Influence of Tolkien in conversions?

[romanus]

Two talks by an anonymous priest have been put on line in which the speaker denounces the fantasy writings of JRR Tolkien.

One of the priest’s challenges is this: if JRRT’s works are so Catholic, where are the conversions?

Personally I do not think that his works stand or fall by this criterion, since they are imaginative fiction, not works of apologetics.

There is, however, one documented conversion back to belief in Christ (unfortunately not to the Catholic Church) as the result of Tolkien’s thinking on mythology: that of C.S. Lewis.

Does anyone know of any other cases where people became (or reverted to being) believing Catholics or other kinds of Christian, or at least ceased to adhere to satanism, under the influence of Tolkien’s writings? I have heard that some people have left satanism after reading The Lord of the Rings, but I don’t know of any documented cases.

Thanks!

 

[Origen52]

Do you have a link, it would be interesting to listen to these talks? I don’t understand why anyone would denounce the writings of Tolkien. Chesterton is considered a great Catholic writer, but praise for his work is not accompanied by a list of people who have been converted by his writings. I would think a priest would know that conversion requires an encounter with the living Christ, that happens when one reads the Gospels.

 

[romanus]

Is it allowed to post links in this forum? In any case, the blog Rorate Caeli, in the interests of debate, posted a transcript on February 2, with a follow-up post on February 7. If you would like to read my own critique of the first of the talks, I will be happy to send it to you privately.
Some of the things the speaker mentions are, in my view, genuinely problematic, but I think such elements merit a caution rather than the heavy-artillery approach he is taking.

That’s all in parentheses; what I would really be grateful for, as a matter of information, are instances of Tolkien-influenced conversions, if there are any. (Again, there doesn’t have to be.)

 

[Razanir]

I’m not sure about conversions, but I’ve certainly used Tolkien in debate. Including finally getting a chance to use Galadriel’s Elf-magic quote to describe the Sacraments.

 

[DaveBj]

Is it allowed to post links in this forum? In any case, the blog Rorate Caeli, in the interests of debate, posted a transcript on February 2, with a follow-up post on February 7. If you would like to read my own critique of the first of the talks, I will be happy to send it to you privately.
Some of the things the speaker mentions are, in my view, genuinely problematic, but I think such elements merit a caution rather than the heavy-artillery approach he is taking.

That’s all in parentheses; what I would really be grateful for, as a matter of information, are instances of Tolkien-influenced conversions, if there are any. (Again, there doesn’t have to be.)

It is allowed.

 

[DAML72]

I don’t know of any, but I’m hoping that Tolkein’s works and writings will have an affect on my son, whose father is kind of indoctrinating him against Catholicism.

 

[empther]

I don’t know of any, but I’m hoping that Tolkein’s works and writings will have an affect on my son, whose father is kind of indoctrinating him against Catholicism. :bigyikes:

It drives me crazy. :hypno:

I wish I could be there to give your son a story about a young Catholic who gives an outstanding ‘good example’ of what being Catholic is about in the real world.

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=810059&page=9

 

[Origen52]

Is it allowed to post links in this forum? In any case, the blog Rorate Caeli, in the interests of debate, posted a transcript on February 2, with a follow-up post on February 7. If you would like to read my own critique of the first of the talks, I will be happy to send it to you privately.
Some of the things the speaker mentions are, in my view, genuinely problematic, but I think such elements merit a caution rather than the heavy-artillery approach he is taking.

That’s all in parentheses; what I would really be grateful for, as a matter of information, are instances of Tolkien-influenced conversions, if there are any. (Again, there doesn’t have to be.)

Thanks, romanus, I’ll read it. I’d also like to read your critique.

 

[romanus]

Origen 52: here are the links to the audio of the Tolkien-critical talks:

audiosancto.org/sermon/20140128-Fantasy-Tolkien-and-Mystic-Flight-part-1.html

audiosancto.org/sermon/20140128-Fantasy-Tolkien-and-Mystic-Flight-part-2.html

I’ll send you a private message with my comments on the first of them.

