In reading this interesting article in Salon re the long term relationship between Tolkein and C.S. Lewis and how it affected their work, I was kind of surprised by this statement. How precisely, did Tolkien see the LOTR “as a Christian work”?
From what I’ve read it had to do with the themes of redemption and good/evil. Hm, it was quite a while ago I read about it so I’m forgetting a lot.
You seem almost not to believe it, and I’m curious why the author’s word on his motivations and intents wouldn’t carry just a bit more weight than that? He would know a lot more than we would what he meant, right?
Tolkien was a devout Catholic, and it’s certainly easy to see hints of his theology in LOTR. It’s also easy (perhaps TOO easy) to see parallels between Jesus and various LOTR characters.
Tolkien disliked obvious analogies, and sometimes criticized C.S. Lewis’ fiction for being TOO blatantly allegorical. Tolkien believed that a story must have a certain integrity, that it must stand on its own. If a story has such integrity, he believed, readers could and would find interesting parallels to all kinds of things (from ancient history to current events, from Scripture to Arthurian legend).
So, Tolkien would have been disappointed if readers of LOTR came away saying, “Aha! I get it- the Shire is England and Sauron is Hitler!” And he’d have been equally disappointed if prople concluded, simplistically, that “Frodo is Jesus and Sauron is Satan,” even though there are valid reasons to make such comparisons.
But if you want a few simple parallels between Frodo and Jesus…
Well, think of the Ring as the Cross. Frodo is carrying the ring up Mount Doom, bearing the weight of a great evil, to give hope to man. Jesus carried his Cross and the weight of all human sin/evil on his shoulders, up Mount Calvary. One could even draw some comparisons between Sam Gamgee and Simon of Cyrene, or between Gollum and Judas (both Judas and Gollum were, in spite of themselves, instrumental in helping their respective masters carry out their missions).
Thanks for starting this thread, Astro. I’d been meaning to start a thread on this exact topic because I’m constantly surprised by how unaware people are about the Christian themes in LOTR and find it ironic that a great many self described pagans absolutely love Tolkien’s work and what its surface themes seem to present while not knowing what Tolkien was truly driving at.
Astorian has already done a fine job of giving you an idea about the Christian themes in LOTR, but let me add a few more examples to what’s already been said.
Tolkien seemed to enjoy spreading the allegories around, with characters having multiple relations to biblical figures, and items and events having multiple connections as well. For example, Gandalf, like Frodo, is a Christ-like figure, and for him this is evident in his death and resurrection. The One Ring, while representing the cross, is also analogous to the apple in the Garden of Eden, tempting the innocent.
There is also a strong theme of redemption, one of the key components of Catholicism, in the books as with Boromir who betrays the fellowship, but in the end sacrifices himself in the hopes that they may complete their mission.
Then there are the elves and the wizards and their use of magic. I unfortunately can’t remember where I heard this, and it is therefore very IIRC, but they were supposed to angels of sorts and that was the source of their power. Makes Saruman’s betrayal much more interesting, IMO, and more analogous to Lucifer’s fall.
Here are a couple of interesting links on the subject I found with some quick googling.
http://www.stuffucanuse.com/Lotr/Christianity_and_lotr.htm
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/arts/al0160.html
http://www.angelsandelves.com/main.htm
One of the more interesting tidbits in the links is the mention that The Return of the King is in fact a reference to the second coming of Christ.
I should mention that I am in no way an expert on LOTR, or its Christian themes, I simply found the connection interesting, did a little research on it and had a conversation with a friend who knows a lot more about LOTR and Catholicism than I do (he’s a priest). My knowledge on the topic, while not exhausted, doesn’t get too much more deep than what’s in this post.
And, according to a lecture on Tolkien I just attended, the Ring was destroyed on the Anglo-Saxon date for Good Friday. March 25th? I’ll have to check.
In Anglo-Saxon England, the dates for Easter were constant, and Good Friday was always on March 25 (or whatever. I think it’s March 25th). Tolkien was a specialist in Anglo-Saxon literature. So evil is destroyed through self-sacrifice on Good Friday. Pretty obvious Christian symbolism.
