Vol. 37, No. 6 _ June 2006 

In addition to the movie trilogy, over the past several years there have been so many books written on or about Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, it almost boggles the imagination. Having attempted to read our share of them, a good argument could be made that almost every one of these books has something to contribute to the larger spate of literature relating to either Tolkien as a writer and/or his most famous work, The Lord of the Rings.

One of the most expensive of these works is the hardback copy of Robert Eaglestone’s Reading The Lord of the Rings (Continuum, February 2006). But as one might expect from the lecturer in literature at Royal Holloway, University of London, Eaglestone’s work is also one of the most comprehensive.

For example, in the first of four sections, he provides an analysis of the critical history of Tolkien. The reader is given a rather amazing examination and contrast of the historical and intellectual context of the books, films, and their criticism. In the second section, the author turns to the philosophical and post-colonial concerns which structure our contemporary understandings of the books and films. In the third section, Eaglestone shows how the issues of gender, sexuality, and class are depicted in the books and films. Then, in the final section, the professor dares to look at the influence of Tolkien not only in traditional literature, but in modern games and electronics. The hardback copy of Eagle-stone’s work retails for $75, the paperback is $24.95.

Our focus here, though, is not to provide either a summary or a sampling of the available literature. However, if you are interested in that kind of discussion, or a bibliography, contact EMOS. Rather the focus of this issue is to raise two questions. First, why should a Christian have an interest in Tolkien’s writings? Second, what should a Christian get out of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings? Basically, both of these questions can be answered at the same time.

Paradoxically, Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is not an obvious or self-evident Christian work, at least not in the eyes of many readers and movie-goers. Most believers do not see The Lord of the Rings as being explicitly Christian as C. S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. However, Ralph Wood argues that the Christian gospel can be discerned implicitly in Tolkien in what he terms a "pre-Christian" setting. Early in his book he writes:

A third...complaint against Tolkien’s Christian interpreters is that we are wrong to find any traces of the gospel in his book, since it contains no formal religion. It is true that the hobbits do not pray, although the Numenoreans pause before meals. Neither do the Shire-dwellers build temples or make ritual sacrifices. In extreme distress, however, Sam and Frodo cry out to Elbereth - the elvish name for Varda, who is the wife of Manwe and the com-passionate queen of the stars. So is the elvenfood called lembas clearly reminiscent of the eucharistic wafer: its airy lightness gives strength in direct disproportion to its weight. Yet there is a deeper reason for Tolkien’s omission of formal religion from his book. He makes the mythical world of Midde-earth non-religious, among other reasons, in order that we might see Christianity reflected in it more clearly if also indirectly. Readers of The Silmarillion are not surprised to learn that a full-fledged theology lies in back of Tolkien’s hobbit-books, and that it silently informs The Lord of the Rings. As Tolkien himself said, "The religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism" (The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Humphrey Carpenter, Houghton Mifflin, 1981, 172).

Tolkien’s work is all the more deeply Christian for not being overtly Christian. He would have violated the integrity of his art - and thus the faithfulness of his witness - if he had written a 1,200-page novel to illustrate a set of ideas that he could have expressed apart from the story itself. This is a principle not only of good art but also of good theology. God discloses Himself in time and space through His people Israel and His son Jesus - not as if they were time-bound manifestations of His timeless nature, but because there is no other way in which God could truly identify Himself except through their Story. The religious significance of The Lord of the Rings thus arises out of its plot and characters, its images and tone, its landscape and point of view - not from any heavy-handed moralizing or preachifying. Even if we succeed in drawing out a small portion of the novel’s huge theological significance, it should send us back to the story itself in eager desire to immerse ourselves again in its rich complexity (Ralph C. Wood, The Gospel According to Tolkien, Westminster-John Knox, 2003, 3-4).