Is Lord of the Rings a Catholic work?

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Little_Flower

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This is a current term paper topic in the household. Anyone have any good links or book suggestions that could help in researching the Catholic aspects of the Lord of the Rings? We would prefer easier to understand, rather than college level esoteric writings, but I am being a choosy begger here. We’ll take any suggestions!
 
Well i got nothing on me now aside from some general knowledge to point out.

JRR Tolkien belonged to a group of writers along with C.S. Lewis called ‘The Inklings’ I believe? They were men who enjoyed discussing theology and philosophy, and dedicated themselves to write the sort of stories they wanted and infuse them with Christiain themes. The work by JRR Tolkien was the result fo something like a ‘coin toss’ to see who would write a science fiction story and a fantasy story. Due to pure chance of that incident, Lewis wrote the sci-fi one and JRR Tolkien began his work on a fantasy which is now known as ‘The Lord of the Rings.’
 
There is a quote from Tolkien where he says something along the lines of (I’m paraphrasing here) “The Lord of the Rings is a thoroughly Catholic work.” I’m sure that the document that this quote comes from would be helpful to you.

I’m sorry I don’t have more to offer.
 
Little Flower:
This is a current term paper topic in the household. Anyone have any good links or book suggestions that could help in researching the Catholic aspects of the Lord of the Rings? We would prefer easier to understand, rather than college level esoteric writings, but I am being a choosy begger here. We’ll take any suggestions!
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Yes it is a Catholic work. Tolkien’s religion was very important to him and he incorporated it into the novels.

vist www.mythictruth.com for the relavent details.
 
Lord of the Rings is a Catholic work only in the sense that it was written by a Catholic. They are fantasy books which Tolkien said were not supposed to e allegorical in any way. I don’t know why people even do think their religious in a catholic sense since their is polytheism and everything. They are excellent books, probably my favorites, but i am sick of people saying they have a religious meaning.
 
Well I think there’s already been a lot written on this… but a good place to start thinking about it is to know that Tolkien himself said that it is a Catholic work. Tolkien (unlike C.S. Lewis) did not write in the form of allegory, so you won’t find one-to-one correspondence between something in Lord of the Rings and something in Christianity - e.g. you can’t say “Frodo represents Christ, the Elves are angels, Galadriel is the Virgin Mary, and the lembas bread is the Eucharist”. But you can perhaps find points of similarity between those things. Maybe a good place to start would be to ask how individual characters, e.g. Frodo, Aragorn, and Gandalf, show similarities to Christ. None of them individually is a clear-cut “Christ figure”, but I think each of them have some Christ-like elements.

I hope that helps…
 
I hope noone starts making correlations between characters in the LOTR and in our religion. (gandalf is god, etc.) You can do that with almost any book and it always is pointless and annoying. Just enjoy the books for what they are and stop trying to incorporate religion into them. Tolkien basically created a religion in the books which has nothing to do with our religion.
 
Little Flower:
This is a current term paper topic in the household. Anyone have any good links or book suggestions that could help in researching the Catholic aspects of the Lord of the Rings? We would prefer easier to understand, rather than college level esoteric writings, but I am being a choosy begger here. We’ll take any suggestions!
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You are kidding, right? Seems like witchcraft to me. I don’t think it is a”Catholic work” at all!
 
I love these books. When I get home from work(yes I know playing on the internet while at work.a big no no but it’s raining!) I will write down the titles of the books I read about this specfic topic. I found a protestant book about it called the “Gospel according to Tolkein” but actually never read it but I found a british author who summorized his life and faith and how that played into the books. Tolkien may have not meant to be he did put a lot of catholic ideas into the books. I will find some of the web sites I looked at too. Lots of interesting stuff out there.

God Bless,
Beckers
 
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Mycroft:
Lord of the Rings is a Catholic work only in the sense that it was written by a Catholic. They are fantasy books which Tolkien said were not supposed to e allegorical in any way. I don’t know why people even do think their religious in a catholic sense since their is polytheism and everything. They are excellent books, probably my favorites, but i am sick of people saying they have a religious meaning.
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Just visit the web site, o ye of little faith. The ideas and thematic currents that run through literary works are far more complex then you seem to understand. The trilogy is very Catholic in its understanding of the world and of man.

