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jallanite · 11-19-2012, 01:51 AM

Your list of Christian beliefs appears to represent what may be called Fundamentalist Christian beliefs or Biblical Literalist Christian beliefs. Most people who identify themselves as Christians don’t accept some of them or at least are uncertain of some of them.

Tolkien was a self-identified Roman Catholic Christian and not a Biblical Literalist or Fundamentalist Christian. Like many Christians he was also a freethinker in many areas, rationalizing his own idiosyncratic beliefs as being in accord with his church or simply disagreeing with his church.

See http://www.simpletoremember.com/vita...redibility.htm for one example of where J. R. R. Tolkien very much disagreed with Roman Catholic practice. Did Tolkien think he was right and that the Pope and almost the entire Roman Catholic priesthood was wrong and most of the laity was wrong? Did he think God was against them? I can only guess what Tolkien might have thought.

What does the Roman Catholic Church believe? You will find many quibbles by teachers within that church about what they believe and many differences in opinions. In my own country of Canada the province of Quebec is over 83% Roman Catholic. Over 60% of the population of Quebec has voted in polls that they accept same-sex marriage (which became legal in Quebec in 2004). Do the math yourself. The Roman Catholic hierarchy still officially and vehemently oppose same-sex marriage but over a majority of their parishioners disagree. So what does the Roman Catholic Church in Quebec believe? It depends on whether you define the Roman Catholic Church as only the official Roman Catholic Church hierarchy or also include the Roman Catholic Church laity.

See here for another eye-opener. http://www.simpletoremember.com/vita...redibility.htm . Judaism Online sent some queries about statements in the Christian Gospels to Pope John Paul II in 1995 and these queries were eventually passed on for response by the theologian Raymond E. Brown.

Raymond E. Brown indicated that the Gospels were not complete enough or sufficiently accurate in what they said to necessarily support a physical resurrection of Jesus or a virginal conception of Mary. For Raymond E. Brown′s prestige as a Roman Catholic theologian, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_E._Brown .

Your supposed list of what Christians believe is nonsense when applied to all churches and even to all members of most churches.

Tolkien himself, like most Roman Catholics who considered it, accepted more-or-less the findings of modern geology over dead reckoning from Biblical genealogies for considering the age of the Earth. He wasn’t a crank. In Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, letter 211, he admits that his Three Ages of Middle-earth are entirely imaginary and writes:

I could have fitted things in with greater versimilitude, if the story had not become too far developed, before the question ever occurred to me. I doubt if there would have been much gain; and I hope the, evidently long but undefined, gap¹ in time between the Fall of Barad-dûr and our Days is sufficient for ‘literary credibility’, even for readers acquainted with what is known or surmised of ‘pre-history’.

I have, I suppose, constructed an imaginary time, but kept my feet on my own mother-earth for place. I prefer that to the contemporary mode of seeking remote globes in ‘space’.

———————————————

¹ I imagine the gap to be about 6000 years: that is we are now at the end of the Fifth Age, if the Ages were of about the same length as S.A. and T.A. But they have, I think, quickened; and I imagine we are actually at the end of the Sixth Age, or in the Seventh.

That is, the fall of Barad-dûr occurs approximately in 4,000 BCE, about the latest date which Biblical Literalists ascribe to creation, and in Tolkien’s legendarium the first year of the Sun occurs 7,063 years before that.

The Biblical creation takes seven days. Tolkien’s creation occurs as a model in a single musical session and then in reality in ages of time in which plants, and many living creatures are created, then ages later Elves first awaken, then Dwarves, and then Moon and Sun later still and Man awakens with the Sun, not even the order the same as the Biblical order.

In Morgth’s Ring (HoME 10) there are a group of late Tolkien essays under the group title of “Myths Transformed″ in which Tolkien attempts to reconcile his Silmarillion account, not with the Bible, but with science. Tolkien starts on it but finds it too destructive of the story to continue. Tolkien had been in a more playful mood when he invented the details of his cosmos. Tolkien then decides that his Silmarillion must be based on distorted Mannish histories in which Elvish truths are mixed with corruptions of Men.

In reality the Sun and Moon were not the fruit and flower of two trees and the Sun was at least coeval with the Earth.

There is no Sabbath day as the last day of creation upon which God rested. Tolkien has, somewhat carelessly provided modern English weekdays in The Hobbit and so is stuck with a seven-day week. He explains in Appendix D in The Return of the King that this as an expansion of an older six-days Elvish week, and explains that the English weekday names are simply substitutions in his English rendering for the Hobbit names. But the day of celebration in the week is Friday as in Muslim practice, instead of Saturday as in Jewish practice, and instead of Sunday as in Christian practice. Some days in the year have no special weekday which throws off any firm synchronism with our modern calendar.

Morgoth’s Ring also contains a somewhat vague story of the Fall in which there appear to be many people, not just Adam and Eve and death is shown to be misrepresented by Morgoth, not a punishment for the eating of a fruit.

