The Ring and the Cross

[Manwe Sulimo]

Interesting pro-Christian article here.

[Maylin]

Interesting, though I don't think he purpously put christ-like figures in his books, since he disliked allegory (sp?)

[Bill Ferny]

I wrote the following in the thread entitled Inherent Evil, but it fits equally well here in regards to the mentioned article:

Redemption, according to the Catholic paradigm, that Tolkien knew, is absent from Middle-Earth. There is no Christ figure, so no matter how noble, no matter how virtuous any of these characters are, they never achieve that “happy ending.” The best that any character achieved was a certain amount of satisfaction that they did the right thing, they could achieve some virtue by “natural law,” but the life of grace escapes them. Even at Aragorn’s death there was regret (personified by Arwen’s long, lonely suffering); Aragorn, like all the other heroes fails to find that peaceful death. The end of human beings, what happens to them after death, is unknown, not even by the wisest elves or the Valar. The Núnenóreans fell because they feared death and were jealous of the elves. Death for humans was much more of a risk, because they didn’t have the Halls of Mandos.

Tolkien envisioned Middle-Earth as a real, kind of pre-pre-historic time, the real work of salvation, which belonged to humans only, was way, way into the future. Tolkien’s mythology was a set up for the future, which he envisioned as being our present. That is why his writings are so devoid of incarnational theology, sacrament, etc… Its that these would have been anachronistic to his world. Unlike in CS Lewis’ Narnia, Middle-Earth wasn’t a parallel world, it was our world, so there could be no Aslan in Middle-Earth.

Evil, meanwhile, will doubtlessly reconstitute itself in yet another form. "That's a very Norse outlook: Even the winners lose,'' says Stephen Morillo, a Wabash College medieval historian who's teaching a course this January that covers Tolkien. 'That's really what lies behind the morality of 'The Lord of the Rings,' and that's just incompatible with a Christian interpretation.''

This would be true if there were Christ figures in Middle-Earth, but its my position that there are not. So the reconstitution of evil is completely understandable in a world not only suffering under the condition of original sin, but suffering from the stain of original sin as well. You might call it an Old Testament interpretation of Middle-Earth from a Christian perspective.

Some fundamentalist Christians -- the same folks who bash the "Harry Potter'' books -- have denounced the prevalence of magic in the "The Lord of the Rings.''

Which, of course, shows that they are fools, since “magic” in the stock fantasy sense, is almost absent from Tolkien, and it can be argued that it is completely absent.

In a recent interview, David Mills, an editor of the conservative Christian magazine Touchstone, called Tolkien's work "stealth evangelization"; in regard to its appearance on the big screen, he suggests that Catholics "use the movie to raise questions for their unbelieving friends. . . help them begin to see that the great story depends upon its moral and spiritual depth, and then you can ask them where they find this morality and spirituality today. We know that the only place you find them in their full strength is the Catholic church, but your unbelieving friends don't know that yet.''

As a Catholic I found this rather repulsive, if indeed such a thing would be said by a Catholic, for any good Catholic would hold that such a lofty spirituality and morality can be found, in various degrees, in any religion, not just Christianity. After reading it I’m not sure if this is a criticism of certain Catholics that Mr. Mills has come into contact with, or if he is endorsing such behavior, or if he is throwing an unfounded jab. Rest assured I’ve never heard any Catholic make such a remark (though I suppose I could image, sadly, one or two that I know making it).

Some critics further observe that the novel's characters tend to be deeply invested in their middle-earthly lives, rather than in any afterlife. Consider Gandalf's carpe-diem advice to Frodo: "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.''

On another level, I found this statement equally repulsive. This seems to indicate that religious sorts care nothing about the present at all, and always have their heads in heaven/hell/purgatory/parosia. However, the four last things have everything to do with our present lives, what we do, say and believe in the here and now. Christianity is all about carpe diem, its all about living faith.