Lord of the Rings Provides Christian Values, Witnessing Opportunities

Last week was Spiritual Life week, and it got me thinking about different ways for Christians to make the gospel message accessible to non-Christians.

Recently, I was in a conversation about Christian elements one can find in The Lord of the Rings. The author, J. R. R. Tolkien, was a Christian, but The Lord of the Rings has had huge success in both Christian and non-Christian circles. One reason is because it is a good story; both the books and the movies make an imaginative and moving fantasy tale. Though it wasn’t intended to lead its readers to Christianity, the author’s Christian worldview undeniably influenced the work, at first unintentionally, but more consciously as he revised.

I suppose this discussion usually mentions things like Gandalf’s "resurrection" after falling down the chasm of Khazad Dûm, or Aragorn’s being heir to Isildur’s broken line, just as Christ inherited the bereft throne of David.

What interests me more are the values that come from The Lord of the Rings, such as nobility, integrity, loyalty, and humility. High respect is given to the wise and experienced, like Elrond and Gandalf. The cursed men of Gondor were not free until they fulfilled their duty to defend their nation. I wonder if the value of integrity has diminished in our broader American culture.

It doesn’t seem bad in our movies for protagonists to slip up in their integrity. There’s even some difference between The Lord of the Rings movies and the books on this matter. For example, The Two Towers movie diverges from the text when Faramir takes Frodo and Sam to Osgiliath. It may have added interest to Faramir’s character, but it also took away from his integrity. I think Frodo himself is displayed with less integrity in the movies. It’s true that in the books the Ring overtook him as time went on, but he never rejected Sam’s loyalty, as he did in the third film. In my opinion, telling his friend to go home would require later apology for being rash.

Yet the movies did do well at showing the bond between Frodo and Sam, the kind of bond that develops when persons share in an experience of suffering together—we might call it love, and compare it with the suffering of Christ or the martyrs. We must remember that the Ring represents not only the world’s burden, but also sin, and the characters respond to the ring much as we respond to sin or temptation. I don’t think Frodo failed his mission. Any human would have done the same, and yet we see Grace in the providence of "the One" (creator of Middle Earth), who intertwined Gollum’s role for good. Overall, Tolkien incorporates both free choices and destiny in a riveting way, but that’s another discussion.

In addition, our culture tends to make heroes out of larger-than-life characters, like the X-Men or the Terminator. Aragorn might exemplify such a hero, but The Lord of the Rings also makes heroes out of 4-foot Halflings. I Cor. 1:27 says, "God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong." Jesus was a King, yes, but he came to earth as a humble servant, not a superhero. Taking the ring to Mordor was not the obvious, nor the easy route, but neither was the cross of Christ.

How does this relate to Spiritual Life week? John Fischer mentioned looking for truth in our culture. Since the movies came out, The Lord of the Rings has certainly impacted our culture, and it opens a discussion in which Christians could take part. For example, a Christian in conversation with a non-Christian Tolkien fan could use the work as a tool to explain some of our values. Not that this is only possible with Christian works, but The Lord of the Rings provides a particularly interesting example, well respected in the secular world, to talk about faith.

Caleb can be reached at caleb.yoder@emu.edu for further discussion.