(BACKGROUND) I recently saw some illustrations by a man called Ted Nasmith. I liked some of his artwork. Some of his art is about a book called
The Silmarillion. He's done a lot of work for Tolkien's books.
I have a basic knoweldge of The Lord of the Rings from when I was young. I thought it might be nice to read the books and also The Silmarillion but I happened to find this essay. It doesn't outright say do not read Tolkien but it implies his works are not good for Christianity.
I know a lot of people love Tolkien's books. What do you think of this essay? It's a long read btw but this is a shortened version.
The Sad Truth Of Tolkien Spirituality | The Sacred Sandwich
If you do not agree with and/or like the essay, please still try and give some positive thoughts. I don't know much about the author or the website it is posted on.
Thanks
My long answer. Sorry.
“For those Christians who insist on promoting and celebrating the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien as a rich tapestry of Christian allegory....”
LOTR is not an allegory. Tolkien says explicitly that it is not, and the detail of the book bears him out.
“The evidence is shocking: Neo-Pagans, Gnostics and other occult-based religionists absolutely adore Tolkien’s works, but are not turning to Christianity for spiritual understanding. Instead, they are extracting new beliefs out of his writings that support and bolster their own alternative religions. Why?”
LOTR is a work of literature, not of propaganda or apologetics. The Iliad is a work of literature, not of propaganda or apologetics. People don’t read “Paradise Lost” in order to share Milton’s theology, or the Aeneid, in order to worship Rome, Augustus, Juppiter or Juno, but because these are both great poems, which enrich and enlarge the reader. I don’t read the Gilgamesh poem in order to believe in the deities of Ancient Iraq, but because it is a (very great &) humane & thought-provoking and ancient poem. There is nothing wrong or dodgy about reading Norse mythology, either.
“For starters, Tolkien, despite his abhorrence of the occult and the practice of it, still indiscriminately and carelessly wove many biblically-condemned occult elements throughout his narratives to enhance the pagan mystique and mythic landscape of his stories, without anticipating its immediate appeal to the adherents of Theosophy and Neo-paganism.”
“Occult elements” such as...? Having characters perform black magic, is not the same as advocating black magic. The Bible contains three mentions of incest, mentions of exterminations, and much more: does it follow that it is advocating incest, extermination, and other evils ? Of course not. And in LOTR, none of the nasty stuff is commanded by a god.
Theosophists do all sorts of things other people do: including eating, reading, drinking, sleeping, working, breathing; Are Christians to destroy themselves, lest by breathing they have something in common with Theosophists ?
“Secondly, Tolkien’s extensive cosmology, created outside the bounds of Genesis and other books of the Bible, reflects in many ways the esoteric understanding of Gnosticism, the ancient enemy of biblical Christianity, to the delight and approval of most modern-day gnostics.”
His cosmology fits his story, and that is what matters. His myth is a work of imagination, not of Scripture. The absence of Elves, Orcs, Trolls, Ents, dragons, wargs, half-orcs, Easterlings, Southrons, Hobbits, Wizards, Valar and Bombadil from the Bible, does not mean that Tolkien did wrong by peopling his invented world with them. There is nothing remotely Gnostic about it. There is no Biblical command for people to fill their minds only with the Bible.
“And lastly, Tolkien’s published letters and essays reveal his other missteps which do not align with Christianity: 1) the frequent veiled assertions that his myths were not invented, but “recorded” by him as revealed ancient truths, perhaps divinely inspired; and 2) his regressed ancestral memories of Atlantis which hint at a belief in both reincarnation and Plato’s imaginary “island of Atlas.””
(1) Where does he claim his myths were inspired ? He claims in LOTR to be translator & editor of an ancient book in which the story of the Quest of the Ring is told. This is a literary device, to bridge the gap between him, & and the fictional ancient past in which the Quest is set.
(2) This is a literary device, which has nothing to do with re-incarnation.
“These are the grim facts concerning the “religious affordances” of Tolkien’s literary works which have given the growing Neo-Pagan community just as much spiritual insight and guidance for their particular beliefs as it has given Christians in theirs, if not more so.”
