[Lalwendë]

If you want to find elements of Christianity in Tolkien's work, then you can find them there, yes. You can also find a lot of other elements too. I think its all too easy to find a situation or character that reminds us of a biblical situation or character and put that together with Tolkien's own Catholicism and make the claim that this is a Christian book. We also have to remember that LotR is not an allegory, and that the world Tolkien created is a secondary world, a world which stands thoroughly on its own. There really is little other work like Tolkien's - he managed to create not only a world but a cosmology, and one which has logic and meaning outside our own world. If you wish to apply Christianity to it, then there is nothing to prevent this, but I think it is best appreciated and understood within itself.

The text does not exist within a vacuum and nor did Tolkien write it that way - not only was he a Catholic but he was also steeped in thoroughly Pagan mythology, and all these elements inevitably find their way into the text at points. So we can and should consider the text against those backgrounds, but ultimately, as this is its own world, final answers can only come from the text.

Tolkien was not always the devout Catholic; he created much of his myth when he was not a regular worshipper, and the evidence can be found in the oddities like Ungoliant who was conceived as a being who came from outside Eru's control. It is when we start to consider these kinds of elements that applying Real World religion can become problematic.

I would also seriously question what Tolkien's intentions were for the Silmarillion. He did not leave us with a final version, what we have now is someone else's version, and as you look through HoME you see just how many different versions there were, the later ones becoming ever more theologically tangled.