The Fall of Morgoth is another pretty biblical thing- the most powerful angel turns away from the Illuvatar’s design to try and create on his own, and thus corrupts himself, and is eventually tossed out beyond the Gate of (Somethingness).
It also just struck me that Tolkien thought of mythmaking as a holy activity- he called it subcreation, and believed that humans were glorifying God the creator by their own creating. He wrote a poem called “Mythopoeia”, and I’ll quote a bit:
Yes! “wish-fufilment” dreams we spin to cheat
Our timid hearts and ugly Fact defeat!
Whence came the wish, and whence the power to dream,
Or some things fair, and others ugly deem?
More later, when I have time, but it just occurred to me that that’s probably why his characters spend so much time singing and reciting poetry and tales.
O.K., so you really don’t see any possible problem with this? This would mean that the 25th would always have to be a Friday. Setting constants for religious observance is one thing but manipulating the calendar so that a particular date always falls on the same day of the week is an entirely different thing. The most “constant” that they could get would be to set that Easter would be always on the 4th Sunday of March (or last Sunday of March or whatever).
.
There’s a really detailed article in this month’s St. Anthony Messenger (Catholic magazine) that talks about the Catholicism of the LOTR. You can read it here. Here’s a pertinent excerpt:
While there are Christian themes, there’s also a lot of Norse influence in the book. Tolkien obviously got some inspiration from the Ring Of The Niebelung (the same story Wagner based the operas on). Gandalf the Grey fits descriptions of Odin/Wotan pretty well. Except that he has both eyes. His dwarves are from Norse mythology (I could be more specific. But I don’t know where I put the list giving the various types.).
I too am enjoying this thread (while I’d like to also note that no one has to buy into the Christian religion to enjoy the LOTR story as story - books or movie version).
My little contribution: The Christian concept of Grace is important to the story. That is to say, mankind, being flawed with original sin and imperfect, cannot save itself. But all can be saved from sin, and from the Fall. All are open to Redemption. But they need help from the creator. So, no one in Middle Earth, not even Frodo could destroy the Ring on his or her own. Therefore, only since Frodo had shown pity and kindness to Gollum, was Frodo able to succeed in his quest. DRAT - I didn’t explain that very well…
The Norse influence is style, though, not the substance.
Lissla, was close with the historical significance of the March 25 date, but she was a bit off. 25 March is the date of the first Good Friday according to Old English tradition. The first link I gave above talks about this. It also mentions that the fellowship leaves Rivendall on Christmas. Interesting bookmarks in the quest to destroy the Ring, don’t you think?
Smiling Bandit, you put that far more succinctly than I would have.
As a devout agnostic 
I find Tolkien’s treatment of religion in LOTR fascinating. There is no simply mention of worship in Middle Earth beyond the briefest of mentions in the Window on the West chapter.
When you read his letters, you come to understand that Tolkien took the issue of subcreation very seriously. While the Valar might have godlike powers, it would be presumptuous and even blasphemous to describe these fictional creations as gods and have the inhabitants of Middle Earth worship them. So you’ll find no temples or priests or religious ceremonies in Tolkien … even though he was a devout Catholic.
While there’s no religion as such in Middle Earth, LOTR is certainly full of religous themes. well I’m back summed up the central theme, Grace, very nicely.
If you think about LOTR keeping Grace and Tolkien’s hatred of allegory in mind, you’ll realize that Frodo and Gandalf are not really Christ figures. They have no power to save others. Gandalf is in essence an angel, sent on an errand by a higher power but definitely not divine himself; he has free will and is suceptible to error and corruption just like anyone in Middle Earth. (As was Sauron, a fallen angel.)
Frodo is an ordinary person struggling with evil, not a savior. No matter how much you admire his struggle, in end he loses his struggle and is saved only by Divine Grace. Yet the struggle is necessary because if you despair (as did, say, Denethor) the chance for redemption is lost. If you had to sum up LOTR in a sentence, it would be “a race between Despair and Grace.”
