused as to what a myth is, decides to equate it with "a fictional story". And so naturally arrives at the flawed conclusion that this is insulting to Christianity in any way.

The effort to claim Tolkien as a ‘Christian writer’ owes to a fundamental problem.

The religion has no fun and readable books. So it turns to writers from Tolkien to L.M. Montgomery and her Anne of Green Gables series, declaring them religiously acceptable. Montgomery wasn’t even Christian! The religion’s history, she’d say, was “ghastly,” and added:

“I really believe the day of the church is done…”

The deeper problem is that Christianity works to suppress artistic talent in its members. To be an artist is to be interested in conflict, ambiguity, shades of gray, sex and sexuality—and all that reads in the religion as “ungodly.”

And we finally arrive at the true motivation behind Pelotti's poorly researched and presented articles. Having of course never looked into the history of art and Christianity, assumes that the Church suppresses artistic talent of all sorts and then goes on to define only what he sees as art. And while there is a conflict between the Church and some artistic expressions, this does not equate to an oppression of all art. Indeed, one only needs to see some of the great churches of the world to see that this is simply not true.

Does “The Silmarillion” save the day?

At a loss to find Christianity in The Lord of the Rings, Christians like to cite a late collection of mythic scripts that Tolkien wrote, and never published. They conveniently forget points—like many of his ‘gods’ are female.

And The Lord of the Rings is still a story about people learning to work together, to go on journeys, opposing evil and improving the world—without appeal to a deity.

There can be female gods in Christianity. Indeed, within Christian theology, there are hundreds. Christian theology does not see itself separate from Greek or Roman or Germanic or Celtic religions. Indeed, those gods were seen as being in rebellion to the Most High and were commonly (later) labelled as demons. The Lord of the Rings is not merely a story about people going on a journey to oppose evil--it is a story about good and evil, it is a story about choice, it is a story about humility, and the importance of wholesome things.

LotR does not set out to preach about Christianity for the same reason that advance science classes do not go over basic scientific concepts. It requires a Christian (or at least, Abrahamic) understanding of the world to be fully appreciated and understood. Pelotti might understand this, were he not so hellbent on trying to twist a dead man's work for his own personal and political whims.

 

[Free-Stater 101]

It takes a good deal to make me angry and the fact that this garbage is making me madder than most people in politics in the last few years is telling.

LOTR is Christian or at the very least has the main root of its theological lore based extremely loosely around it. The characters and its themes are all concurrent as being written by an Angelican/Catholic type man born in England in the 1890's through 1910's with outlook's on Monarchy, Christendom, war and views on industrialization being key mentions to varying degrees.

For example. C.S. Lewis and Wilbur Awdry who wrote both The Chronicle's Of Narnia and The Railway Series both have a similar subtext and undertones in that regard.

 

[Bear Ribs]

And we finally arrive at the true motivation behind Pelotti's poorly researched and presented articles. Having of course never looked into the history of art and Christianity, assumes that the Church suppresses artistic talent of all sorts and then goes on to define only what he sees as art. And while there is a conflict between the Church and some artistic expressions, this does not equate to an oppression of all art. Indeed, one only needs to see some of the great churches of the world to see that this is simply not true.

Yeah, that's always where they get to. Thing that disputes my worldview can't be popular! Therefore popular Thing must not really dispute my worldview because even I can't claim it's not popular!

 

[ShadowArxxy]

For example. C.S. Lewis and Wilbur Awdry who wrote both The Chronicle's Of Narnia and The Railway Series both have a similar subtext and undertones in that regard.

Unlike LOTR, Narnia was overtly and intentionally written as a Christian allegory. It's not even remotely "subtext", and that is in fact something Tolkien and Lewis disagreed vehemently about -- Tolkien was of the opinion that the overt, heavy-handed allegories greatly detracted from the quality of the Narnia books.

 

[ATP]

Unlike LOTR, Narnia was overtly and intentionally written as a Christian allegory. It's not even remotely "subtext", and that is in fact something Tolkien and Lewis disagreed vehemently about -- Tolkien was of the opinion that the overt, heavy-handed allegories greatly detracted from the quality of the Narnia books.

And i agree with that - LOTR is better becouse it is not made that way.
Interesting,why idiots try to deny fact that LOTR is catholic? Everybody could read Tolkien Letters now.

 

[stephen the barbarian]

why idiots try to deny fact that LOTR is catholic?

because that would mean accepting that the popular thing you like is different from what you're allowed to like.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Interesting,why idiots try to deny fact that LOTR is catholic? Everybody could read Tolkien Letters now.

There's a common mindset among... certain types of people that they themselves do not have opinions. What they like is objectively better, what they think is objectively true, what they hate is objectively bad.