(name removed by moderator): thank you for passing on your experience; that’s the kind of information I was looking for.

 

[Arizona_Mike]

The science fiction writer John C. Wright, a convert from atheism and an erudite and talented apologist for the Faith, has written of the influence of Tolkien and others on his conversion:

Second, I began to notice how shallow, either simply optimistic or simply pessimistic, other philosophies and views of life were.

The public conduct of my fellow atheists was so lacking in sobriety and gravity that I began to wonder why, if we atheists had a hammerlock on truth, so much of what we said was pointless or naive. I remember listening to a fellow atheist telling me how wonderful the world would be once religion was swept into the dustbin of history, and I realized the chap knew nothing about history. If atheism solved all human woe, then the Soviet Union would have been an empire of joy and dancing bunnies, instead of the land of corpses.

I would listen to my fellow atheists, and they would sound as innocent of any notion of what real human life was like as the Man from Mars who has never met human beings or even heard clear rumors of them. Then I would read something written by Christian men of letters, Tolkien, Lewis, or G.K. Chesterton, and see a solid understanding of the joys and woes of human life. They were mature men.

I would look at the rigorous logic of St. Thomas Aquinas, the complexity and thoroughness of his reasoning, and compare that to the scattered and mentally incoherent sentimentality of some poseur like Nietzsche or Sartre. I can tell the difference between a rigorous argument and shrill psychological flatulence. I can see the difference between a dwarf and a giant.

scifiwright.com/2007/09/total-conversion-2/

And elsewhere:

Third question: why are my favorite authors, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Gene Wolfe, Mike Flynn, G.K. Chesterton, all members of this monstrous Syriac cult known as Christianity? I do like my freethinker authors just fine, but Bob Heinlein, Ayn Rand, Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke seem to have trouble with realism in characterization, both with their invented people, and with their invented societies.

Don’t get me wrong, I love their books, love and reread them many times, but the people who don’t believe in souls don’t seem to be able to portray their characters three-dimensionally and solidly, that is, as if their characters had souls.

I like Mr. Wright. In this excerpt from a recent essay on his always enjoyable blog, he captures very nicely the Catholic mindset which sees the world as a good place, created by the ultimate Good, and that the things of this world have meaning, just as Tolkien captured the sacramental nature of the material world in his work. He also illustrates well that we, as Catholics, live on a world no less wondrous and awe-inspiring as any of the vistas of Middle-Earth. Catholicism is the religion of Romance, in the fullest sense of the word. And even better, it’s all true:

When I was in China, the tourguide saw me stop to give alms to beggars. He watched in wonder, and asked me why I was ‘tipping’ the beggars.

I told him our god walks the earth in disguise dressed as a beggar and any man who does not give alms with both hands is stricken with a curse and flung screaming into a lake of fire.

One might think that an odd reason to give alms, or even an impure or superstitious reason, but no one can say it is a prosaic reason. To see god in a beggar’s careworn and quotidian face is the very soul of romance.

Romance? Let me say something of the wild poetry that now rules my life.

I have a charm chalked on my front door to call a blessing down from wide heaven, and carry a rosary like a deadly weapon in my pocket, and hang the medallion of Saint Justin, patron of philosophers, whose name I take as my True Name, atop my computer monitor where he can stare at me.

Two angels follow me unseen as I walk, and I live in a world of exorcists and barefoot friars, muses and prophets, healers who lay on hands, mighty spiritual warriors hidden in crippled bodies, and fallen angels made of pure malicious spirit obeying their damned and darkened Sultan from his darkest throne in hell. And I live in a world where a holy child was born beneath a magic star secretly as king, and the animals knelt and prayed. And from that dread king that small child will save us.

You might think my world inane, or insane, or uncouth, or false, but by the beard of Saint Nicholas, by the Breastplate of St. Patrick, and by the severed head of Saint Valentine, no one can say it is not romantic.

My life these days is a storybook story: if there were more romance in it, it be enough to choke Jonah’s Whale.

From: scifiwright.com/2014/06/strength-weakness-meekness/#more-11055

 

[romanus]

Thanks, Mike!

