The Lord of the Rings As Christian Fiction

The key to understanding a work such as The Lord of the Rings is that we cannot try to force it to be something it is not. As we talk about these books, we’re going to be looking at themes and ideas. We’re going to be thinking about how this series of books and those messages that communicates relate to our lives. We’re going to try to uncover the truth that J.R.R. Tolkien embedded in his books for us to discover. We’re going to be seeing how a Christian worldview undergirds this entire series.

We’re going to do all of these things, but we are not going to find a perfect parallel to Jesus Christ. We cannot try to think of Frodo as Jesus Christ and all of the Fellowship as the apostles. We cannot think of Aragorn as Jesus Christ as the soon and coming King and Gondor as the coming Kingdom.

I think that a gut reaction for most of us when we think about Christian literature is that we want to see how Jesus is literally portrayed. Think about most Christian fiction, which I don’t read a lot of, and there is always that moment in the story where someone has a dramatic conversion and the literal plan of salvation is spelled out word for word like a sermon.

I’m not trying to necessarily denigrate people who put that into their works, but I am trying to point out that if we try to think of The Lord of the Rings as Christian and have that type of preconceived notion of what a Christian novel ought to be in our minds, we are going to be very confused.

“If we try to start forcing it into the molds that we expect from other Christian fiction, it simply doesn’t work.”

Therefore, let’s talk about what The Lord of the Rings actually is and what it tries to say. That’s why I am insistent on talking about the ideas and the messages that were written into the story. There is enough great content in there that we do not need to try to force additional thoughts or messages in there that really do not fit.

This is a series about good and evil. This is a series about friendship, loyalty, nobility, honor, betrayal, rejection and so much more. It is a series about truths that we see in the world around us, and it can help us shine the light on the situations we are in. By seeing how certain characters behave, we can consider our own actions and reactions. When we are upset over a certain betrayal in the plot, we might remember that time we hurt someone else in a similar way. When we read how valuable companions can be, we might value our friends more.

This is how literary apologetics often times manifests itself. You’re not going to find Christian wandering towards heaven with very obviously named pitfalls all around him. What you are going to find, however, is a story that nevertheless makes you think about ideas and about your own life. It is going to force you to want answers. You will see a universe with purpose, and it will make you consider if our own universe has purpose. You will see good triumph over evil, and you will long for that in our own universe as well.

I just want to be explicitly clear at this point that this is a Christian book, and it is a work of apologetics. However, for many people, it will not seem to fit the mold of what to expect when they see what is typically branded as Christian fiction. That’s okay, but let’s know what we are dealing with so that we can understand it appropriately.

We're Going to Middle Earth

As I look forward to beginning another semester of PhD work, I decided to attack another series of books as I did with the Chronicles of Narnia in January. This time, our journey will take us to Middle Earth. We are going through The Lord of the Rings in six weeks. Each one of the three volumes is divided into two books, so we will spend one week on each book.

I was first introduced to The Hobbit in fourth grade. Our teacher read it aloud to us from a large, illustrated edition that I immediately fell in love with. Something about the world of Middle Earth spoke to me in that story, so after we completed that in class, I wanted more. Naturally, The Lord of the Rings turned out to be my next step. They are rather lengthy books for a child in middle school, but I devoured them. Keep in mind that this was even the year before The Fellowship of the Ring debuted on the silver screen, so it was not like there was pop-culture pressure if you will to read the books before I saw the movie. The movie did not exist at that point in the way it does now, so I was really reading the books because I wanted to continue the journey after The Hobbit.

I was trying to remember how many times I have read through this series, and I believe it is at least four or five. I definitely remember four, but there might have been one more I am not remembering right now. Either way, I have been through them rather often in the approximately 16 years since I discovered them. I find something new every time I read through, and in the posts you are about to read, there are things that stood out to me this time I literally never thought about before. In fact, the final post of this series based on The Return of the King which you will read in six weeks hopefully brought something up I had never thought about before and now want to research again the next time I read.

If you want to read along with me, you’re going to be reading somewhere between 150 and 200 pages per week. I don’t think it is that crazy of a reading pace, and I would love to have you come along with me. I will warn you that the first 50 pages of The Fellowship of the Ring are the toughest because it takes a little while to get the story actually moving. It is important background information, so you’re going to need it to understand the rest of the story, but I just mention this so that you are aware.

