September 24, 2002

A Reply To Christian Hobbit
Trowizilla

Christian Hobbit, I fail to see where all your posturings and impressive quotes lead up to "Lord of the Rings is explicitly Christian." Quite honestly, I think LotR is much closer to the earlier, pre-Christian epics a la Beowulf in structure, and those themes you tend to label Christian are often more religious or spiritual in general. Themes of sacrifice and renunciation are hardly specific to Christianity, I hope you realize.

Personally, if I had to pick a Christ figure in LotR, it would either be Frodo or Gandalf. They both (sort of) come back from the dead, Gandalf after falling into the pit with the Balrog, and Frodo after the spider (can't think of her name right now) poisons him and the orcs carry him off. Gandalf also seems to be endowed with a divine, almost spiritual power after he returns, and his power is as much over the minds of men as anyone else, as demonstrated by his power over Saruman using (seemingly) nothing more than the power of his will. Frodo would be a Christ figure for his sufferings to make up for the wrongs (sins) of others, and for his being drawn up into heaven (the gray havens) after his sufferings. I would hardly call Aragorn a Christ figure - such a nomination requires more than kingship. Aragorn might be an Adam-figure, as the first of the new order of Men in Middle-Earth, but Adam was certainly not a Christ figure.

Tolkien certainly was a Christian, but I highly doubt he would have approved of the kind of narrow-minded itolerence you have displayed in your posts.