[Lush]

I thought the article was ultimately pretty lame, if only because I find the very idea of talking about the deep undercurrents of religious belief during a press-junket for a film to be distasteful.

If I was up there, I wouldn't have exactly jumped at the chance to discuss the Christian themes in the book either. Faith, whether mine or Tolkien's, is such too intimate of an issue for a setting like that.

Furthermore, I think the author of the article is confusing faith, a private property, with religion. She writes from the point of a person who knows exactly what is going on in these people's minds. This makes her presumptuous and condescending.

There wasn't anything overtly Christian in the Lord of the Rings. I could sense the subtle ways in which religion influenced Tolkien's work, but from everything I've read on the subject, I got the idea that Tolkien himself wasn't exactly keen on people drawing sweeping parallels between the events in the book and Christian thematics.

Yes, the presence is clearly there. And it does show up in the films, if you manage to distract yourself enough from shrieking "cool!" at the action sequences. Whether one chooses to publicly acknowledge it and discuss it is not a matter of how "misguided" or whatever one is.

Actually, I get the sense that the people involved with the film were reticent on the subject of Good vs. Evil due to the fact that so many are eager to usurp this theme into a means of justifying the wars abroad.

Ultimately, I found the article to be well-meaning, but obtuse and limited in its scope. I've read better accounts of interaction between Christianity and pop culture; penned by conservative Orthodox priests. They had a sense of humour, warmth, and an understanding of their own limitations. I saw none of that in this article.

*tsk*