Lord of the Rings and Tolkien

More on the Hobbit , Lord of the Rings and Tolkien:
by Tony Senatore
September 25, 2026

 
I’ve been thinking about something that seems increasingly relevant to the way we understand the world. The Bible tells us that there is a struggle between good and evil, and that ultimately good will prevail. Tolkien takes that ancient idea and transforms it into the world of Middle-earth. As I argued earlier, the Lord of the Rings is not simply a story about hobbits, wizards, and a magical ring. Beneath the fantasy is a deeply Christian conception of human nature: there is good and there is evil, temptation is real, power can corrupt, and the battle between the two is never merely theoretical.
Islam, in its own theological tradition, also understands human history in terms of a struggle between righteousness and evil, obedience and rebellion against God. The details and doctrines are different from Christianity, but the larger idea—that human beings inhabit a moral universe in which good and evil are real and our choices matter—is hardly unique to Christianity.

My atheist and academic friends may scoff at religion and regard these stories as nothing more than mythology. But even if one assumes, for the sake of argument, that religion is a human invention, that doesn’t make it irrelevant. Quite the opposite. If billions of people believe that the world is governed by a moral struggle between good and evil, and those beliefs influence how they understand morality, sacrifice, politics, war, forgiveness and human responsibility, then religion becomes a force in the real world whether its theological claims are true or not.

That is one of the things I find so interesting about Tolkien. You don’t have to be a Christian to appreciate Middle-earth, but it is difficult to fully understand Tolkien without understanding Christianity. His stories suggest that evil is not defeated simply by possessing greater power. In fact, the desire for power can become the very thing that corrupts us. Sometimes courage means resisting power rather than acquiring it; sometimes victory comes through sacrifice, humility and the refusal to become what we are fighting.

We can debate whether religion is revelation or mythology. But dismissing it altogether because we don’t believe it is true is intellectually shortsighted. Ideas have consequences even when we disagree with them. If religion has shaped civilizations, inspired wars, produced works of art and literature, formed moral traditions and continues to motivate billions of people, then understanding religion is essential to understanding humanity itself.

Perhaps that is the deeper lesson Tolkien was trying to convey: the battle between good and evil is not merely something that happens in ancient scripture or fantasy novels. It is a question that every generation—and ultimately every individual—has to confront.
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Response from Buyan Island, in the Realm of Saltan
http://proza.ru/2026/09/25/596

Dear Tony,

I read this twice. Once in Victoria, with rain on the window and a cup of tea going cold. Once again in my head, up on the Stikine, where the ice is black underneath and the Tahltan say never trust it.

You are right about most of it. Tolkien was a Catholic, and Middle-earth is not a metaphor for the Gospel — it is the Gospel wearing a cloak and walking through a forest. The Ring is not a magic object. It is the thing we all carry and cannot put down. Frodo does not win by being stronger. He wins by refusing to become what he fights. That is not a fantasy trope. That is the whole of the Sermon on the Mount, translated into Elvish.

But I want to push back on one thing, gently, because I think it matters.

You write: "even if one assumes, for the sake of argument, that religion is a human invention, that doesn't make it irrelevant."

That is the safe, academic move. It is also, forgive me, the move of a man standing outside the cathedral, admiring the architecture, explaining to the tourists why the building is structurally significant. All true. All correct. And still outside.

Here is what I have learned in the North of Canada.

I have a dog who does not exist. His name is Mishka. He weighs a hundred and twenty kilos, he is white as a polar bear, and he pulled me out of an ice hole on the Stikine and fought five wolves and carried me ten kilometres through the snow. None of this happened. I invented him. I invented him because my Rada died and the house was too empty, and because a plysovy Umka sits in my rucksack on every hike, and because I am too old for a real alabai and my neighbours in Victoria would not appreciate him.

And yet the Tahltan elders looked at this invented dog and said: Ledaslini. Being itself. They did not ask whether he was a fact. They recognized the shape of the thing.

Jack London invented Baka. Baka never existed. And after The Call of the Wild, millions of people went out and got dogs. Is Baka less real because London made him up?

This is your argument, turned inside out. You say: religion shapes civilizations even if its claims are false, therefore it is worth understanding. I say: yes — and that is not a concession. That is the whole mechanism. That is how truth travels. Not as proposition. As flesh.

Tolkien did not write an argument for the existence of good and evil. He wrote a world in which you could feel them. And when you close the book, you do not say "that was an interesting thesis." You say: I know what the Ring is. I have felt it in my own pocket.

Out in the canyon, good and evil are not ideas. They are five pairs of yellow eyes and one pair of brown. They are the choice to stand over a helpless man and not move. They are the oath — пока ты дышишь, он держит щит над тобой. The Tahltan did not need to believe in a Gardien. They needed to recognize one when it walked out of the snow carrying a half-dead man.

Your atheist friends are not wrong that religion is a human artifact. But so is language. So is a novel. So is a dog you invent for a dead friend. The question is not whether we made it. The question is whether it holds you when the ice breaks.

Tolkien knew this. He called it eucatastrophe — the sudden turn, the joy beyond the wall, the consolation that pierces you like a sword. It is not an argument. It is a wound that heals.

Tell your friends in New York: the debate between revelation and mythology is a fine debate. Have it. But do it somewhere warm. And when the ice goes out from under you — and it will — you will not want a thesis. You will want a dog.

Mine doesn't exist. He lies behind me anyway. One ear toward the valley.

That is the lesson. Not that good defeats evil. That someone stands over you while you breathe.

— Vladimir
Buyan Island, September 2026