The Lord of the Rings and Redemptive Art
TIMOTHY KELLER
7 min read ⭑
This article first appeared in Redeemer Presbyterian Church’s “Redeemer Report” in May 2002. In it, Keller was addressing the people of New York City. We’re republishing it here because it’s full of wisdom and absolutely applicable to non-NYC people, too.
The “Lord of the Rings” by J. R. R. Tolkien, one of the bestselling books of all time, has become one of the biggest movies of all time. Rather than offer a review of either the book or the movie, I’d like to share some tentative reflections on what light the phenomenon of “Lord of the Rings” (LOTR) sheds on our commitment to help Christians “engage culture” in the city.
First, the LOTR volumes (and most of C. S. Lewis’ popular fictional works) were the product of Christian community, not just of individual effort. The Inklings, a group of Oxford Christian academics, met twice weekly in the 1930s and 1940s to support, shape and stimulate one another’s literary output. The main axis of the group was the friendship of Lewis and Tolkien. Originally, Tolkien introduced the atheist Lewis to Christ. Later, however, Lewis “returned the favor” by being the main support for Tolkien’s fiction writing. Biographer Humphrey Carpenter notes this tribute from Tolkien about Lewis: “The unpayable debt that I owe to him was not ‘influence’ as it is ordinarily understood, but sheer encouragement. He was for long my only audience. Only from him did I ever get the idea that my ‘stuff’ could be more than a private hobby.”
Many Christians come to a city like New York to “make a contribution” or “make an impact.” That will not happen unless they are part of a stimulating and supportive Christian community.
Second, LOTR is a great demonstration of the difference between Christian art and propaganda. Many believe “art that does not evangelize, praise or exhort has no place in the kingdom of God or, at best, has an inferior status to confessional works … Also, for many Christians, [overtly] confessional intent overrides artistic concerns … evangelical popular art had a difficult time finding an interested and appreciative audience outside the evangelical market.” Tolkien, however, wrote to a friend in 1953 that “I have not put in, or have cut out practically all references to anything like ‘religion’ in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism.”
Tolkien believed there is an indelible human longing for heroic epic, myth, fairy tale and stories about escape from death, and he simply sought to write a really good story. But, he said, his Christianity affected the original symbolism and shape of the story both unconsciously and consciously. In this sense, his Christian beliefs, of course, influenced his work, but as the fertilizer of his imagination, not in any allegorical or deliberate way. When this happens (assuming the artistic work itself is one of admirable skill and quality), the Christian “messages” have far more impact and do not come across as coercive or manipulative. They become part of the warp and woof of the work.
There are many Christian “messages,” of course, in LOTR. Perhaps most obviously, it has neither a relativistic modern view of evil (e.g., “What is good and evil depends completely on your point of view”) nor a traditional dualistic view of evil (e.g., “There are intrinsically good people and forces and intrinsically evil people and forces in eternal conflict with one another”). Instead, LOTR avoids the simplicity of “good” versus “evil” and gives us a highly nuanced, profoundly biblical view. No one, not even the Dark Lord Sauron or the demonic Balrog, was evil in the beginning. Anyone, even the best and brightest characters, can go evil. In fact, the greatest beings are in more danger of succumbing to the seductive power of self-glorification and lust for power.
As a result, hardly any of the characters in LOTR are the stock “very good” or “very evil” characters of melodrama. Several good characters go bad (Saruman, Denethor, Ted Sandyman), while several going-bad characters are redeemed (Boromir, Theoden), and one ruined character makes progress only to lapse again and perish (Gollum). Even the greatest, Galadriel, has to pass a temptation test in order to purge herself of her ancient over-desire for rule and empire. Without being overtly religious, this world is profoundly Christian, filled with redeemed and redeemable persons, not the one-dimensional heroes and villains of fantasy fiction and popular art.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn put it this way: “Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhlemed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil.”
“In the end, salvation comes not through amassing and exerting power but through suffering and weakness and the giving up of all power.”
Additionally, despite its form as a “heroic quest,” LOTR undermines any belief that salvation can come through self-effort. The movie conveys well the message that evil is overwhelming and inexorable. There is no might or strength or power in the world sufficient to defeat evil. When Gandalf the Grey is resurrected as Gandalf the White, he says, “but Black is mightier still.” Tolkien makes clear that evil cannot be handled by force or simple moral effort, however heroic. As a result, the “quest” in LOTR is really an “anti-quest.” It is not a quest to find something but to lose something. It is taken on not by the strong but by the weak — hobbits. In fact, only the small and weak have any chance to save the world at all.
In the end, salvation comes not through amassing and exerting power but through suffering and weakness and the giving up of all power. The little hero, Frodo, is the complete antithesis of all other ancient heroes of the older mythic pre-histories. He has to become so deeply wounded that he loses the ability to enjoy or live in the world, in order for others to have and keep the world. And at the climactic moment, he doesn’t even have the strength to do the final saving deed. There has to be an intervention — an act of “providence,” as it were! — for the world to be saved. At its heart is one who is a suffering servant, one who triumphs through weakness, one who must fall into the dark so we can live in the light.
Lastly, LOTR gives us a very Christian, non-sentimental kind of hope. It is typical for people to think of LOTR as escapist fantasy, but that is simply not the case. Popular escapist fantasy normally ends with everyone living happily ever after. It is deeply sentimental. After the villains are dispatched, now all is right with the world. By contrast, LOTR is non-sentimental about the inexorable sadness of life. The good people have “fought the long defeat.” No victory over evil ever lasts, since evil always takes a new shape and rises again. Even a victory over evil will result in the loss and fading away of good and beautiful things. Frodo’s wounds will never really heal. Certainly, the elves can go to a beautiful home in the West, but “if there are mallorn-trees beyond the Great Sea, none have reported it.”
Why Is the Book So Sad?
As a Christian, Tolkien knew that sin had marred the world more deeply than we wish to admit. We must not be naive or pin utopian hopes to our own ability to create a safe, successful life for ourselves. As one character observes, “The wide world is all about you; you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot for ever fence it out.”
Even so, LOTR holds out a distant but profound hope of complete renewal and joy. You have to read very carefully, but mainly in the songs and poems we learn about a future consummation in which “the world is mended,” and about reunions at a distant day when “the lands that lie under the wave are lifted up again” and they “may meet in the Spring.” It will be a day when “everything sad will become untrue.” This is neither the sentimental hope that if we just all work together we can build a better world nor existential despair. This is Christian realism, because of sin and joyous consolation — because of the assurance of the coming kingdom of God.
Since they originally “unconsciously” shaped the story, these messages do not demand that the reader convert to Christianity to understand or embrace them. Peter Jackson, the director of the movies, is a man of uncommon artistic skill and integrity, but he shows no evidence of sharing Tolkien’s Christian doctrinal commitments. Nevertheless, in an interview with Charlie Rose, he expressed so much admiration for the power and quality of Tolkien’s work, that he said, “We decided to honor him by not injecting our own messages into the movies, but rather by letting his messages come through without tampering.”
That is remarkable. It shows that Christians may find less hostility to the gospel in the world if we incarnate it with the excellence and imagination that Tolkien did in his art.
Dr. Timothy Keller was the founder of Redeemer Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Manhattan, chairman of Redeemer City to City and co-founder of The Gospel Coalition. He wrote numerous books, including The Reason for God. He and his wife, Kathy, had three children.
Adapted from “The Lord of the Rings and Redemptive Art” by Timothy Keller. Copyright © 2010. User with permission of Redeemer City to City.