Hi Steve - Are you aware of the Phil Dragash full unabridged audio version of LOTR? With your love of Tolkein, I think you might really enjoy it. Ale c
Dear old friend, glad to see you're alive and kickin'! Thanks so much for the heads-up on this audio of LOTR! I'm downloading it now! While I'm busy writing a book (smaller than the first one), plus pastoring, and short of time – this audio is something I'd love to have to listen to if I'm in a hospital with some free time (I'm somewhat frail of health). Love to you and L.!
I love the Lord of the Rings. Some Christians in the Reformed camp, however, have told me that LOTR is sinful and promotes witchcraft to children. They consider me ungodly for reading such books. How would you respond to that claim?
Thanks for reading, and now for enquiring! First, JRR Tolkien was a devout Roman Catholic, and well aware of occult practices and pagan myths, and had no affinity with such. If any fault can be found in him (I speak as a Reformed pastor) it would be in his Catholicism, though there are indeed some RCs who are born again despite that (and many Reformed who are not).
A book on the topic of Tolkien’s faith as displayed in LOTR is ‘J.R.R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle Earth’, by Bradley J. Birzer. In the Foreword, Tolkien scholar Joseph Pearce says, “…the evil powers in The Lord of the Rings are specified as direct descendants of Tolkien’s Satan, rendering impossible, or at any rate implausible, anything but a Christian interpretation of the book. (p. xii)
I do hope to see Tolkien in the Kingdom of God, for his witness – although in the garb of fictional literature – to spiritual realities, even if flawed by aspects of his particular faith.
Hi Steve - Are you aware of the Phil Dragash full unabridged audio version of LOTR? With your love of Tolkein, I think you might really enjoy it. Ale c
Dear old friend, glad to see you're alive and kickin'! Thanks so much for the heads-up on this audio of LOTR! I'm downloading it now! While I'm busy writing a book (smaller than the first one), plus pastoring, and short of time – this audio is something I'd love to have to listen to if I'm in a hospital with some free time (I'm somewhat frail of health). Love to you and L.!
I love the Lord of the Rings. Some Christians in the Reformed camp, however, have told me that LOTR is sinful and promotes witchcraft to children. They consider me ungodly for reading such books. How would you respond to that claim?
Hello Moria,
Thanks for reading, and now for enquiring! First, JRR Tolkien was a devout Roman Catholic, and well aware of occult practices and pagan myths, and had no affinity with such. If any fault can be found in him (I speak as a Reformed pastor) it would be in his Catholicism, though there are indeed some RCs who are born again despite that (and many Reformed who are not).
A book on the topic of Tolkien’s faith as displayed in LOTR is ‘J.R.R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle Earth’, by Bradley J. Birzer. In the Foreword, Tolkien scholar Joseph Pearce says, “…the evil powers in The Lord of the Rings are specified as direct descendants of Tolkien’s Satan, rendering impossible, or at any rate implausible, anything but a Christian interpretation of the book. (p. xii)
https://www.amazon.com/Tolkiens-Sanctifying-Myth-Understanding-Middle-Earth/dp/1932236201
I do hope to see Tolkien in the Kingdom of God, for his witness – although in the garb of fictional literature – to spiritual realities, even if flawed by aspects of his particular faith.