My Podcast Interview Regarding my new Tolkien Book!

Check out my podcast interview regarding my new book Middle-earth Lore Tolkiens Legends Revealed with Christian Nerds Unite Host Ricky Pope

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0M_Jm8LJzc

{{ I've taken the liberty of embedding your interview to make it easier for folk to watch.



I'd take a few issues here and there with what you say, nothing too major, at several points you say (correctly in my view) that Tolkien never set out to intentionally write a Christian (more specifically a Catholic) inspired tale, but then at other times you appear to say this 'was one of his aims'.
I think it can be easy to overemphasis that aspect over other aspects Tolkien was equally interested in, possibly as far as story telling goes more interested in, one of which was as he says just the desire of a storyteller to try his hand at telling a really long tale. Another was his desire to fill the gap he believed existed in English mythology, especially after the Norman Conquest which he felt had wiped out the indigenous culture and its tales and stories (he was wrong about that, but in his day it's more understandable why he would think that way as the sequence of British history and its cultural development was not anything like as well understood as it is now), but nevertheless he felt something was missing and had a desire to fill the gap (and rather ironically it was of course the arrival of Christianity which far and way caused the greatest destruction of the indigenous prexisting beliefs, stories and cultures, save where remnants of them survived in the Irish Celtic Church before Rome stomped down on them too). There is a double irony in that the oldest version of those Celtic tales only exist for us still (in a slightly basterised by Christian views ways) because the very people who supplanted and suppressed them, the early Church, first wrote them down.


By Tolkien's own account LotR's was religious not by design but just because he was writing it really and his own world view was heavily effected by Catholic thought, I believe he says it was only really in the revision of the work that he himself noticed how religious much of it was and consciously choose to bring some of those aspects out more in the revising of it. He certainly, it seems clear, never set out with any intention of writing a religious based work. That just sort of happened then got tweaked consciously later in the process.
As to the fellow who uses Tolkien to evangelise, I think Tolkien would have loathed that idea extremely.}}

Pettytyrant101 wrote:{{ I've taken the liberty of embedding your interview to make it easier for folk to watch.



I'd take a few issues here and there with what you say, nothing too major, at several points you say (correctly in my view) that Tolkien never set out to intentionally write a Christian (more specifically a Catholic) inspired tale, but then at other times you appear to say this 'was one of his aims'.
I think it can be easy to overemphasis that aspect over other aspects Tolkien was equally interested in, possibly as far as story telling goes more interested in, one of which was as he says just the desire of a storyteller to try his hand at telling a really long tale. Another was his desire to fill the gap he believed existed in English mythology, especially after the Norman Conquest which he felt had wiped out the indigenous culture and its tales and stories (he was wrong about that, but in his day it's more understandable why he would think that way as the sequence of British history and its cultural development was not anything like as well understood as it is now), but nevertheless he felt something was missing and had a desire to fill the gap (and rather ironically it was of course the arrival of Christianity which far and way caused the greatest destruction of the indigenous prexisting beliefs, stories and cultures, save where remnants of them survived in the Irish Celtic Church before Rome stomped down on them too). There is a double irony in that the oldest version of those Celtic tales only exist for us still (in a slightly basterised by Christian views ways) because the very people who supplanted and suppressed them, the early Church, first wrote them down.


By Tolkien's own account LotR's was religious not by design but just because he was writing it really and his own world view was heavily effected by Catholic thought, I believe he says it was only really in the revision of the work that he himself noticed how religious much of it was and consciously choose to bring some of those aspects out more in the revising of it. He certainly, it seems clear, never set out with any intention of writing a religious based work. That just sort of happened then got tweaked consciously later in the process.
As to the fellow who uses Tolkien to evangelise, I think Tolkien would have loathed that idea extremely.}}

I might disagree with you on the last part (see why in Road Goes Ever on and on) but overall great post! thanks for watching.

Watched it, didn't realize this was your second book!  It's also good to realize that Amazon makes self publishing much easier than I realize (at least via ebooks).

I liked the discussion of how myth can clarify right and wrong.  I don't think Tolkien would mind his work being used to "sneak christianity in the back door".  He would mind it being used as an explicit connection to christianity to non believers, but for some reason I don't think he'd mind it being used within a purely christian environment.

I think what it comes down to is if his work is used to "force" the topic, it ruins both the art and the subliminal effect that would come from it.  But he's happy to have his work induce the proper mindset before the topic is broached.  If presented to an audience that's already christian the mindset is there, so there's nothing to be ruined.

I also think if Tolkien were protestant he'd have produced an entirely different book.  The glory of the Catholic Church is its ancientry and associated mystery.  We see that infused in LotR.  We already know what a protestant would do: write an in-your-face fantasy like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.  Which has a lot going for it, but is too explicit with its christianity to have the beautifully subliminal effect Tolkien achieved.

{{ I think its the idea of someone drawing direct lines- like saying Eru the Christian God. Tolkien does and doesn't. He is the one true God, its clear Tolkien thought of Eru as very similar in operation (Eru does move in mysterious ways, he doesn't make personal appearances and so forth) but it's more as if the Christian God as seen through the ideas of earlier people without the baggage of the Christian Church (which tended to be brutal and stomped itself over other peoples cultures and beliefs- Christmas and Easter being two of the big obvious ones, one a pagan fertility ritual and the other a mid-winter festival) a Christian God but if the Saxons or Norse had him. }}
So I don't think Tolkien would have liked someone using his work to directly relate the Bible, I can rather imagine him crabbitly saying, "Why don't you just use the Bible for that."
His work, as a means of getting Catholic thought to someone without preaching at them is rather spoiled by using it to directly preach at someone. Plus evangelists generally tend not to be very popular in Britain, and even less so in Tolkiens day- they are viewed as too loud, too self important, and often as snake-oil salesmen types in it for themselves. I'd be surprised if they appealed to Tolkien}}

halfwise wrote:Watched it, didn't realize this was your second book!  It's also good to realize that Amazon makes self publishing much easier than I realize (at least via ebooks).

I liked the discussion of how myth can clarify right and wrong.  I don't think Tolkien would mind his work being used to "sneak christianity in the back door".  He would mind it being used as an explicit connection to christianity to non believers, but for some reason I don't think he'd mind it being used within a purely christian environment.

I think what it comes down to is if his work is used to "force" the topic, it ruins both the art and the subliminal effect that would come from it.  But he's happy to have his work induce the proper mindset before the topic is broached.  If presented to an audience that's already christian the mindset is there, so there's nothing to be ruined.

I also think if Tolkien were protestant he'd have produced an entirely different book.  The glory of the Catholic Church is its ancientry and associated mystery.  We see that infused in LotR.  We already know what a protestant would do: write an in-your-face fantasy like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.  Which has a lot going for it, but is too explicit with its christianity to have the beautifully subliminal effect Tolkien achieved.

Great post, I don't think we are far off at all.

Hey neat-o!