Wall Street Journal, Tolkien’s Biblical Epic:
If, in the 1930s, someone had sought to predict the bestselling English author of the 20th century, they probably would not have selected the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, who died 50 years ago on Sept. 2, 1973, spent his entire professional life in the academy, yet his impact on the world reached far beyond the ivory tower. His Lord of the Rings series of novels, which launched the modern genre of fantasy literature, have sold over 150 million copies and served as the source material for the wildly successful films of Peter Jackson.
Tolkien’s fame began with a much lighter work, The Hobbit, published in 1937. A book for children, it is the story of Bilbo Baggins, a lazy creature who is suddenly startled into alacrity by a visiting wizard and an entourage of dwarves that recruit him to join their invasion of a dragon’s den. Along the way, Bilbo acquires a useful ring that allows him to turn invisible, a magical device essential to the triumph of his quest. …
To understand the enduring enchantment of Tolkien’s works, one must comprehend a central feature of his life that the 2019 biopic Tolkien largely chose to ignore: his Catholic faith.
If sales of “The Lord of the Rings” rival those of the Bible itself, it is because the series offers a profoundly biblical view of the world. …
The moral fragility of humanity is made manifest in the ways that some characters give in to those temptations. Yet others are able to resist them. Redemption ultimately comes to Middle-Earth through Aragorn, the descendant of a long-lost line of kings—a clear reference to the biblical story of David and to Isaiah’s guarantee that David’s heir will one day redeem the world. Christians like Tolkien identify this prophesied descendant as Jesus, though Aragorn more closely resembles the Jewish conception of the messiah as a great warrior-king. …
[T]he fact that Tolkien’s books continue to sell, and to be read, indicates that many people still believe that the complex interpretation of our world offered by Scripture is the most accurate depiction of reality. A story featuring some decidedly nonhuman characters gives us a profound meditation on human existence and the way our lives become important because of the roles we choose to play.
Faithful Jews and Christians believe, in different ways, in the ultimate “return of the king.” But we also believe that we are called to live courageously in a world where that has not yet occurred. In one of the best-known scenes from the book and the film, Frodo ruefully wishes that he lived in a time before the ring was rediscovered, before evil made itself so profoundly manifest. “So do I,” Gandalf replies, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
This advice given by a wizard to a hobbit offers a succinct summation of what the Bible communicates to humanity and what has sustained men and women of faith in some of the darkest of times. Fifty years after Tolkien’s passing, the series that helped create the fantasy genre endures because of its realism.
- American Conservative, Reflections on J.R.R. Tolkien, Fifty Years Hereafter
- Christianity Today, It’s Eden Somewhere
- Daily Signal, JRR Tolkien’s Message for the Modern World
- Deseret, 50 Years After His Death, What J.R.R. Tolkien Did for Christianity
- Deseret News, How J.R.R. Tolkien’s Friendship Led C.S. Lewis to Become Christian
- Imaginative Conservative, Tolkien and Theology
- New York Times, Where the Lion and the Witch Met the Hobbit
- New York Times Op-Ed (Ross Dothat), The Subtlety of J.R.R. Tolkien
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