Also, I tried to write my pieces in the order of the story, but there are going to be some spoilers even on the first day of the week at times. Therefore, if you don’t want surprises, make sure that you read the entire book for the week before my Monday post. When I wrote about Narnia, you will remember that I focused a lot on individual quotes that were particularly powerful. That is not how I wrote these posts. They are more embedded in the narrative. You need to understand the story of The Lord of the Rings to see the power rather than have it all condensed into one powerful quote or passage.

For the rest of this week, I am going to delve a little bit more into how we’re going to be interpreting The Lord of the Rings as literary apologists. That is important to understand.

The Hazards of Nostalgia

I love the original Karate Kid, so I am pretty excited that YouTube is going to be coming out with a spinoff in the near future. It might actually convince me to buy a short-term subscription for YouTube Red because of how much I enjoyed the movies.

This is kind of an interesting thing though because there is little to no reason to believe that the new series is going to be anything like the original movies. The actors are going to be the same, but if the writers do not have the right spirit going, it is not going to feel anything like the original. As a result, it really is hard to anticipate whether this will be a positive addition to the storyline or not. All I can conclude is that it is going to be different almost certainly.

However, I am pretty sure that most of us are going to watch it simply because of the nostalgia. I have written about this before in the context of Fuller House, but nostalgia is a very powerful tool. People want to go back to things that they like. They want to revisit a positive experience.

We don’t just see this on TV, but this is all around us. Why is homecoming such a big deal for so many colleges and high schools? People enjoy coming back to places where they have good memories. Even though they are not part of the high school or college anymore, they like to remember what it was like when they were indeed part of it.

This is an important differentiation to keep in mind that we consider nostalgia because there is nothing wrong with having great memories. In fact, great memories are actually great to have for obvious reasons. However, memories are just that. They are things that took place in the past, and they do not necessarily reflect the present.

Therefore, we have to keep in mind that nostalgia does not always reflect the present, and we might actually not remain a part of the things which we are nostalgic about. A lot of people set themselves up for disappointment when they realize that even though they might’ve been part of something in the past, and they are not necessarily a part of it anymore. Living in the past is a dangerous thing because it sets us up for disappointment at present.

“If we don’t appreciate what we have in the present because we are too focused on the glory days of the past, who knows what we might miss out on?”

We’re never actually going to be able to appreciate what we have right now because we just don’t really want to. We are too concerned with nostalgia in the past. Therefore, let’s appreciate things for what they are right now, and enjoy the past for what it was. We have to be careful that we do not conflate the two.

Three Modern Challenges Facing Christianity in America

Amy Zegart published a fascinating piece on The Atlantic entitled, “The Three Paradoxes Disrupting American Politics.” I think that her insights are well taken particularly in regards to politics, but I think that they apply Christianity in America as well.

Her three paradoxes are:

Paradox #1: More information, less credibility

I think it is rather obvious to see how the first one plays out in our churches and our Christian culture. After all, if a random guy like me can have a website, just about anybody can do it. The difference is that I do try to adhere to the Christian orthodoxy and try to, whenever I write on theological matters, refer right back to the text. After all, as Christians, we are people of the book.

Not everyone feels that way however, and that is a problem in Christendom. All you have to do is try to Google a Bible verse, and you are going to find people who have created their entire theology based on a reading of Scripture that, somewhat miraculously, no one else has espoused in the approximately 2000 years since Jesus Christ was on the earth.

I am generally of the opinion that if something has not been uncovered in the text for 2000 years, it is probably not there to be uncovered. If you have a reading of the Bible that no one has ever thought of before, you need to double check your theology because a lot of really smart people have gone over that book time and time again, and while I am not saying that people are perfect, I am saying that we need to exercise great caution when we try to revolutionize theology.

Consequently, we can see this play out in the church. We have so much information available to us, but not all information is good information.

Paradox #2: More connectivity, less civility

Obviously, we are all connected all the time. That really goes without saying, and you would think that it would be a benefit of being able to do life together. Churches talk all the time about being connected, so while it is very important to get together in person, you would think that having even more connection in the virtual world might be a good thing. After all, I might be on vacation far away, but I can still get in touch with the members of my Bible study if I need to. It is nice to be able to be connected to the people that you care about.

On the flipside, being connected all the time can certainly lead to burnout. There is no time to cool down or think twice, so many people just get angry and uncivil in a way that they never would face to face. There is no denying that personal relationships are different than virtual relationships, and it is no surprise that the comments people leave on social media are not what they would ever say in person. Churches are not immune to this type of behavior. People do have bad experiences in churches, and sometimes, those experiences are exacerbated by this type of constant connectivity without civility. As the church, obviously we need to remain civil, but sadly that does not always happen.

