AFTER HARRY POTTER, HERE COMES JRR TOLKIEN

By Marty Bee

Just had to write and say something! Harry's out and the Lord of the Rings is to follow. The Christian community is coming out great guns in support of Tolkien's masterpiece. Focus on the Family and others have said what a "Christian" fantasy the whole thing is and how C. S. Lewis and Tolkien are what we need to be feeding our children.

Never heard such mush! Tokien's fantasy is no more a Christian allegory than I am duck! Tolkien even admitted that all he was doing in the books was just retelling the old myths, the Norse Eddas and the Niebelungenreid (spelling?). So let's call it just exactly what it is. Sure the myth of Balder can relate to the sacrifice of Christ but only in that it was a counterfeit! The same can apply to every single pagan myth out there.

I have read the books, several times in my lifetime, but I tossed my most recent copy out as I realized that Aragorn was calling up the armies of the dead to fight for the West against Mordor (seems to me this was Saul's great sin (with the witch of Endor) wasn't it?) Then I heard the man who took over Tolkien's chair in Literature at the University explain the the Ring trilogy was all about the corrupting power of power. Any one of us can slip into becoming a "ring wraith" to sin. This isn't the Christ I know, Romans 8:38, 39 says that NOTHING shall be able to separate us from his love.

What's the difference then between John Bunyan (Pilgrim's Progress) and the "Inkling" brothers, Lewis, (Charles Williams), and Tolkien? Bunyan's fantasy is made COMPLETELY from the Bible. There is not a word in it that does not originate in the King James. His allegories also are drawn directly from scripture and not "baptized" mysticism or warmed over paganism.

LINKS:

Joseph Chambers on Tolkien and CS Lewis

Tolkien's Lord of the Rings: Truth, Myth or Both? by Berit Kjos

Second article on the pagan issues in Lewis and Tolkien by Kjos