Tolkien is no more to blame for the abuse of his book by nutty USAnians, than St John is to blame for the crazed interpretations some people have got from the Book of Revelation. Eccentrics & fanatics can spoil anything, regardless of its maker’s intentions. Perhaps no book has been more perverted by ignoramuses, fanatics & eccentrics than the Bible.
“The extensive proof of this dangerous syncretism in Tolkien’s mythology is compelling and overwhelming, as revealed in the groundbreaking analysis by Markus Altena Davidsen in his 2014 doctoral thesis, The Spiritual Tolkien Milieu: A Study of Fiction-based Religion....”
What syncretism ? He was a storyteller, with an imagunation enriched from many different sources. IOW, he was very well-read, and drew upon what he had read, and experienced in order to create his mythology. His knowledge of Old English, Old Norse, Finnish & Welsh, his experiences in WW1, his reading of Norse legends, of the Kalevala & of Beowulf, all find a place in LOTR. That is not “syncretism”; that is enriching & deepening & developing one’s story with one’s reading, memories, & experiences.
A quotation or two from Altena:
“This [dissertation] offers a comprehensive analysis of the history, social organisation, and belief dynamics of the spiritual Tolkien milieu, a largely online‐situated network of individuals and groups that draw on J.R.R. Tolkien’s literary mythology for spiritual inspiration. It is the first academic treatment of Tolkien spirituality and one of the first monographs on fiction‐based religion, a type of religion that uses fiction as authoritative texts.”
Most people are level-headed & sane enough to be able to tell the difference between a literary mythology, and a religion. That some people make a religion out of LOTR, Star Wars, Harry Potter, & probably other fictions, does not oblige anyone else to do so. There are many good lessons in LOTR - one can learn from Aragorn’s rejection of moral relativism, from Gandalf’s refusal of Frodo’s offer of the Ring, from the despair of Denethor, from the treachery and envy of Saruman, & from a hundred other things in LOTR, without treating this (very good) book as Scripture.
“In chapters 7 through 16, I analyse the religious affordances of Tolkien’s literary mythology and carry out a number of case studies of groups within the spiritual Tolkien milieu. Taken together, the ten chapters offer a thick description of the spiritual Tolkien milieu. Chapter 7 is entitled “The Religious Affordances of The Lord of the Rings”. In this chapter, I demonstrate that The Lord of the Rings contains numerous fantastic elements (e.g. superhuman beings, otherworlds, magic, visions) and limited elements of narrative religion (e.g. divine powers and rituals directed at them; morality, cosmology, and eschatology). It also includes a frame narrative that stages the main story as ‘feigned history’ and thus thematises its veracity. While all this was meant by Tolkien to be taken with a grain of salt, The Lord of the Rings certainly contains textual and paratextual elements that make a non‐fictional reading of the text possible.”
No, no, no, no. It is not meant to be taken “with a grain of salt”. It is a “really long story”, a “feigned history”. It is not mostly true history, with a few fictions in it: it is a myth, a fairytale. Its truth is moral, and metaphysical; not historical.
That a myth can be read as non-fiction, does not make that reading a correct one. A myth remains a myth, even if it is taken as history. Is King Kong to be taken as a documentary about how a giant ape attacked New York, on the ground that New York is a real location on the map ?
The last paragraph is headed: “Christians Unequally Yoked With Tolkien’s Spiritual Children”. Altena brings no evidence to show that his assertion is accurate.
The essay tries to condemn LOTR by association: New Agers like it a lot, & even make religions out of it - therefore, Christians are not to like it. The story itself, its action, course, motives, speeches, ideas, the virtues & vices of the characters, the characterisation, are all completely ignored.
LOTR is a work of great imaginative power, genius, & beauty. These are good gifts of God, so they attract people. It is extra-ordinarily vivid & immediate, and that too attracts people. In a world full of depraved and dehumanising ideas, it is a Godsent shaft of light that helps readers not to “darken their souls”, & to think instead of what is “good and true and beautiful”.
