[Emni Windrunner]

Speaking as a Calvinistic Christian, I can see a lot of parallels between Calvinism and the worldview laid out in LOTR--especially the teaching of Total Depravity, which states that we are all corrupt and incapable of doing good by ourselves. All of the Bearers eventually fall; there are no ideals. This is entirely from my own worldview, however; I have no idea if Tolkien was a Calvinist, and really, it doesn't matter. <P>Since we're all just speculating based on a little that we know, I'll say that I find it more likely that he drew inspiration from the Nordic sagas he read and studied and which, in fact, he somewhat sought to emulate in LOTR, which was supposed to be a British epic. I haven't read nearly as many of these sagas as Tolkien did, nor have I studied them as in-depth as he did, but I know from what I have studied of that mythology that there was a heavy emphasis on the fallenness of human nature and the inability to escape doom once it was pronounced against you (Sigurd the Volsung is an excellent example, and you can see some of this influence indirectly in Turin Turambar).<P>But really, this debate is, in the end, purely an intellectual exercise. We have only Tolkien's writings (which are by no means a full revelation of everything that went on in his head) and, possibly, whatever Christopher Tolkien can or will tell about his father's ideas. All anyone is accomplishing here is to air different sets of odd facts that we've all dug up in our own separate studies; there can be no true conclusion since the man himself has moved on.