To be sure, Gandalf goes through the whole death and resurrection thing, but that element is common in all sorts of pagan myths as well as Christianity … another similarity in style, but not in substance.
But the days of the week in the hobbit calendar and the dates do always line up. To make this happen, midsummer holidays aren’t a part of the week.
In part, you have to understand that many values, that we might consider fairly universal and not particular to Christianity, Tolkien DID consider distinctly Christian: things like sacrifice for others.
Grace is the major theme that’s at least somewhat more exclusively Christian, and it’s mostly already been well covered. There are also hints throughout the book that someone is arranging things to help those who want help and acknowledge their own need of it (for instance, note how Elrond describes the strange coincidence of all the people coming to the council: without him summoning them).
You might also notice that Frodo once or twice appeals to Valar in a way similar to way that someone might invoke a saint to find help, and these names indeed act as wards against evil.
Not in Lord of the Rings, but in the Akallabeth (published with The Silmarillion), there’s a description of the Numenoreans’ religious observances atop a kigh mountain regarded as sacred to Illuvatar (Elvish name for God). The King is the officiator of these observances, though, and nobody else is described in a priestly role. In addition to religion, The Silmarillion also has a good deal more theology than LotR. There are only three or four mentions of God in LotR, all of them rather oblique, but there are several direct and explicit divine acts in The Silmarillion.
And the appendices of The Lord of the Rings address spiritual and religious matters more directly than does the main narrative section. For instance, the hero in “The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen” looks forward to life after death.
Tolkien tried to make his mythological world compatible with his beliefs: one almighty lord of creation attended by a host of subservient spiritual beings, a divine plan that allows for free will, the importance of trying to do the right thing and the inevitability of getting things wrong, but he wasn’t writing an allegory or a religious tract.
Firstly, Chronos is right about “The Silmarillion” and indeed the far larger “Book(s) of Lost Tales”.
A required footnote, I reckon, is JRR Tolkien was not living when these books were published. His son, CRJ Tolkien, was mostly credited as Editor - and to be fair he often noted taking a map, or quote, from the margin scribblings of his dad.
I’d say the penultimate event in the First Age was the magnificent, daring and banned voyage Earendil the Mariner, bearing the Silmaril his Grandfather had cut off Morgoth’s crown - and his wife Elwing - to the West - only to find the whole lot of them celebrating (something).
I’ll go with Wumpus on Agnosticism over any other religous-theme.
That said, Sauron takes over that Numenorean temple, right, Chronos?
Sauron inspires the so-called Dark Numenoreans - Witch King et al - yet clearly he does not imbue them with power. In fact, he corrupts their will (and power) to himself.
What if there were a Dark Lord and your God(s) didn’t care?
You must mean ‘The Tale of Beren and Luthien’ - even as told by Aragorn to the Hobbit’s on Weathertop. Luthien and Beren do return (after a nasty run-in with Sauron) to live as humans in Beleriand. Or JRR’s tale of Nimrodel and Amroth (another human-elf relationship).
JRR conceived of the First Age stuffs before writing “The Hobbitt”. He pretty much snuck stuff about Gondolin - even Moria - into that book. I reckon when his character ‘Strider’ sat back and smoked a pipe with the hobbit’s on Weathertop, and told them of Beren and Luthien - that it was then JRR realized who Strider was.
<chris farley>
That must have been cool
</farley>
Well, Aragorn does say, “In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! We are not bound forever to the circles of this world, and beyond there is more than memory.” when he lays himself on his bier.
Thanks for the correction.
Yeah, wasn’t Aragorn originally a hobbit called Trotter or something? Not quite so heroic.
There was never a temple atop Meneltamir; it was just a natural flat mountaintop used for worship. But Sauron does later build a great temple in Numenor dedicated to the worship of Melkor, with the standard old lies that Melkor is the original one and Illuvatar is just some usurper.
As regards those celebrations in the West (they were also busy partying when Morgoth and Ungoliant attacked the Trees), it gets kind of hard to define “religion” when you’re bumping elbows with archangels on a daily basis.