This has probably been covered...but I wanted to respond to a statement "rredboy" made in the "Youth Rooms" thread...if anyone else has thoughts, please feel free to add them...
Quote:
Originally posted by rredboy Re: Tolkien
My pastor tore him a new one and showed me several quotes that prove he was an idiot.
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For the tolien christian myth http://dianedew.com/tolkien.htm
if i find more i will post it in a new thread. |
Hahaha! Give me a couple of your pastors articles, sermons, and what not...the very fact that he thinks Tolkien is not a Christian (especially based off of this drivel) proves that he is a moron...sorry for the personal attack on him. But it's just sad that a guy who could take this article and be convinced that "Tolkien wasn't a Christian" should actually be pastoring somewhere. Maybe you should think about learning from someone with a little more upstairs...
Your reference to "dianedew.com" is a pitiful resource (for your argument) at best.
Tolkien's references to magic in letters #155 refer to:
1. He doesn't really care if "magic" is real
2. "Magic" as it pertains to his stories
I don't see the problem here...please help me see the light?
Letter #131 (now in context - what a novel concept!)
"...Of course there was and is all the Arthurian world, but powerful as it is, it is imperfectly naturalized, associated with the soil of Britain but not with English; and does not replace what I felt to be missing. For one thing its `faerie' is too lavish, and fantastical, incoherent and repetitive. For another and more important thing: it is involved in, and explicitly contains the Christian religion.
For reasons which I will not elaborate, that seems to me fatal. Myth and fairy-story must, as all art, reflect and contain in solution elements of moral and religious truth (or error), but not explicit, not in the known form of the primary `real' world. (I am speaking, of course. of our present situation, not of ancient pagan, pre-Christian days.)... In the cosmogony there is a fall: a fall of Angels we should say. Though quite different in form, of course, to that of Christian myth. These tales are `new', they are not directly derived from other myths and legends, but they must inevitably contain a large measure of ancient wide-spread motives or elements. After all, I believe that legends and myths are largely made of `truth', and indeed present aspects of it that can only be received in this mode; and long ago certain truths and modes of this kind were discovered and must always reappear."
He's talking about the fall in
literary terminology, and he is not arguing the "truthfulness" of the fall of Angels. If you would look in your dictionary...the word "myth" does not imply that the stories are "not true"
myth Pronunciation Key (mth) - Dictionary.Com
n.
1
a. A traditional, typically ancient story dealing with supernatural beings, ancestors, or heroes that serves as a fundamental type in the worldview of a people, as by explaining aspects of the natural world or delineating the psychology, customs, or ideals of society: the myth of Eros and Psyche; a creation myth.
The Letter references to the fact that he was a "Roman Catholic" (Letters #195 & #213) certainly do not preclude him from being "Christian" and it's a ridiculous claim to make. That would also exclude everyone from Augustine & St. Francis of Asissi to G.K. Chesterton and other great Roman Catholic
Christians...not to mention the fact that, as Ridley has stated Anglicans, some Lutherans, and the other Catholic Rites all claim to be "Catholic" as well (big "C" not little "c") ... Which then would have you excluding C.S. Lewis, Martin Luther, etc!
She states that: "Tolkien also wrote illustrated letters to his children as if from Santa Claus - published in a book."
LOL! What kind of bearing does this have on his Christianity?
She seems to say that because he loved Northern mythology, he wasn't a Christian...this is ridiculous as well...just because you read about something doesn't mean that you are *pow* instantly pagan. I love Chinese food...does that make me Chinese?
This has to be one of the best quotes from her silly article: "Interesting note: The literary group (The Inklings) met in a pub. They threw around their ideas while drinking beer."
I wonder what she thinks about Jesus Christ and his disciples drinking wine?! LOL! Her ignorance and (non-biblical) predjudices are ridiculous.
Please reference something that does not take Tolkein horribly out of context and use un-biblical "rules" that the author pulls out of the air to be the demarkation between "Christian" and "Non-Christian"