The Ring and the Cross

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by The Ring and the Cross

Speaking of the breadth of Tolkien's appeal, Bradley Birzer admits that "I think the beauty of Tolkien is that he's not explicitly Christian. I think I would be turned off if we had Jesus running around the story.'' Tolkien avoided that, but quite a few devout Christians are nevertheless claiming his story as their own. The question is whether this could be a turn-off to everybody else.

There's that wiff of snark in the last sentence that tells just how valuable this piece is.

Anyone, from any religion, or any theoretical literary perspective, or any literary taste, who uses LotR to evangelise the world according to their own particular point of view, is doing a great disservice to Tolkien's work.

As narf and others have pointed out, LotR and the entire Legendarium has an imaginative breadth that beggers the blinkered minds of those who want to reduce it to their particular hobby horse. And I use 'hobby horse' quite intentionally to imply how limited their treatment of LotR is. Note that I"m talking about how people choose to use a text. It is the misappropriation of a text that is rightly a turn-off. Note that I am not disparaging those who feel kinship between LotR and their own faith: I am dismissing those who use Tolkien to further their own ends.

Madsen does not do that. Her distinction between "witnesses to the Gospels" and "echoes" demonstrates the subtly and breadth of her approach and she finds Tolkien's letters which provide a gloss those which are usually used to claim a religious motivation. [What would be good to see is a thorough examination of Tolkien's Letters to show how variously he treated the topic.] And, interestingly enough, she seems to have come closer to explaining the spirituality which many feel in LotR than Mooney.

Originally Posted by Light from an Invisible Lamp

It ["Christian critical opinion"] has tried to make an independent imagination a means to a religious end.

There, she said it much better than I have. She's discussing spirituality and not dogma and for that reason I think her analysis comes far closer to providing a meaningful interpretation of Tolkien's work and how incredibly it lends itself to something almost impossible to conceive of: hope.

Originally Posted by Madsen

The unexpected presence of beauty in the midst of desolation

It should be clear from this that I have no truck with evangelists.