 

[empther]

From Arizona Mike’s superlative post 11,
Quotation snippet from science fiction writer John C. Wright

I do like my freethinker authors just fine, but Bob Heinlein, Ayn Rand, Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke seem to have trouble with realism in characterization, both with their invented people, and with their invented societies.

Don’t get me wrong, I love their books, love and reread them many times, but the people who don’t believe in souls don’t seem to be able to portray their characters three-dimensionally and solidly, that is, as if their characters had souls.

Right on, Mr. Wright !

He mentioned Arthur C. Clarke. In Clarke’s book 2001: A Space Odyssey, made into the movie, the astronaut David Poole is described as a loner, somebody who has little interest in socializing, and this was the reason he was chosen for a long space voyage. The movie showed this man as a robot-like creature with zero emotion. Well, ok, but what does this offer the reader?

How many times have you finished reading a story and wondered who the main character really was? You realized the character is not real. He’s hollow. A slot filler. Somebody thrown in there because a body was needed.

What makes a character do what he does? No, I don’t mean his responses to challenges. I mean why does he do those responses? What is his philosophy of life? How did he get that way?

I’m careful to make sure the reader knows everything about my main character from childhood. Only this way can the reader relate to the main character and learn something about human nature.

 

[Arizona_Mike]

It’s interesting that Frodo Baggins, a representative of a non-human species evinces a far more convincing anthropology (in the religious sense) of man than, say David Bowman in 2001. He shows pity and compassion to a misshapen creature that means to do him harm; he is terrified of the task he is given and does not feel he has the ability to accomplish it, but accepts it anyway; he feels fellowship and love towards those who are aiding him in the task; he is innovative and uses all his faculties to find ways around obstacles; he is capable of apprehending real Goodness and real Evil, and recognizes the insidious and deadly pull the latter can have.

 

[empther]

I wish I could go back in time and tell Tolkien to change Frodo Baggins into …
… are you ready?
Freda Baggins ! In other words, make her a girl.

What an impact it is seeing a girl face dangerous and difficult situations and overcome them.
Why hasn’t any author done this? ( I’m not talking about a girl fighting with criminals, or anything like that. Such stories are a dime a dozen, don’t have any noble meanings, don’t touch people’s hearts, and are deservedly soon forgotten. )

 

[Kamaduck]

I wish I could go back in time and tell Tolkien to change Frodo Baggins into …
… are you ready?
Freda Baggins ! In other words, make her a girl.

What an impact it is seeing a girl face dangerous and difficult situations and overcome them.
Why hasn’t any author done this? ( I’m not talking about a girl fighting with criminals, or anything like that. Such stories are a dime a dozen, don’t have any noble meanings, don’t touch people’s hearts, and are deservedly soon forgotten. )

I did hear of one mother who read her daughter The Hobbit, but changed Bilbo’s pronouns after her daughter insisted that Bilbo was a girl and her mother was reading the story wrong. Apparently the characterization didn’t suffer at all; Bilbo is a pretty gender-neutral character.

I do think it’s kind of silly to say that there are no female protagonists who face dangerous situations and overcome them, or whose stories have “noble meanings”. Katniss Everdeen is worth at least 30% of a Frodo. Sure, I can’t think of that many others, but there are a few who are the center of somewhat thoughtful books, and many more who appear as members of ensemble casts. Would Freda be a nice addition to the list? Sure, but Tolkien chose to write about a man, and I trust that he had his reasons.

Anyway, as far as the question raised in the OP, I feel like it’s kind of overly simplistic. I once heard that converting someone is like trying to break a giant stone or chop down a large tree- there will be one final strike that will cause the tree to fall over, but it wouldn’t have happened without all the strikes before it, so you can’t say that any one experience is the cause. Likewise, I think it’s quite possible that reading Tolkien is a part of many people’s conversion experience, but not the thing that finally tips them over the edge. Tolkien meets people where they are and shows them something beautiful, and many people take that beauty with them, so it informs their later decisions.

 

[empther]

Katniss Everdeen is worth at least 30% of a Frodo.

