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Junesong
Rohan
Nov 4, 8:16pm
Post #1 of 14
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The Secular Tolkien
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A post in the ROP thread has gotten me thinking. Wanted to take the temperature of the community.
Can The Lord of the Rings be read divorced from his Catholicism? I'm reaching for nuance here. Of course, people can read the books completely ignorant of Tolkien's Christianity, or even in defiance of it. Of course readers can bring their own belief systems into things, or choose to take the story at face value and all the rest of it. But is something lost in that process?
Put more simply, my question would be: Regardless of the reader's intentions - is the Christianity of Tolkien's work baked into its DNA? Is it the base? Is it the core? Is it the true essence?
To put it one more way - Tolkien has acknowledged that the LOTR is explicitly Catholic. How does everyone feel about that?
(As I type this, I'm sure it's likely been discussed somewhere before. Apologies if so. Feel free to respond with a rebuke. Or a link. Or both.)
"So which story do you prefer?"
"The one with the tiger. That's the better story."
"Thank you. And so it goes with God."
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Silvered-glass
Lorien
Nov 4, 9:38pm
Post #2 of 14
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In his oft-quoted letter (written to a priest) Tolkien says that LotR is fundamentally a "catholic" work. That's catholic with a small c. "Catholic" is a word that means "universal".
Roman Catholic Church = Roman Universal Church.
I've come to think that the supposed Christianity of LotR is on a much shakier foundation than most people think. Sure you can read Christ symbolism into it, but I don't think such interpretations are on a very solid ground if you take a closer look. I think none of Frodo, Gandalf, or Aragorn is a proper Christ figure.
Then there are the comparisons between Varda and the Virgin Mary, but that would seem to edge into anti-Catholic territory with the Mary stand-in as an actual pagan goddess. In proper Christian theology the Valar would be fallen angels anyway, so it's mysterious why Tolkien tries so hard to make them (minus Morgoth) come off as holy and righteous, especially after his earliest writings. I've considered the possibility that the depiction of the Valar as good is a massive exercise in unreliable narrator, but I haven't reached a conclusion yet.
Also, many religions both historical and modern have a single supreme creator deity. The distant Eru (whose name means the One and who doesn't have a single hint of trinity about him) has only some vague similarities to Christianity.
(Unironically I've found out that Lovecraft's world-building is more Christian than Tolkien's [the Dreamlands = outer hells, Nyarlathotep = Satan, etc.], but Lovecraft's characters don't realize that, because if they just went and got a blessed crucifix to protect themselves from eldritch horrors, the story wouldn't be very scary or interesting. Most Lovecraft characters consequently tend to be atheists or occultists. This is a pretty big topic actually.)
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Junesong
Rohan
Nov 4, 9:46pm
Post #3 of 14
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I actually completely agree with your take. I didn't mean to imply a one to one relationship between Christianity and The Lord of the Rings. I know how Tolkien felt about allegory, and I'm sure he didn't love heavy handed Christian "symbolism" any better.
But the heart or foundation of the work is that of a deeply Christian man. And many of the fundamental themes (as well as the overall ethos) of the story is pretty radically Christian.
Maybe - as you said - I'm just following my own assumptions and perspective as if its universal. But I suppose that's why I threw it out to the larger community.
Is The Lord of the Rings a work of "Christian art" as well as being art from a Christian?
"So which story do you prefer?"
"The one with the tiger. That's the better story."
"Thank you. And so it goes with God."
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Nov 14, 11:25am
Post #4 of 14
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Tolkien said "the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism"
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I think it is important to bear two things in mind.
Firstly, as you say, Tolkien was devoutly Catholic, and it would be surprising if Catholic influences didn't creep into his story or influence why he wrote it. Furthermore, we can look in "Letters" for Tolkien explaining that this was so (see below).
