Tolkien: Theological Implications Even In The Funny Stuff?

Originally posted by SloAnPainful
reply to post by sonnny1

 

Very ahead of his time.

Also awesome avatar Sonnny.

-SAP-

Agree.

And yours is mighty spiffy too!

Me, I'm just a rat drinking beer, but I knows me Tolkien.

reply to post by godspetrat


I'm not a rat, but I'm drinking beer...as a matter of fact...





-SAP-

Originally posted by SloAnPainful
reply to post by godspetrat

 

I'm not a rat, but I'm drinking beer...as a matter of fact...

-SAP-

edit on 5-6-2013 by SloAnPainful because: (no reason given)

Well, perhaps I'm a rat (rat lover and internet persona, anyway), but we all like beer. Tolkien did!

I only liked Gandalf the White! Its time for all the prodigal sons/daughters, mismanagers of the planet, to wake up to Love and Light and help others, like their own family and children, not think they're the testers and we the testees because some of us are here to wake them up, and turn their lives around, and break their contracts, make them null and void!

Very interesting thread!

Originally posted by Unity_99
I only liked Gandalf the White! Its time for all the prodigal sons/daughters, mismanagers of the planet, to wake up to Love and Light and help others, like their own family and children, not think they're the testers and we the testees because some of us are here to wake them up, and turn their lives around, and break their contracts, make them null and void!

Very interesting thread!

Too bad there are no wizards around when you need them...

or do they just stay out of sight now?

Originally posted by Lawgiver
Tolkien and cs lewis were very good friends and discussed religious issues quite frequently. Their writings shared religious and moral themes. Lewis was just more obvious with his writings

Did you know Tolkien was a devout Catholic, and CS Lewis was an affirmed athiest? Tolkien helped CS Lewis to convert to Christianity.

Many fans are aware of that C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien were close friends. Tolkien helped convert Lewis to Christianity, whereas Lewis encouraged Tolkien to expand his fictional writing; both taught at Oxford, both were interested in literature, and both wrote fictional books which propagated basic Christian themes and principles.

Story

reply to post by HomerinNC


I had decided that I was going to do a lot less bumping of my own threads if I came back here, but if there is an unanswered question, I feel justified.

I won't bother to research this beyond what I know off the top of my head. No cheating, so if I get something wrong, que sera, sera!

Tolkien was always Catholic, and so Catholic that when Vatican II came along and services started to be done in English, he stubbornly refused to play along, and practically yelled out the responses in Latin!

C.S. Lewis was an Atheist for a while, and though it is true that Tolkien converted him, Lewis became an Anglican, and Tolkien was so much of a Catholic, that this disturbed him. Still, the two dudes remained friends, even if Lewis DID plagiarize from Tolkien a bit...

Tolkien's writings, all of them, are highly Christian in nature, but he followed Christ's advice and didn't wear his faith on his sleeve in them. Any Theological references in LOTR, the early tales, and the poetry are allegorical, as much as the master loved to say he hated allegory.

Tolkien's Christian allegory is the most obvious in his retelling of the YHVH/Satan/Michael "Paradise Lost" myth with the names changed to Eru/Melkor/Manwë in the Silmarillion. But there are other, more subtle tendencies as well, such as the LOTR implication that Frodo cannot triumph over Sauron without becoming like him. So the Ring must be destroyed, ultimately, by accident; only thus can Frodo retain his innocence. Indeed Smeagol/Gollum acted as a sort of "ghost of Christmas yet to come" by reminding Frodo what his future would be like if he kept the Ring. Interesting that it was this same "ghost" who, also accidentally, "redeemed" Frodo at the end.

Personally I was always struck by the conspicuous absence/silence of the trilogy's title character: Sauron. It's usually supposed that JRRT did this for effect: to make him more mysterious and scary, like the unseen monster hiding under your bed at night. Alternately, like many intense Christians, JRRT may simply have been afraid to explore "the Devil" too closely, for fear of being seduced by the Dark Side of the Force, as it were.

Anyway, to see how things might have looked to Melkor and Sauron, take a look at the Morlindalë.

Originally posted by maquino
Tolkien's Christian allegory is the most obvious in his retelling of the YHVH/Satan/Michael "Paradise Lost" myth with the names changed to Eru/Melkor/Manwë in the Silmarillion. But there are other, more subtle tendencies as well, such as the LOTR implication that Frodo cannot triumph over Sauron without becoming like him. So the Ring must be destroyed, ultimately, by accident; only thus can Frodo retain his innocence. Indeed Smeagol/Gollum acted as a sort of "ghost of Christmas yet to come" by reminding Frodo what his future would be like if he kept the Ring. Interesting that it was this same "ghost" who, also accidentally, "redeemed" Frodo at the end.

Personally I was always struck by the conspicuous absence/silence of the trilogy's title character: Sauron. It's usually supposed that JRRT did this for effect: to make him more mysterious and scary, like the unseen monster hiding under your bed at night. Alternately, like many intense Christians, JRRT may simply have been afraid to explore "the Devil" too closely, for fear of being seduced by the Dark Side of the Force, as it were.

Anyway, to see how things might have looked to Melkor and Sauron, take a look at the Morlindalë.

Excellent post my friend. I don't really have anything I can add to that, except that you know your Tolkien, and that you just hit the nail right on the head!