OK, I wasn't going to post on this thread. But there are a few things in this discussion still not tied up that are bothering me. Now that it's nice and quiet I can sneak in the back door and rant on to my heart's content!
As most of the old-timers know (old in posting, not in age, you understand!), I am not a Christian but have often participated in threads which seek to understand how and why Tolkien incorporated many biblical and/or Christian elements into his storyline and characters, including the thread Imp started that looked at the "revisions" in LotR.
Having said that, I would also add that I am not much on labels. I would never call LotR a "Christian" story just as I would never call it "pagan" or paste on any one of a number of other possible labels. I can certainly find elements of both Christian and pagan world views in Middle-earth. Some of those were intentionally put into the story by the author; others undoubtedly slipped in through the Tolkien's subconscious, and he only rediscovered them in later reflection. Whether the latter represent a specific Christian or Catholic paradigm or a "more universal" myth is probably impossible to say with certainty, though that shouldn't stop us from arguing about it.
I have gone back and forth on this issue endlessly: just how Christian is Lord of the Rings.... Tolkien didn't make it easy for us. One minute he lays out tantalyzing hints within the plot or supplementary writing and the next minute he's covering up his tracks. I've read the usual stuff and have even made a point of digesting a lot of the "Christian" criticism, books by folk like Wright and Wood that have come out in the past few years. To be truthful, when I first read LotR back in the sixties, the so-called biblical/Christian elements did not stick in my head, even though I was fairly cognizant of such things as I was embarking on an academic path that would eventually lead to teaching medieval history. But the minute the letters were published and info on Tolkien's life came out, I began poking my nose deeper into the story and discovered a fair amount of biblical and Christian content--or at least allusions that could be interpreted that way. (I even have a few links to an analysis of "Jewish" themes in Middle-earth, which I find extremely interesting!), But there is one aspect of Tolkien's world so decidedly non-Christian that it gives me considerable pause in any examination of the Christian content of LotR.
Middle-earth seems to be profoundly pagan and fatalistic at the core. (There, I've said it!) The overwhelming sense of evil that hangs at the center of the universe goes beyond the depiction of evil in mainline Christian theology. There is simply no escaping it. If evil doesn't get you today, it's going to get you tomorrow! In that sense, Frodo's fate was a given, and the Sea Bell makes a lot of sense. Shippey has written about this--how Tolkien was examining a world
before revelation when men and hobbits and Elves were essentially placed in a world where there was no logical hope. Please note that I said "logical hope", rather than "no hope at all". We'd all be dead in two minutes if there was truly no help at all.
Yes, I know about original sin and such in a Christian context, but this is a situation where the very fabric of Arda has been contaminated by Morgoth. That didn't happen in the bible. According to Tolkien, we are all living in Morgoth's world, since our world is supposedly a continuation of Middle-earth. Yet I don't think most orthodox Christians would say that Earth belongs to Satan (a few might--I don't think those would be in the majority). In Middle-earth, you can literally say that: Eru is barely seen and the Valar only stick their noses in occasionally. Morgoth and Sauron were a much more constant presence. By that measure, this is not a Judaeo/Christian world.
Interestingly, the one group of critics that agree with me on this are a number of Protestant ones who feel that Tolkien's depiction of evil and his fatalistic attitude are far removed from "conventional" Christian belief. A few even reject LotR on that basis, though most simply point out the difference and indicate their own view of existence is not identical.
As an aside, that's one problem with this thread relating to semantics and interpreation. "Christianity" (or theism) is not one thing; it is many. Biblical interpretations vary from scholar to scholar and denomination to denomination. The view of Jewish/Hebrew scholars, for example, on the book of Isaiah is markedly different from that of most Christians. It's just not possible to pin down one "Christian" viewpoint so easily. This dilemma is underlined by the fact that some Protestant critics object to the fatalistic northern tone that stands at the core of Arda, while other Christians have no trouble with it.
Getting back to the main issue..... Somebody out there help me! I don't care how many allusions, images, and symbols that Tolkien "stole" from the bible. How can Middle-earth and the Legendarium possibly be Christian if so much pessimism and fatalism stand at its very core? Maybe Tolkien felt and sensed this ambivalence and, realizing the truly pagan world he'd created despite all the biblical imports, felt compelled to write the Athrabeth in his relative old age. Unlike Davem and Imp, I love those later writings. I also love the old Northern pessimism that stood at the heart of the original writings. So call me contradictory! But I feel that two-way tug in my own heart as well---and I'm not phrasing that in terms of Christian doctrine but a general way of looking at our existence--the hopeful and the not so hopeful, the anguished response versus the refusal to give in. Any ideas?