Christianity

[The Only Real Estel]

can Christians read and love Tolkien with a good conscience, and on the other, can/should direct Christian analogies and metaphors be extrapolated from the text.

As to the first question, Why couldn't Christians read & love RotK with a good conscience? And as to the other, Tolkien himself said that he left the books & any allegories/parellels in them up to the reader & his/her imagination/inspection. I see no reason why metaphors can't be derived from his works...especially since he himself addimitted there were indeed metaphors there (although he wasn't trying to incorperate them in, anytime you believe something, it carries over).