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Originally Posted by me
One reader's platitude may be another's way of life. That it is a mere platitude for one does in no wise lessen its centrality for the other.
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Originally Posted by davem
I suppose that means it's all subjective then, a matter of opinion?
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You may of course suppose it if you wish, but it isn't the only logical possibility. An alternate logical possibility is that one may be correct and the other incorrect. Considering the topic at hand, the latter is the more likely.
While LotR is clearly Universal, it is a severe contortion to deny that there are specificially Christian themes just because such themes can also be found in Buddhism; this is so because Tolkien was Christian, not Buddhist.
Tolkien's use of Northern myth does not confound the Christian themes in LotR, because northern mythic themes have been transformed to fit a Christian world view. More on that later.
Those of us who have been born into, and nurtured on, Western civilization, have a very difficult job of deciphering what in our brain content is actually Christian-based and what isn't. So much of western culture is received from Christianity that to argue that it can't be found is like an ocean fish insisting that the water's not really salty; it's so used to the salt it can't tell when water's NOT salty.