The Gospel According To Tolkien: Visions Of The Kingdom In Middle-earth

The Gospel According to Tolkien Visions of the Kingdom in Middle-earth Ralph C. Wood Westminster John Knox Press LOUISVILLE • LONDON © 2003 by Ralph C. Wood All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Westminster John Knox Press, 100 Witherspoon Street, Louisville, Kentucky 40202-1396. Scripture quotations from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible are copyright © 1946, 1952, 1971, and 1973 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. and are used by permission. See acknowledgments, pp. 168-69, for additional permission information. Book design by Sharon Adams Cover design by Jennifer K. Cox First edition Published by Westminster John Knox Press Louisville, Kentucky This book is printed on acid-free paper that meets the American National Standards Institute Z39.48 standard. © PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 1 2 — 1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wood, Ralph C. The gospel according to Tolkien : visions of the kingdom in middleearth / Ralph C. Wood.—1st ed. p. cm. ISBN 0-664-22610-8 (alk. paper) 1. Tolkien, J. R. R. (John Ronald Reuel), 1892-1973. Lord of the rings. 2. Tolkien, J. R. R. (John Ronald Reuel), 1892-1973—Religion. 3. Christianity and literature—England—History—20th century. 4. Christian fiction, English—History and criticism. 5. Fantasy fiction, English—History and criticism. 6. Christian ethics in literature. 7. Middle Earth (Imaginary place) I. Title. PR6039.O32L63 2003 823'.912—dc21 2003047901 For John Sykes my student, friend, and companion in the Quest Contents Preface ix Introduction 1 1 The Great Symphony of the Creation 11 2 The Calamity of Evil: The Marring of the Divine Harmony 48 3 The Counter-Action to Evil: Tolkien's Vision of the Moral Life 75 4 The Lasting Corrective: Tolkien's Vision of the Redeemed Life 117 5 Consummation: When Middle-earth Shall Be Unmarred 156 Bibliography 166 Acknowledgments 168 vn Preface is theological meditation on The Lord of the Rings does not enter into the many debates among scholars about the various and often conflicting interpretations of Tolkien. I seek nothing more or less than to make the Christian dimension of this great book accessible to the ordinary interested reader of Tolkien. Yet the absence of footnotes hardly means that the author owes no debts. Quite to the contrary, I am immensely grateful to the many Tolkien scholars whose work I have silently drawn from. My treatment of the classical virtues will reveal my obvious reliance on Josef Pieper's classic little treatise, The Four Cardinal Virtues, even as my estimate of the theological virtues, especially charity understood as forgiveness, will disclose my continuing homage to the work of Karl Barth. Paul J. Wadell's Friendship and the Moral Life has also been indispensable for my thinking about the place of philia in the life of the Fellowship. The parenthetical citations refer to the standard cloth-bound editions of major works by and about Tolkien, with the following abbreviations: The Hobbit (H), The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (L), The Silmarillion (S), "The Monsters and the Critics" and Other Essays (MC), Morgoth's Ring (MR), The Peoples of Middle-earth (PM), Smith of Wootton Major (SWM), and Humphrey Carpenter's Tolkien: A Biography (T). The Lord of the Rings itself will be paginated according to the three separate volumes—1: The Fel