Paradox #3: The wisdom of crowds, the duplicity of crowds

Christianity is not a democracy. God’s truth is God’s truth. His truth is not how you or I define it. However, that being said, there is certainly wisdom to be gained from other people. We can learn from those around us, and in our Christian lives, there is no doubt that one of the best ways to learn how to walk the walk is to learn from those who have gone before us or are going with us. There’s plenty of wisdom to be taken from the crowds of people around us. That is the beginning of Hebrews 12 after all.

Undoubtedly though, there are plenty of crowds out there that are not good to listen to. There are plenty of people who want to twist Christianity to their own purposes. These might be political or financial purposes. They might be any kind of purpose to be honest, but often times heresies do draw a crowd. As a result, we have to be very careful which crowds we follow. We want to make sure that, as with all these potential drawbacks, we keep our eyes focused on Jesus Christ. We don’t want to follow the crowd in the wrong way just like we don’t want to lose our civility or get wrapped up in bad information. We have a goal, and we have to strive for it just like, as Amy Zegart pointed out, we have to watch these things in our politics as well.

Responding to Jerry Coyne with a Disability

Much has been written recently about biologist Jerry Coyne and his agreement with Peter Singer in regards to euthanizing young children with severe disabilities. You can read his original post on his website which is entitled, “Should one be allowed to euthanize severely deformed or doomed newborns?” What I have not seen however is a perspective written by an individual with a disability, so I decided to take this opportunity to expose the faulty logic underlying his implicit premises as well as the, perhaps unintentional, consequences that can arise from espousing this type of ideology.

Coyne begins his post by largely agreeing with Peter Singer who is perhaps the most widely known defender of euthanasia in the world today.

“If you are allowed to abort a fetus that has a severe genetic defect, microcephaly, spina bifida, or so on, then why aren’t you able to euthanize that same fetus just after it’s born?  I see no substantive difference that would make the former act moral and the latter immoral.”

I have to give Singer and Coyne a great deal of credit admittedly. They are actually tragically consistent. I do not know how many times I have asked abortion-rights supporters what makes a child one minute old substantively different than a child one minute prior to being born. All that changes is essentially location during that time. I would argue that the same child should not be killed in either circumstance while Singer and Coyne would argue that they should be murdered in both. Obviously we are on different sides of the coin, but they do deserve some credit for consistency even though it is an utterly evil position.

I will also give Coyne in particular credit in his writing because he recognizes that abortion and euthanasia are fundamentally the same process. They are both killing a life that he identifies as the same thing. Notice that he does not try to slide in the sleight-of-hand that life begins at the first breath. He identifies the being in the mother as the fetus as well as the being just after it is born as the fetus. Again, I admire his consistency as evil as I find it because I agree, fundamentally, nothing changes, and he recognizes that clearly.

The problem is however that where his consistency drops off.

“It makes little sense to keep alive a suffering child who is doomed to die or suffer life in a vegetative or horribly painful state. After all, doctors and parents face no legal penalty for simply withdrawing care from such newborns, like turning off a respirator, but Singer suggests that we should be allowed, with the parents’ and doctors’ consent, to painlessly end their life with an injection. I agree.”

Of course, the first problematic assumption is that any child with a disability is doomed to die or suffering or in pain. That is evidentially not true and an irresponsible characterization to say the least.

The second problematic assumption in this passage is that the judgment of suffering is being done by people who are not actively experiencing this suffering. Coyne is putting the doctor and parent in an omniscient role that they are simply not qualified to preside in. There is a major difference between knowing a lot about spina bifida for example and actually living life as a person with spina bifida. I might be a person with a physical disability, but I would not presume to speak for individuals with intellectual disabilities for example. I do not know what life is like for them, and I certainly would not argue that their lives do not have value simply if I believed (which I don't) that their lives are full of suffering. That would be ridiculous, but that is what Coyne is doing right here.

“He is arguing that people making decisions they really do not understand are in the best position to make those decisions.”

Coyne then goes on to something that is very strange in my opinion. He argues that 50 years ago, everyone would have argued that euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide were immoral, but now people understand that there truly is nothing wrong with them.

“This change in views about euthanasia and assisted suicide are the result of a tide of increasing morality in our world… Although discussing the topic seems verboten now, I believe some day the practice will be widespread, and it will be for the better. After all, we euthanize our dogs and cats when to prolong their lives would be torture, so why not extend that to humans?”

Because our morality is going to continue to increase, we’re soon going to realize that everything we thought was right is simply wrong. He proceeds even further than this however.