I read all three Hunger Games books and saw the first movie.

It was interesting watching Katniss fight. However… Nowhere did a I detect Katniss fighting for noble ends. It was “them versus us”. Period. That’s all.
Not much different from the sectarian fighting in Iraq today, Sunni Moslems versus Shiite Moslems versus Kurdish Moslems etc etc etc ad infinitum.

Did Katniss have any idea what kind of government would follow if she succeeded in overthrowing the current one? No. The third book didn’t describe it. We only learn the rebels have taken over.

Far better is a story in which the girl struggles for noble ends,
**because she follows her conscience, **
and that conscience tells her that if she can do good then she must because it is God’s will that she does so.

---

Would Freda be a nice addition to the list? Sure, but Tolkien chose to write about a man, and I trust that he had his reasons.

In Tolkien’s day it was inconceivable that a woman could be a courageous hero,
and besides that Frodo was in his twenties or thirties, not a teenage hero which was another inconceivable at the time. No author had dared using a teenage girl hero with noble ends.

It’s time for a change.

---

As for Tolkien precipating conversions, I agree it seems unlikely a book alone would convert somebody,
however,
somebody on another thread in this section not long ago claimed that the works of Flannery O’Connor converted him.
You never know.

 

[Kamaduck]

I read all three Hunger Games books and saw the first movie.

It was interesting watching Katniss fight. However… Nowhere did a I detect Katniss fighting for noble ends. It was “them versus us”. Period. That’s all.
Not much different from the sectarian fighting in Iraq today, Sunni Moslems versus Shiite Moslems versus Kurdish Moslems etc etc etc ad infinitum.

Did Katniss have any idea what kind of government would follow if she succeeded in overthrowing the current one? No. The third book didn’t describe it. We only learn the rebels have taken over.

Well, neither did Frodo. How could he know about what would happen to the kingdoms of men, or the elves, or the dwarves? He didn’t even know if the Shire was going to be all right. But he did know that if they didn’t stop Sauron, then everything beautiful in the world would be destroyed. It was worth taking that chance, no matter what followed.

The same is true of Katniss. Like Frodo, her power is limited. Unlike him, she doesn’t start our with a particularly noble purpose- she just wants to survive (although she does also want to protect Prim). But in the second book, she takes a stand against the government and outright rebels, because the current situation is intolerable. Because people are dying. You can call that “us versus them”, but the fact of the matter is that the government was well-established as an evil regime.

Far better is a story in which the girl struggles for noble ends,
**because she follows her conscience, **
and that conscience tells her that if she can do good then she must because it is God’s will that she does so.

Katniss was following her conscience, from the moment she said “I volunteer as tribute”. No, I don’t think The Hunger Games is half the story that LOTR is. But it’s a story, it’s not a bad one, and the protagonist is indisputably a female with some heroic moments.

In Tolkien’s day it was inconceivable that a woman could be a courageous hero,
and besides that Frodo was in his twenties or thirties, not a teenage hero which was another inconceivable at the time. No author had dared using a teenage girl hero with noble ends.

It’s time for a change.

I thought he was in his fifties in the book, which was part of what made him cool- you don’t see too many everyman characters who are actually middle-aged, at least not anymore. I’d argue that teenage heroes are pretty inconceivable, at least without quite a bit of luck involved, even in a historical or fantasy setting.

If it was really “inconceivable” for a young woman to be portrayed as a courageous hero, then LOTR itself flies in the face of societal expectations with the character of Eyown, the brave warrior who defeated the witch king. There may be problematic aspects to her character (most of which would be less problematic if she were not also the only prominent female, besides possibly Galadriel), but at the end of the day she does indeed inspire many girls, who see her as breaking free of her prescribed role in order to save the day.

She is not the only one. The Chronicles of Narnia were released in the same time span as the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and while I haven’t read all of them, I know that most contain more than one child protagonist, usually including a female character. Whether saving Narnia constitutes a “noble end” may be up for dispute, but I would think it would be at least as noble as trying to save Middle Earth. Before that, girls were inspired by the protagonists of victorian literature like Pride and Prejudice or Jane Eyre, or by the varied and human portrayals of girls in Little Women. They’re not fantasy heroes, but since modern fantasy only became popular in the wake of Tolkien’s work, I don’t think that’s much of a criticism.

