For myself, I was always surprised at the strong response Tolkien's work received from committed Christians as it has aways seemed to me to resonate more with pre-Christain culture and belief. It's been said before, but there is a distinct lack of churches, priests and rituals within Middle-earth. Those rituals which we do see are simple, such as Faramir's company looking to the West as a form of 'grace', and this could also signify something to do with honouring ancestors from Numenor.
Tolkien's work also reveres the landscape; those who work with it are considered to be 'good' while those who work against it are not. Creatuires such as the Ents are often compared with older cultures' ideas such as The Green Man and tree spirits, and though carvings of The Green Man are often seen in churches, this is most defintely a pre-Christian symbol. Tolkien seems to direct us towards reverence for all living creatures, including the living landscape rather than rverence of humans.
Such beliefs are still strong in the world today. Not only the 'west' has followers of Pagan faiths, but these are present in the indigenous cultures of Australasia, Africa and the Americas. In Japan, Shinto reveres the ancestor.
I'd say that Tolkien's work does appeal to people other than European or European descent Christians, for want of a better term. The other thing is that with a forum like this, none of us can tell what colour the other person is, so how do we know if we are predominantly of White descent or not?
The question of whether good translations are available is particularly relevant, as English is a difficult language to work with, and Tolkien makes great use of both archaic and idiomatic English, so a good translation must be difficult to find (and possibly also expensive?). Bearing this in mind, there is another issue, and that is whether in certain countries English is the preferred foreign language to be taught at school.
I do knwo that there are indeed a lot of French LotR fans, but the French are as protective about their native language as the English are
and so I'm not at all surprised that we don't have many French members, as they will probably prefer a french language site. Whether this holds true for French Canadians (if that's the right term) I don't know. If I had a different native language than English and there were a lot of good quality sites where my native tongue was used, then I should prefer to use those no doubt, as it would simply be easier.
As to cultural appeal, I'm lost on what to say for the moment, but if the films had a worldwide appeal then wouldn;t the books have this too?