“The reason we don’t allow euthanasia of newborns is because humans are seen as special, and I think this comes from religion—in particular, the view that humans, unlike animals, are endowed with a soul. It’s the same mindset that, in many places, won’t allow abortion of fetuses that have severe deformities. When religion vanishes, as it will, so will much of the opposition to both adult and newborn euthanasia.”

I could argue from a religious perspective at this point because I do believe that humans are created in the image of God, and this does differentiate humanity from the remainder of creation. However, I know that many supporters of Coyne would just write me off as a member of a dying species of religious believers, so let’s look at his commentary from a different angle.

Coyne argues that our sense of morality is increasing. Presumably because he believes it is increasing, it went from somewhere and is proceeding to somewhere. After all, without reference points, how would we possibly know whether it is increasing or decreasing?

Therefore, he believes that morality is objective. There is such a thing as right, and we are progressing towards that which is right. I would disagree with him on what that is, but he believes in the existence of objective morality apparently just as much as I do.

The minimization of suffering seems to be at the peak of his moral mountain. If something minimizes suffering, then it is good and ought to be done. On the surface, this sounds like a good argument. After all, nobody wants to see people suffering. Even though Coyne does not really make a case for why not suffering is objectively better than suffering in this article, I’m not going to argue on that point. Maybe he makes that case elsewhere. For now, I’m just going to take it for given that he is justified in believing that the minimization of suffering is a good thing.

Again though, I come back to this idea that Coyne does not understand what it is to live like a person with a disability. Some people might look at my life and argue that I must be suffering because I cannot walk. Some people might say I am suffering because my muscles continue to grow weaker little by little. Every disability is different obviously, and there are plenty of features of different disabilities that could be viewed as suffering by different people.

“The perception of suffering is different than suffering however, and that is where his construction breaks down.”

Even if minimizing suffering is a good thing which I would in general agree with and granted for the sake of argument, the parents and doctors are making an uninformed decision. They do not truly understand the experience of this very young person with a disability, and it might actually be less suffering to remain alive than to be killed soon after birth. There is no way to tell whether or not this procedure which Coyne is arguing for would actually move towards this objective good that is minimizing suffering.

At the very least, from his perspective, he should allow the child to make this decision to end his or her own life (which I still find problematic). After all, this entire criterion of minimization of suffering is apparently a judgment of personal suffering, and no one truly can know that from the outside. By his own criterion, I don’t know how you would differentiate this case from the deciding that a random person driving down the road is not suffering and killing them on that basis. That would obviously be murder, and I am not saying that Coyne would defend that. I’m just saying that I do not understand how that would be any different than this case if I sincerely believed that that person was suffering and wanted to minimize their suffering. I know no more about what is going on in that person’s head than anyone does about the feelings of a newborn child who is about to be terminated.

“Elevating the minimization of suffering to the greatest good interferes with anyone who believes that life with suffering is better than no life at all. ”

That doesn’t seem like a radical concept, and I think many people believe it. However, many people who might share that perspective would be harmed by any type of legislation to allow for the legal euthanization of the newborns. If they had their own choice, they might ultimately believe that their life has quality despite suffering. Therefore, by taking away their life, we are actually doing more harm and invoking more suffering than they would be by being able to live in the way they would prefer. This decision would violate Coyne’s own criterion of minimizing suffering.

I know this has been an extraordinarily long article for me, but it is an important issue. Jerry Coyne is an influential man. He has over 40,000 email subscribers, and I have no doubt that many people follow his website loyally. The problem is that he most clearly does not understand the experience of an individual with a disability. That is the underlying issue with most of his article that I have tried to point out for you as someone who lives every day with a disability.

He understands the basics that abortion and euthanasia are basically the same, and he is consistent. He understands that objective morality is a real thing and that we ought to reach towards that which is good. We even agree that in general terms, the minimization of suffering is a good thing. However, the part where he loses me and I think most people is that he is trying to imply that parents and doctors can play God in these situations. Even though they have no firsthand knowledge of the proposed suffering that this child must be going through, they assume that the suffering must be there and that is better than life.

As someone who certainly has some obstacles in life and might be seen as suffering by some people, I can tell you that I would much rather be alive with the challenges I have than killed at birth. Yes, not everything has been pleasant in my life, and there were things I certainly would have preferred to avoid. However, on the whole, I’m happy that was not born to parents who thought that my life would have been ruined by so much suffering that it wasn’t worth beginning. If Coyne would listen to the voices of the people who he is assuming are suffering, I think that he would recognize that perhaps even those who are too small to have a voice yet might feel the same way.