So yes, I agree that we need more female protagonists. I want lots of female protagonists leading brilliant works of fiction. I don’t want to have to spend half a minute thinking of works that fit these criterion. I just don’t think the situation is quite as dire as you claim. The girls of today do have fictional heroes, and you shouldn’t discount them. At best, your protagonist will be added to the list beside Katniss Everdeen and Eyown. She will not replace them.

As for Tolkien precipating conversions, I agree it seems unlikely a book alone would convert somebody,
however,
somebody on another thread in this section not long ago claimed that the works of Flannery O’Connor converted him.
You never know.

That is true. People often come here by unusual paths.

 

[Della]

Two talks by an anonymous priest have been put on line in which the speaker denounces the fantasy writings of JRR Tolkien.

One of the priest’s challenges is this: if JRRT’s works are so Catholic, where are the conversions?

Personally I do not think that his works stand or fall by this criterion, since they are imaginative fiction, not works of apologetics.

There is, however, one documented conversion back to belief in Christ (unfortunately not to the Catholic Church) as the result of Tolkien’s thinking on mythology: that of C.S. Lewis.

Does anyone know of any other cases where people became (or reverted to being) believing Catholics or other kinds of Christian, or at least ceased to adhere to satanism, under the influence of Tolkien’s writings? I have heard that some people have left satanism after reading The Lord of the Rings, but I don’t know of any documented cases.

Thanks!

I’ve listened to some of the objections to Tolkien’s writings and they aren’t convincing except to Pharisical minds for whom religion must have all the trappings of religion in order to be religion. Pretty silly, to my way of thinking.

Anyway, if you want a bona fide convert, here I am. Not a convert to Christianity. I was a Christian when I first encountered Tolkien’s writings. I had been brought up Episcopalian but then when my father died my mother took the family to the Assemblies of God–about as far away from Catholicism as one can get without venturing into a non-trintaritan sect.

My conversion was more of a sea change in worldview after I read LOTR. I saw the Ralph Bakshi animated version and was intrigued. From the very beginning in which he introduced the various peoples and their connection to the ring I saw that this was a spiritual story akin to ones in the OT which progressed into a NT story. I bought the books right after seeing the movie and devoured Frodo’s story in one weekend. SPOILER!!! When Frodo kept the ring my neat, tidy Christianity was unmade and I was a different person from the one who saw everything as us vs. them, as the saved vs. the lost. The effect was so profound I don’t have words to describe it.

As for female roles in Tolkien’s stories, yes, they have most of the characteristics of women of Tolkien’s times, but they go beyond that. Arwen is no less brave than Eowyn though she doesn’t take up a sword. Having to wait, working on a victory banner while Aragorn has to risk his life is very brave indeed. She could have packed it in and gone across the sea to the Undying Lands and suffered no grief, worry or loss, but she stuck it out. Not just for love of her man but to restore a kingdom and bring peace to a land ravaged by war. Galadriel too is brave in her denial of the ring. How easy it would have been for her to gain all she’d longed for–to be powerful and respected and loved by all. But she knew it would be unjust power, servile fear not respect and not real love of a free being of others. I think they are much better examples of what most women suffer in this life than women who abandon all to be like men in their pursuits. Our understanding of what makes women strong has been colored by feminist thinking, but in reality we women have endured and still endure what for most men would be unendurable. I think we deserve props for that, the kind Tolkien gave to his female characters.

 

[romanus]

The Council of Elrond, being untouched by political correctness (which fortunately did not exist in that age of the world) would never have let a lady go on such a dangerous journey.

But it seems that answers to my original question are now exhausted. Or does anyone else have an anecdote to contribute?

 

[romanus]

By the way, if I recall correctly, “Frodo” is actually an adapted form of the Anglo-Saxon name “Froda.” JRRT changed it because “Froda,” although it is a man’s name, sounds feminine to modern ears.