The Lord of the Bible?

[Raynor]

Who is to say what are the necessary elements of a story in order to be Christian? Why isn't the intent and the general impression sufficient?

Let's take a zen koan (esspecially one with no significant relevance to oriental geography, culture or religion). Now, we may view this as just another fine story; we may even laugh, I know I did several good times. Now if we know the source and intent of these stories, does anyone have any problem to call them zen stories, even though they may be understood in an infinite number of ways? Even if they may have some (excuse me) lower function, such as to teach, perhaps, morality, good manners, or maybe even to relax, isn't their purpose, actually, to link back to the [zen/buddhist] Truth? Why do we have problems then with Tolkien's work, if, just the same, we know the source, the intent, and the best possible destination to which the author wishes us the story takes us?

If someone wants to convey a message and we understand something else, isn't this understanding, irregardless of how coherent, in fact, an error of communication? How could such an understanding be the prevalent one? Maybe the "tools" used, maybe the "environment" in which we perceived the messaged have distort it. For all of us who admire this work, can Tolkien make an excellent work, and still transmit the wrong message, not the one he intended? Can he be gloriously wrong?