LOTR vs. Religion

I'll keep this brief and simple because it strays from the film a bit.<P>Tolkein was not writing a Christian book.<P>His prime purpose was to pull together the separate Celtic/Norse/Saxon (pre-Christian) traditions to see whether he could construct a single Saga or Legend for Britain. Broadly, and very simplistically, the Elves represent the Celts, the Rohirrim represent the Vikings and the Dunedain (Aragorn, Gondor) represent the Saxons and posibly Normans. [Dunedin is the original germanic name of Edinburgh, a Saxon settlement]. The hobbits and Gandalf are in there pretty much by chance because he made up The Hobbit for his kids and, when they wanted to know more about Elrond and the elves, he just started reeling off and adding to his Legend and ended up constructing the entire book.<P>Tolkein was one of the world's leading experts in the old languages of the British Isles and this book was largely an intellectual exercise, so he kept his personal faith completely out of it, a professional to the end.<P>That said, I completely agree with the comments above that people get from these books whatever they are looking for. What we are all seeing in the films is what Peter Jackson got from the books. PJ was brought up in a deeply Christian country, and his art is in bringing the images in his head onto the screen. We shouldn't expect him to be as detached as Tolkein because he'd be a pretty poor director if he was.