Tolkien imagines his story as occurring in pre-Christian and probably pre-Abrahamic times. In a note to letter 153 Tolkien writes:

There are thus no temples or ‘churches’ or fanes in this ‘world’ among ‘good’ peoples. They had little or no ‘religion’ in the sense of worship. For help they may call on a Vala (as Elbereth), as a Catholic might on a Saint, though no doubt knowing in theory as well as he that the power of the Vala was limited and derivative. But this is a ‘primitive age’: and these folk may be said to view the Valar as children view their parents or immediate adult superiors, and though they know they are subjects of the King he does not live in their country nor have there any dwelling. I do not think Hobbits practised any form of worship or prayer (unless through exceptional contact with Elves). The Númenóreans (and others of that branch of Humanity, that fought against Morgoth, even if they elected to remain in Middle-earth and did not go to Númenor: such as the Rohirrim) were pure monotheists. But there was no temple in Númenor (until Sauron introduced the cult of Morgoth). The top of the Mountain, the Meneltarma or Pillar of Heaven, was dedicated to Eru, the One, and there at any time privately, and at certain times publicly, God was invoked, praised, and adored: an imitation of the Valar and the Mountain of Aman. But Númenor fell and was destroyed and the Mountain engulfed, and there was no substitute. Among the exiles, remnants of the Faithful who had not adopted the false religion nor taken pan in the rebellion, religion as divine worship (though perhaps not as philosophy and metaphysics) seems to have played a small part; though a glimpse of it is caught in Faramir’s remark on ‘grace at meat’. Vol. II p. 285.

From letter 165:

The only criticism that annoyed me was one that it ‘contained no religion’ (and ‘no Women’, but that does not matter, and is not true anyway). It is a monotheistic world of ‘natural theology′. The odd fact that there are no churches, temples, or religious rites and ceremonies, is simply part of the historical climate depicted. It will be sufficiently explained, if (as now seems likely) the Silmarillion and other legends of the First and Second Ages are published. I am in any case myself a Christian; but the ‘Third Age’ was not a Christian world.

There are other explanations which tend to repeat themselves.

If you really wish to understand Tolkien’s Christianity, then you should read all his writing carefully and note that, as people are usually polite about such things and not nosy and since Tolkien gave few interviews, there is not much information about his internal spiritual life.

You particularly should not assume the every Roman Catholic is a Biblical Literalist or Christian Fundamentalist. That shows enormous ignorance of religion as practised today.

