Category: JRR Tolkien

Theologian delves into what’s holy in Hobbits

Gandalf and Aragorn, Frodo and Sam, Merry and Pippin are household names now, thanks to the blockbuster film trilogy “The Lord of the Rings.” But in the 1960s, when J.R.R. Tolkien‘s masterful fantasy was first published in paperback in the United States, the books were more underground classic than mass market marvel. Ralph Wood stumbled upon them as a ’60s-era graduate student and was immediately taken by the richness of the world Tolkien created. But he saw more in the heroic struggle between good and evil than mere skilled storytelling. There was a profound Christian message in the text as

Church to hold Lord of the Rings mass

A Dutch church that held a Harry Potter mass last year is now planning to celebrate a Lord of the Rings mass. The Rev Jaap Ridderbos says the mass at the Gorechtchurch, in Haren, is meant to appeal to young people. Rev Ridderbos says he has spent more than a year trying to find Christian explanations for what happened in the Tolkien books. “Did you know Tolkien was a good Christian all his life?” he asked Groninger internet courant. He plans to show scenes from the film in church and point out comparisons between Tolkien’s books and the Bible.

How J.R.R. Tolkien became a Christian writer

The ring and the cross The Boston Globe, Dec. 29, 2002 http://www.boston.com/ By Chris Mooney From their mastery Middle-earth geography to their occasional fluency in Elvish, fans of the “Lord of the Rings” books tend to be a pretty knowledgeable bunch. But many would be surprised to learn that J.R.R. Tolkien’s great medievalist epic had a co-author: God. According to Peter Kreeft, a Catholic philosopher at Boston College, Tolkien was under the divine spell when he composed his sprawling trilogy. “Of course it’s inspired; it’s got His fingerprints all over it,” wrote Kreeft in an article on Tolkien and evil