July 7, 2002

Are Balrogs Catholic Or Protestant?
Jon Loux

I just wanted to get your attention. :>

There was an excellent article on Middle Earth and Gnosticism a while back, the source of which I do not have, unfortunately. Maybe someone else remembers it. In Gnosticism, the creator god of this universe is not the Supreme Being. He is a being called the Demiurge who created this world of matter for his own purposes, sort of as a hobby, I suppose. Some people have train sets. Some people create universes. This is similar to Hinduism where the Supreme Being is beyond all of the gods and goddesses (Vishnu, Shiva, Bharman, Kali, Ganesha, Durga, etc, etc, etc.) The Supreme Being was incarnated in human form as Kristna (or Christna) as told in Vedic stories such as The Mahabharata.

There is no incarnate deity in Middle Earth, the closest thing to the dying and resurrecting god is Galdalf. However, there is a pantheon of sub creators acting very much like the gods or angels of Hinduism and Christianity with the ever present yet remote Supreme Being hovering around behind the scenes.

One of the beauties of Tolkein is that his works can be interpreted in the light of other cultures and, yes, religions. There is a universal appeal because there are universal themes. Tolkein may have been writing a story based on the Judeo-Christian 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you' and 'You reap what you sow' with the lives of Bilbo, Frodo and Gollum being the prime illustrations. In the east this could be interpreted as 'The wheel of Karma' with each character living out the repercussions of their choices. Kind of a cosmic 'What goes around, comes around.'

Jon Loux.