But
Second thing: Notice that Tolkien explains this in private correspondence. These are thoughts - I beleive they are genuine and passionately held thoughts - that it is quite possible he never intended to see published. Some of the Letters that touch on this (e.g. 153 or 181) seem not to have been sent. We don't know why, but maybe there was a sensitivity here!
Given a chance to address his readers (and already by then, his fandom) in his LOTR 2e Foreward what does Tolkien do?
He does not explain how elements of the story emerged from his Catholicism, or should be interpreted in that light. Rather, he is explicit that the story has no moral or message, and allows for the freedom of the reader, rather than the 'purposed domination of the author'.
So (as seems to keep happening in Tolkien) we're presented with what appears to be a paradox - how can both those things be true?
I think it's helpful to go back to one of Tolkien's private letters. I'd also like to say that this needs reading carefully - I've seen discussions in the fandom that become confused because people mis-quote this, or seem to have ignored or not understood part of it.
“The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like ‘religion’, to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism.
However that is very clumsily put, and sounds more self-important than I feel.”
Letter Number 142, written in 1953, to Fr. Robert Murray SJ
"Fundamentally" need not at all mean "Explicitly". When trying to explain what I think was meant by "Fundamentally", I once came up with this. I confess I'm still rather fond of it, but I can't put things any better by being more serious:
'Is this a fundamentally Catholic work?', asked Pippin, staring out of it with wonder.
'I do not know what you mean by that,' answered the leader of the Elves. 'It is a fair work, and the writing is good, for it was made by a superbly talented author. It is a work by someone who felt he was fundamentally a Catholic, if that is what you mean. Devotion to self-sacrifice and public duty, honest faith in a higher world to come, and a belief that one's fate is the hands of a caring entity - those are there. And also the beauty of the countryside, and the pleasure of fine ale and a pipe with friends. The tale has all those; for he put the thought of all that he loved into what he made...'
The elf broke off in a fit of sneezing. 'I do beg your forgiveness,' he continued. 'I seem to be developing an allegory..."
(And I beg forgiveness from Squire for nicking a list of Catholic - but not uniquely Catholic - virtues from his earlier post in this thread.  )
Me, here
But anyway -- and before I attempt an encore based on Bilbo's "Good morning" exchange with Gandalf -- I think that Tolkien's decision to give the Reader space and autonomy is every bit as important to understanding Middle-earth as Tolkien's faith was.
~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
(This post was edited by noWizardme on Nov 14, 11:26am)
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Junesong
Rohan
Nov 14, 12:51pm
Post #5 of 14
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My personal take is that LOTR is a piece of Christian art by a Christian artist - but, unlike most modern representations of Christianity (I won't list all the negative connotations and pejoratives, but I'm sure we could all make our own lists) Tolkien's work is genuinely Christian - humble, meek and yet full of an unquenchable power and virtue that humanity is still unpacking and will continue to unpack for as long as we engage with it. (I'm obviously writing this AS a Christian. So I'll admit all the confirmation bias that goes along with that.)
I think Tolkien made something akin to the Silmarils - a fashion of the hands and the will that nonetheless manages to bind to itself a holy and wholly unworldly light - some kind of miracle of creative nature.
Help. I'm drowning in hyperbole.
But seriously, it's how I feel.
"So which story do you prefer?"
"The one with the tiger. That's the better story."
"Thank you. And so it goes with God."
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Nov 16, 12:03pm
Post #6 of 14
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You express yourself very clearly and also very beautifully, Junesong. I've really enjoyed reading that post.
You're reminding me clearly that probably not one of us has the exact same interpretation of Tolkien as anyone else. To you (I think) it glows throughout with numious Christianity. That is beautiful, and perhaps not something that I, as a non-Christian, am likely to understand, in exactly the way you understand it. But it is lovely to hear about it.
And perhaps my own understandings would not have been fully acessible to you all by yourself, but there are points of interest or value you can pick up by reading. And both of us can benefit from the ideas of others (whether we agree with them or not!).