To these people, something being highly popular, perhaps even enjoyable, that has themes they do not espouse, such as Christianity, is an aberration that cannot be tolerated. They do not engage in introspection and have too much ego to admit perhaps others are entitled to disagree and opinions differ because opinions do not exist. They also cannot admit to ever being wrong, so they must invent reasons why something they and many other people enjoy doesn't really have themes they do not espouse.

 

[Agent23]

Not a Tolkienista, but JustSomeGuy covered this hack, sounds like the typical Hat Tippington that never grew out of his wannabe edgy early teenage Atheist phase:

 

[Bear Ribs]

Having looked a bit at the rest of the guy's writing, I'm rather stunned at the level of projection required for him to claim Christians are obsessed with writing about sex.



Like, two-thirds of what he's written are about Christians having sex, with the other third being one or the other.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

In the Two Towers, it is revealed that Gandalf did indeed die (though not from the fall off the bridge, but rather in a duel atop a mountain) and was returned. Indeed, in both the above quotes, Gandalf is referring to being 'returned' or 'sent back' as if by a higher authority. This is the setting's version of the Most High. Indeed, the very shift of Gandalf from Grey to White is in and of itself a transfiguration, similar to what occurred with Christ. Gandalf was sent back, transformed.

Hold on there.

Gandalf wasn't sent back by some mysterious, unknown Most High; Tolkien quite clearly spelled out the existence and nature of the higher beings in the LOTR setting, i.e. the Ainur and Eru Illuvatar. As a Maiar, Gandalf is fundamentally distinct from a Christ analog; Christ is by definition a coequal aspect of *the* supreme creator, whereas Gandalf is a supernatural being of merely intermediate power, broadly analogous to an angel of lower rank. More importantly, the role of Gandalf is *absolutely not* that of a savior, but a messenger, mentor, and friend to mortals, who in LOTR control their own fate and must save themselves.

Tolkien would be the first to tell you that this is absolutely not how things work in real Christianity, Catholic or otherwise.

Yes, LoTR is a work of fiction that is intimately tied to Tolkien's own life and faith; but it is *distinct* from that faith in very important ways. And that was, again, Tolkien's great disagreement with Lewis; Lewis felt that the fictional world should be directly analogous to real-life Christian beliefs, whereas Tolkien believed that the fictional world should have its own cosmology that did not have to be compatible with the reality of Christian beliefs.

 

[Aldarion]

Hold on there.

Gandalf wasn't sent back by some mysterious, unknown Most High; Tolkien quite clearly spelled out the existence and nature of the higher beings in the LOTR setting, i.e. the Ainur and Eru Illuvatar. As a Maiar, Gandalf is fundamentally distinct from a Christ analog; Christ is by definition a coequal aspect of *the* supreme creator, whereas Gandalf is a supernatural being of merely intermediate power, broadly analogous to an angel of lower rank. More importantly, the role of Gandalf is *absolutely not* that of a savior, but a messenger, mentor, and friend to mortals, who in LOTR control their own fate and must save themselves.

Tolkien would be the first to tell you that this is absolutely not how things work in real Christianity, Catholic or otherwise.

Yes, LoTR is a work of fiction that is intimately tied to Tolkien's own life and faith; but it is *distinct* from that faith in very important ways. And that was, again, Tolkien's great disagreement with Lewis; Lewis felt that the fictional world should be directly analogous to real-life Christian beliefs, whereas Tolkien believed that the fictional world should have its own cosmology that did not have to be compatible with the reality of Christian beliefs.

That is true, but... Tolkien's work does not copy-paste Christianity (unlike Lewis) yet it is still a fundamentally Christian work. For the most obvious example, look at Frodo's quest: everybody damn near broke their backs making it a reality... and it failed. Frodo failed in the crucial moment, and if not for Gollum, he would have not cast the ring into the fire.

So what about the quest? Well, that was already answered by Gandalf back in Shire: it was meant to be, and you also have Letter 192:

"Frodo deserved all honour because he spent every drop of his power of will and body, and that was just sufficient to bring him to the destined point, and no further. Few others, possibly no others of his time, would have got so far. The Other Power then took over: the Writer of the Story (by which I do not mean myself), 'that one ever-present Person who is never absent and never named' * (as one critic has said)."

So everyone was saved only through a Grace of God. That is a fundamentally Christian message, even if you cannot find a Golden Lion Jesus anywhere.

 

[Husky_Khan]

Having looked a bit at the rest of the guy's writing, I'm rather stunned at the level of projection required for him to claim Christians are obsessed with writing about sex.



Like, two-thirds of what he's written are about Christians having sex, with the other third being one or the other.

Who is this guy? I skipped over the article to judge what else he's read. He's writing articles about CS Lewis not being a Heterosexual, that Tolkien's Stories have an absence of Christian themes, that Tolkien believed in Reincarnation, and random news stories about Christian sex scandals or whatever? And something called "Naomi Wolfs Jewish Feminist Christianity"