What polytheism are you talking about? :whacky:
 
The Lord of the Rings is a thoroughly Catholic work. It’s not a systematic theology, and it’s not supposed to be, it’s a fiction. Neither is it an allagory to Catholicism. It is a work of fiction written by a strong Catholic, with a Catholic mindset. Catholics see reality a bit different than an atheist, or a buddhist, or even a protestant Christian. In Lord of the Rings you find the values that Tolkien held dear. You see evil overcome with good. You see evil things as a corruption of the good. No buddhist-like, ligh side / darkside type stuff. You see sacrifice as something held in high regard. You see the week and humble of heart accomplishing great things. Tolkiens ideals, what he knew to be good and true are more than apparent in his Lord of the Rings. How he saw the world is how he wrote the books.

Gilbert
 
tolkien was catholic - and his work is consistent with his faith. it’s not meant to be an allegorical work - and neither were the works of cs lewis (lewis himself said so).

both lewis and tolkien incorporated their world views into their works. LOTR is very consistent with a catholic world view. it’s not satanic, it’s not occultic. it’s fantasy - and it’s good guys against evil, fully intended to carry a christian, and catholic, world view.

any website that deals with the inklings or with the mythopeoic society will give you loads of info on the influence of christianity on lewis’s and tolkien’s writings.

for those of you who doubt (erroneously) that LOTR has a christian message (or is at least compatible with the christian world view), go read ‘silmarillion’ (tolkien’s first book, which sets the stage for LOTR) and then we’ll talk.
 
Hey Tom of Asissi, if you dont know the polytheism in lotr then you obviously dont know much about it.(so dont rip on me about it when your the one who doesnt know what hes talking about). If you want to know, read the silmarillion. It has how the lotr world was made and everything. It ends up there is a bunch of gods and demi gods. And as for their being catholic values in the lotr you can pretty much apply those values to millions of other books too. Good overcoming evil, sacrifices? since when does stuff like that ever happen in books? oh wait, it happens in almost all of them. who cares, this topic is just pointless. Saying Tolkien was catholic still doesnt make the lotr have anything to do our religion.
 
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jeffreedy789:
tolkien was catholic - and his work is consistent with his faith. it’s not meant to be an allegorical work - and neither were the works of cs lewis (lewis himself said so).
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I’d like to hear Lewis explain how “The Pilgrim’s Regress” is not allegorical.
 
Bobby Jim:
I’d like to hear Lewis explain how “The Pilgrim’s Regress” is not allegorical.
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Its funny how your post has nothing to do with this topic
 
The polytheism isn’t, actually. Have you read The Silmarillion? Not really my favourite, but it does make the theology behind LOTR much more understandable. Basically, the universe is created by Eru - ‘the One’ - who then creates a number of great spirits, like Varda (Elbereth Gilthoniel) and Melkor, who turns evil (he’s the Satan figure). These are equivalent, sort of, to archangels, but act as demiurges - that is, they make the earth in accordance with Eru’s design.

What Tolkien said was that his universe, with Middle Earth, was not meant to be an alternative explanation for reality, but an account of the universe and of God which would be consonant with natural theology before any revelation (to Abraham, Moses or, of course, in our Lord). He is not trying to supplant revelation!

Sue
 
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Mycroft:
Its funny how your post has nothing to do with this topic
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actually it does, because others pointed out that tolkien’s works are not allegories… I had mentioned this specifically in comparison to CS Lewis. Someone else then said CS Lewis didn’t write allegories either. So I felt like commenting on that, indicating that at least in one case, he did.
 
I am doing a paper on Tolkien right now. Unfortunately, it’s not about Catholic elements in his work, which is what I wanted to write about, but here are some sources I used.

The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien–a collection of letters written by Tolkien. It is in letter #142, written to Robert Murray, S.J., that Tolkien says “*The Lord of the Rings *is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision…the religious element is absorbed in the story and the symbolism”.

Tolkien: Man and Myth–a biographical work that spends a good deal of time discussing Tolkien’s faith and how it affects his work

J.R.R. Tolkien’s Sanctifying Myth–focuses on Catholic/religious themes/elements in Tolkien’s work.

Tolkien saw his story as occurring after the Fall but before the Incarnation, at a time when God had not yet revealed Himself fully to mankind. That is why people within his stories only see God through the Valar, which some people have interpreted as polytheistic.
 
Is Lord of the Rings a Catholic work?

I hope not – I would hate to be so bored by anything Catholic… :yawn: :sleep:

:twocents:
post-and-run,
tee
 
you’re correct - i stand corrected. i was referring to lewis’s more popular works - the chronicles of narnia, the space trilogy, etc. yes, you’re right. ‘pigrim’s regress’ is an allegory.

i think it points sadly to the attention span of our generation that anyone is ‘bored’ by LOTR.

mycroft - it’s not polytheism. the others aren’t gods. you sound like you’ve read silmarillion. did you take the other beings to be gods? how then were they created by the one?
 
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