The White Council

Re: Christianity in Middle-Earth?

Tolkien and Inklings Discussion

: : I actually put a point in a mo ago not realising the thread had gone this far, but essentially, the message may have CHristian overtures, but as Tolkein presents this as a work of our own history, then it is incompatible with Christianity as Christ had not been born. I'm not suggesting it IS historical, but if Tolkein wants to portray it so, he can't have his cahracters espousing vitues from a religion that does not exist yet, in fact, they cannot act like christians until Christ has livced (and died) for their sins, all my own thought of course and I hope noone takes offence

: None taken. I would say that rather than espouse virtues of a religion not yet born, he has constructed a world that has a particular world view, and a particular structure to the universe, that reflects Tolkien's Catholic background. One can point to certain specific aspects where this shows through very clearly---Gwahir's song for example sounds very like a Psalm, the literary device of the Christ-figure, of which there are several in LoTR--but I think it clearest in the structure of the universe--Iluvatar, Valar, Malkor being less than Iluvatar though the best of the Valar yet seeks an earthly kingdom and imitates Iluvatar, the idea of a place where daily work takes place, but it is a "heaven", or "haven" for those who go there, and so on. Are there pagan elements? Sure, but at least off the top of my head all the pagan elements I can think of are also elements taken up and baptized and reused in medieval Christianity---i. e. Isles of the Blessed, Halls of Mandos, and so on. Anyway, that's my .05

: Forkbeard

I agree with you to a large extent here. I don't doubt that Tolkein considered this a christain work in many ways, as he said. However, I think that Tolkein himself is being overly simplistic in his view of his own work. Whilst the story has strong connections (in pert) to Tolkeins own worldview and religion, this is in essence a fantasy, and therefore the two are somewhat non-sequitors. My point is, despite commonalities, Christianity doesn't exist in Middle-Earth, and as such cannot be described as exhibiting Christian virtues, it just happens that a lot of the events in the fantasy have paralells in the 'Real' and christian worlds by the author's design. It also happens that much of these christian commonalities have paralells in most of the world's religions and many personalised spiritual belief systems. Point taken about the distinction between 'worship' and 'reverence', I had not considered that Dave