11-19-2012, 01:51 AM	#2
jallanite Shade of Carn Dûm Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: Toronto Posts: 479	Your list of Christian beliefs appears to represent what may be called Fundamentalist Christian beliefs or Biblical Literalist Christian beliefs. Most people who identify themselves as Christians don’t accept some of them or at least are uncertain of some of them. Tolkien was a self-identified Roman Catholic Christian and not a Biblical Literalist or Fundamentalist Christian. Like many Christians he was also a freethinker in many areas, rationalizing his own idiosyncratic beliefs as being in accord with his church or simply disagreeing with his church. See http://www.simpletoremember.com/vita...redibility.htm for one example of where J. R. R. Tolkien very much disagreed with Roman Catholic practice. Did Tolkien think he was right and that the Pope and almost the entire Roman Catholic priesthood was wrong and most of the laity was wrong? Did he think God was against them? I can only guess what Tolkien might have thought. What does the Roman Catholic Church believe? You will find many quibbles by teachers within that church about what they believe and many differences in opinions. In my own country of Canada the province of Quebec is over 83% Roman Catholic. Over 60% of the population of Quebec has voted in polls that they accept same-sex marriage (which became legal in Quebec in 2004). Do the math yourself. The Roman Catholic hierarchy still officially and vehemently oppose same-sex marriage but over a majority of their parishioners disagree. So what does the Roman Catholic Church in Quebec believe? It depends on whether you define the Roman Catholic Church as only the official Roman Catholic Church hierarchy or also include the Roman Catholic Church laity. See here for another eye-opener. http://www.simpletoremember.com/vita...redibility.htm . Judaism Online sent some queries about statements in the Christian Gospels to Pope John Paul II in 1995 and these queries were eventually passed on for response by the theologian Raymond E. Brown. Raymond E. Brown indicated that the Gospels were not complete enough or sufficiently accurate in what they said to necessarily support a physical resurrection of Jesus or a virginal conception of Mary. For Raymond E. Brown′s prestige as a Roman Catholic theologian, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_E._Brown . Your supposed list of what Christians believe is nonsense when applied to all churches and even to all members of most churches. Tolkien himself, like most Roman Catholics who considered it, accepted more-or-less the findings of modern geology over dead reckoning from Biblical genealogies for considering the age of the Earth. He wasn’t a crank. In Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, letter 211, he admits that his Three Ages of Middle-earth are entirely imaginary and writes: I could have fitted things in with greater versimilitude, if the story had not become too far developed, before the question ever occurred to me. I doubt if there would have been much gain; and I hope the, evidently long but undefined, gap¹ in time between the Fall of Barad-dûr and our Days is sufficient for ‘literary credibility’, even for readers acquainted with what is known or surmised of ‘pre-history’. I have, I suppose, constructed an imaginary time, but kept my feet on my own mother-earth for place. I prefer that to the contemporary mode of seeking remote globes in ‘space’. ——————————————— ¹ I imagine the gap to be about 6000 years: that is we are now at the end of the Fifth Age, if the Ages were of about the same length as S.A. and T.A. But they have, I think, quickened; and I imagine we are actually at the end of the Sixth Age, or in the Seventh. That is, the fall of Barad-dûr occurs approximately in 4,000 BCE, about the latest date which Biblical Literalists ascribe to creation, and in Tolkien’s legendarium the first year of the Sun occurs 7,063 years before that. The Biblical creation takes seven days. Tolkien’s creation occurs as a model in a single musical session and then in reality in ages of time in which plants, and many living creatures are created, then ages later Elves first awaken, then Dwarves, and then Moon and Sun later still and Man awakens with the Sun, not even the order the same as the Biblical order. In Morgth’s Ring (HoME 10) there are a group of late Tolkien essays under the group title of “Myths Transformed″ in which Tolkien attempts to reconcile his Silmarillion account, not with the Bible, but with science. Tolkien starts on it but finds it too destructive of the story to continue. Tolkien had been in a more playful mood when he invented the details of his cosmos. Tolkien then decides that his Silmarillion must be based on distorted Mannish histories in which Elvish truths are mixed with corruptions of Men. In reality the Sun and Moon were not the fruit and flower of two trees and the Sun was at least coeval with the Earth. There is no Sabbath day as the last day of creation upon which God rested. Tolkien has, somewhat carelessly provided modern English weekdays in The Hobbit and so is stuck with a seven-day week. He explains in Appendix D in The Return of the King that this as an expansion of an older six-days Elvish week, and explains that the English weekday names are simply substitutions in his English rendering for the Hobbit names. But the day of celebration in the week is Friday as in Muslim practice, instead of Saturday as in Jewish practice, and instead of Sunday as in Christian practice. Some days in the year have no special weekday which throws off any firm synchronism with our modern calendar. Morgoth’s Ring also contains a somewhat vague story of the Fall in which there appear to be many people, not just Adam and Eve and death is shown to be misrepresented by Morgoth, not a punishment for the eating of a fruit. Tolkien imagines his story as occurring in pre-Christian and probably pre-Abrahamic times. In a note to letter 153 Tolkien writes: There are thus no temples or ‘churches’ or fanes in this ‘world’ among ‘good’ peoples. They had little or no ‘religion’ in the sense of worship. For help they may call on a Vala (as Elbereth), as a Catholic might on a Saint, though no doubt knowing in theory as well as he that the power of the Vala was limited and derivative. But this is a ‘primitive age’: and these folk may be said to view the Valar as children view their parents or immediate adult superiors, and though they know they are subjects of the King he does not live in their country nor have there any dwelling. I do not think Hobbits practised any form of worship or prayer (unless through exceptional contact with Elves). The Númenóreans (and others of that branch of Humanity, that fought against Morgoth, even if they elected to remain in Middle-earth and did not go to Númenor: such as the Rohirrim) were pure monotheists. But there was no temple in Númenor (until Sauron introduced the cult of Morgoth). The top of the Mountain, the Meneltarma or Pillar of Heaven, was dedicated to Eru, the One, and there at any time privately, and at certain times publicly, God was invoked, praised, and adored: an imitation of the Valar and the Mountain of Aman. But Númenor fell and was destroyed and the Mountain engulfed, and there was no substitute. Among the exiles, remnants of the Faithful who had not adopted the false religion nor taken pan in the rebellion, religion as divine worship (though perhaps not as philosophy and metaphysics) seems to have played a small part; though a glimpse of it is caught in Faramir’s remark on ‘grace at meat’. Vol. II p. 285. From letter 165: The only criticism that annoyed me was one that it ‘contained no religion’ (and ‘no Women’, but that does not matter, and is not true anyway). It is a monotheistic world of ‘natural theology′. The odd fact that there are no churches, temples, or religious rites and ceremonies, is simply part of the historical climate depicted. It will be sufficiently explained, if (as now seems likely) the Silmarillion and other legends of the First and Second Ages are published. I am in any case myself a Christian; but the ‘Third Age’ was not a Christian world. There are other explanations which tend to repeat themselves. If you really wish to understand Tolkien’s Christianity, then you should read all his writing carefully and note that, as people are usually polite about such things and not nosy and since Tolkien gave few interviews, there is not much information about his internal spiritual life. You particularly should not assume the every Roman Catholic is a Biblical Literalist or Christian Fundamentalist. That shows enormous ignorance of religion as practised today. Last edited by jallanite; 11-19-2012 at 02:04 AM.