I much prefer that way to being like one of the six blind men and the elephant:
This old Indian parable was used by the 19th century Hindu Saint Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa to describe the ill-effects of dogmatism. To quote from the collection of his stories called The Ramakrishna Kathamrita: “A number of blind men came to an elephant. Someone told them that it was an elephant. The blind men asked, “What is the elephant like?” as they began to touch its body. One of them said, “It is like a pillar.” This blind man had only touched its leg. Another man said, “The elephant is like a husking basket.” This person had only touched its ears. Similarly, he who touched its trunk or its belly talked of it differently. In the same way, he who has seen the Lord in a particular way limits the Lord to that alone and thinks that He is nothing else.” In Buddhism, the tale is used as an example of the uncertainty of human perception, a demonstration of the principle that what we perceive to be true and factual is, in fact, empty of inherent reality. Six Blind Men and the Elephant as explained by Subhamoy Das In fandom we have a further problem of course - nobody thinks the elephant is even real.
If there is one point I want to get across here it is that I don't think any one reader's perspective is uniquely correct. Uniquely beautiful and of value to them and maybe others perhaps. Uniquely challenging or annoying to someone else, on occasion.
But not so many percent right.
Or if it is, how can we know? It is true that some understandings are better supported by text quotations or scholary study, and that some seem easiy contridicted by the source material! But I am a critic of the idea that there is some offical True Meaning of Tolkien (perhaps kept in a bell jar in vault in St-Cloud along with the International Prototype Kilogram?) with which we can compare each of our understandings to determine who is absolutely right about any given thing.
(Perhaps it is worth pausing here to say that I don't think you, Junesong, were making any claim whatsoever about the superior rightness of your own point of view. So I'm not disagreeing with you: I'm more riffing off what you've said. )
I think I'll dare to go further. Fantasy easily lends itself to Manichean struggles - the good guys delivering us from evil, if you will. There are many possibilities for entertainments in that - quests, battles, monsters to slay...
Tolkien is unusual in that he is relentless about the lead us not into temptation bit. A recurring thing in Tolkien is a character who knows exactly what to do, and is blinded to what the lack of any further reflection (or the possibility of being wrong) is is doing to themselves or to others: Melkor, Feanor, Sauron, Saruman, Boromir, Wormtongue, Denethor, Lotho... (off the top of my head). It often ends badly, unless it causes unintended good consequences.
I think Tolkien has something important there. I observe that a lot of harm is done by people who have a pathological level of uncritical belief in themselves or their cause.
And (as Tolkien's stories often reflect), it usually quickly gets corrupted by self-interest, even if it wasn't just really self-interest all along.
So Tolkien handles things very differently from, say CS Lewis, who is very obviously doing "Christian art by a Christian artist". It's obvious in Lewis' case because of the "purposed domination of the author" and his thumping Christian allegory. So I did notice Lewis' Christianity as soon as I was old enough to do anything other than just read along the surface of the tale. And I notice it because I am forced by the author to notice it, in a way that I'm not forced to notice Tolkien's Christianity.
~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
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Junesong
Rohan
Nov 16, 3:18pm
Post #7 of 14
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I really treasure Tolkien as a Christian in the modern age.
Gandhi once famously said, "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
What a gulf there is between the central thesis of Christianity and some of its most passionate followers. It's painful. It's hard to look at any of the theology or church history, or even at something like the gospels divorced from the bad actions, bad words, bad legacies, bad everything of the "Christians" who are far from Christ. It's not just hard, it's impossible.
Into this bleak landscape comes Tolkien. And his work is so beautiful and powerful to me that it feels like the bright star Sam can see beyond Mordor. An arrow to the heart is right!
If anyone is still looking for God in a world this full of hypocrites and self-centrism, there are few better places to point them than at Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.
"So which story do you prefer?"
"The one with the tiger. That's the better story."
"Thank you. And so it goes with God."
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Silvered-glass
Lorien
Nov 18, 10:36pm
Post #8 of 14
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People sure have different interpretations of Tolkien.
