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Certainly, the strong moral example of his characters... are fruit of his own strongly held beliefs about Absolute Good and Evil.
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As I've said before, the common ground of most world religions is ethics.
Where they differ is in their philosophies, the reasons why.
Since this is the case, a delineation between good and evil in no more uniquely Christian than eyeballs differentiating between black and white. It does not even begin to prove a basic Christian nature of the LotR.
It's natural and understandable for those of a particular faith or leaning to see the LotR through the lens of their own values.
So can one understand the LotR without a Christian background? Of course! The sheer variety of religious faiths in this thread alone demonstrates this. I myself have been a practicing Buddhist for the last 17 years.
The only legitimate assertions we can make about the Christian nature of the LotR can be drawn from what Tolkien himself said on the subject. For those who wish to discuss the subject in depth, the Trilogy and Bible thread is a cogent, well-articulated and polite discussion of the subject from all angles.
I disagree that religion was the lodestone of Tolkien's life.
If that were the case, then why did he spend all that time mucking about in languages, and making up new ones the bible was not written in, and not studying the bible?
Terrible waste of time and effort that, for one whose life was solely devoted to Christianiity.
Was he not aware perhaps of the vast quantities of writings available on Christian theology, from Thomas Aquinas on down?
Or the monastic opportunities available in the Catholic church especially for one of his strong Christian inclinations?
One can spend a lifetime in the study and practice of one religion, if you're serious about it, and still only scratch the surface. Trust me on this.
Perhaps a command of Old Celtic, which he spoke fluently, was necessary for his devout faith?
Welllll.. fortunately for us, he left off of these needless distractions in the study of language to write the profoundly Christian work of the 'Lord of the Rings'. Outside of creating several varieties of elvish, the dwarf-language, etymologies of words of the Shire etc, etc, and ignoring his own statements to the effect that the LotR bagan out of his own interest in creating languages, these other interests are clearly secondary to his spiritual views.
Tempered sarcasm aside, this hyperbolic elevation of Tolkien's Christian values above all other Obvious interests and influences - the fact he was English, a WWI veteran and lost his friends in the war - is simply a desperate and tiresome attempt by some to claim Tolkien as their own. While I commend their taste in authors, this is both selfish, arrogant, and the reasoning behind it, flimsy. I grow increasingly tired of it.
That, my Jewish friend, is the real source of those statements by Patrick Curry and Joseph Pearce, and nothing else. It's telling that I've yet to find a non-Christian, or less than utterly devout Christian, who says the same.