Christianity and Tolkien

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Tolkien's work is not Christian. If you want a Christian work, go read the Bible. If you want to read Tolkien, you read Tolkien, not Christianity.

Tolkien's works cannot be defined as Christian, just like they cannot be defined as eucatastrophic. They have a Christian influence - certainly. But Christianity is not the only influence.

If you really want to be concise the above almost does it. Just replace the first “Christian″ with “only Christian″, replace “Christian work” with “work that is only Christian″ and replace “not Christianity” with “not only Christianity”.

I think this makes the meaning stronger and clearer. My deepest apologies if I have misunderstood your meaning. You are an astounding writer and may have one of the clearest minds I have ever encountered.

In Letter 26 Tolkien writes:

But I know only too sadly from efforts to find anything to read even with an ‘on demand’ subscription at a library that my taste is not normal. I read ‘Voyage to Arcturus’ with avidity – the most comparable work, though it is both more powerful and more mythical (and less rational, and also less of a story – no one could read it merely as a thriller and without interest in philosophy religion and morals).

Yet this book is profoundly opposed to Tolkien’s own philosophy as it emerges in his writing. The author David Lindsey presents in this book the idea that Pain alone is true and that all appearances of delight and happiness are only a delusion fostered by the deluder Crystalman. Tolkien’s friend C. S. Lewis was also overwhelmed by the book, but also said the book was “on the borderline of the diabolical [and] so manichean as to be almost satanic”.

An author whom Tolkien ought to have liked by most criteria was George MacDonald. And so he did at one time. But when rereading some of his fantasy later in life Tolkien found the man intolerable and horribly preachy.

Tolkien also did not much like the writing of his fellow Inkling Charles Williams and very much disliked C. S. Lewis’ Narnia books.

The moral, such as it is, is that one likes what one likes.