For some reason I tend to see the darker possibilities that many people don't want to let into their thinking. Speculating on such things feels too unpleasant and discordant, I suppose. Yet it seems to me that Tolkien also wasn't afraid of thinking about such things, and it shows in his writing. Tolkien veers into horror at times, and I think he liked tragedy a lot, at least before his old age. I think he might have been more open about that if had been writing at a different time in history.
I believe that supernatural evil also exists in the real world. It is an aspect of Christianity that gets overlooked a lot in the modern times. I'm kind of bothered how Tolkien changed the character of the Valar from their original selves, because the original Valar were clearly fallen beings and thus more compatible with the Christian worldview. I also think the new Valar are worse from the literary point of view.
Anyway, I read the unfinished dark fantasy webnovel The Undead King of the Palace of Darkness and it got me thinking about vampires and Tolkien. I think vampires have a surprisingly strong presence in LotR even if Tolkien never uses the word during the story. It's going to be a long theory post, but I've done some good progress on it lately. I just hope it won't all be overtaken by complaints from people who believe Tolkien couldn't possibly have been inspired by anything in the popular culture.
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Junesong
Rohan
Nov 19, 12:41pm
Post #9 of 14
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Yes! I can't wait to read your post when you're done. Sounds amazing.
"So which story do you prefer?"
"The one with the tiger. That's the better story."
"Thank you. And so it goes with God."
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Emeldir
Registered User
Nov 24, 12:56am
Post #10 of 14
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I love what you have said here
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I have known Tolkien is Christian for a long time - and yet, each time I read LOTR, I don't see the Christianity as the dominant theme. I see an epic story that incorporates the best of what Christianity (and almost all religions) have to offer: the human (writ large: men, hobbits, elves, dwarves) ability to rise above ones own petty faults for the cause of saving not just ones friends, but society as a whole, from a horrible thing. Whether it is the person wading through hurricane waters to save someone - or the soldier who throws his own body onto a grenade to save his comrades.
The story also shows the important part humility has to play in courageous behavior. In the end, as Tolkien makes clear, Sam - the "servant" - is the hero of the tale.
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grammaboodawg
Immortal
Dec 4, 4:20pm
Post #11 of 14
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I had no background of the author or any purpose to his work. We're talking 1971 and I was 19yo living out of a 1961 old delivery van with a then-hubby and 1yo child travelling around the country. It was the first time away from my close family contact. We were homeless and broke... I was so lost and scared.
Fate brought Tolkien's story to me in the middle of all that as discarded books at the side of the road, and I immediately found great solace... a place to escape into... which became my lifeline for the rest of my life (72yo now). I still only read from that original set... highlighted, underlined, noted, damaged and wonderful.
I was not struck with any messages or comparisons of anything religious, though I have always rested in my faith as my companion. All I know is that Professor Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" was an enormous comfort as I followed the homeless and lost hobbits as wanderers just hoping to go home. Even now I tear up in the emotional salvation it became. It got me through. In every challenge of my years it spoke to what I was facing. It became home. So, for me, I was not distracted by any religious connotations; but how it exists in this tale inherently felt safe and hopeful and familiar... which I since have given to the religious familiarity embedded in the story, characters, and events.
I've always said about Tolkien's work, for me, he's never spelled everything out or filled in the blanks. By the way he weaves his words, he leaves room for them to speak to each of us and where we are. :) Such a gift.
We have been there and back again.
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hatster
Rohan
Dec 7, 9:45pm
Post #14 of 14
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"I suppose impossible to write any 'story' that is not allegorical in proportion as it 'comes to life'; since each of us is an allegory, embodying in a particular tale and clothed in the garments of time and place, universal truth and everlasting life." (Tolkien's Letters)
For Tolkien, that "universal truth" was Christ and the Trinity. However, he knew that because it was "true" truth would dwell and be found in any "true" story he told.
The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.
(This post was edited by hatster on Dec 7, 9:48pm)
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