One of the best podcasts on Tolkien (apart from, naturally, my own) is run by an Orthodox priest, and frequently interviews guests from the same faith tradition. Their discussions are often illuminating, are always vibrant, and are even, in many cases, enjoyable from the point of view of a non-religious reader. Their lengthy consideration of the Túrin story, is, to take one example, both in-depth and humanistic in the best sense; they take Túrin seriously as a character and eschew, in general, an easy pat answer to the question of why (in this particular story) Tolkien’s god allows the characters to suffer so egregiously, toward no apparent end. At Reading Tolkien, we have also considered Túrin’s story, and no doubt we will approach it again, at some point. But there’s a big (unanswered) question at the heart of the Orthodox Amon-sûl podcast: why do the hosts restrict themselves only to other Orthodox believers?
Don’t get me wrong, my fellow Tolkien podcasters are welcome to pursue any interview strategy that they might wish, and are welcome to invite on and converse with as expansive or as limited a group of people as they wish. But I still think that the question is worth asking. Why, in 2021, is one of the best Tolkien podcasts out there run by an Orthodox priest who only interviews other Christian (and usually Orthodox) believers? Tolkien is the most popular author in the world by some metrics. Surely we ought to expect our fan-run podcasts to reflect this. But a cursory glance at other fancasts repeats the picture: most are Christian, either explicitly, or they are run by Christians whose faith-commitments are directly implicated in their responses to Tolkien’s work. Again, this is not by itself worth noting, except that it is so ubiquitous: why, again, are so many podcasts either explicitly or implicitly motivated to read Tolkien through religious lenses? There is the obvious answer that Tolkien was himself a Catholic; not by itself a controversial statement at all, but one which is often repeated as though to imply that any readings of Tolkien’s works which take a non-religious approach are by default less worthwhile, or reliable. Another answer might be that Tolkien’s own work is highly congruent with the Christain faith because it presents a sense of hope and awe; unlike, say, Dune, it lacks the cynical patina of postmodern atheism, and therefore reaffirms, in no uncertain terms, the beliefs of the beleaguered faithful. This is more or less the answer that Richard Rohlin (a sometimes co-host of the Amon-sûl podcast) gives in their latest episode. At about the 29 minute mark, Rohlin suggests that Tolkien reifies a god-centred view of the cosmos, presumably in the face of an indifferent and “neo-pagan” modern-world. Rohlin charges that the modern Western world has lost its “poetic language”; Tolkien therefore created his own in the characters, languages and cultures of his imagined universe. Tolkien helps us to re-sacralise our world, in a decidedly Christian direction.
Other scholars have disputed this general reading, including Verlyn Flieger, herself a doyenne of Tolkien studies. In her essay ‘The Arch and the Keystone’, Flieger notes that the oft-quoted Letter 142, in which Tolkien states that The Lord of the Rings is “fundamentally Catholic”, should be read in light of a later letter sent by its recipient to another reader. This letter, dated 1980, offers a nuanced, if sometimes rather dark, picture of Tolkien’s relationship with his faith. Father Robert Murray, priest and author of the letter, offers this appraisal of Tolkien:
Tolkien was a very complex and depressed man and my own
opinion of his imaginative creation [The Lord of the Rings] is that it projects his
very depressed view of the universe at least as much as it reflects his Catholic
faith
I’m a fan of this quote, because it clearly tempers the ardour witch which many believers latch on to Letter 142, and offers a gentle reminder: Tolkien was more than his religious beliefs. More than that, I think it offers a way in for secular fans. Tolkien was multifaceted, and merely appealing to his religious convictions fails to capture the essence or nuance of his fiction. There is something else (or many other somethings) going on.
Christian readings of Tolkien are valid, of course, but in some instances they can shade into bigotry. The same podcast above talks in terms of “neo-pagans” as though they were the spawn of the devil, which I suppose they sort of are, according to this worldview. But questions about (for example) the utility, adaptability and even the moral character of some readings, like those offered here regarding ‘queer’ readings of the Frodo-Sam relationship, are often asked by Christian readers uncomfortable with the implications that their favourite ‘moral’ author might be read in a manner which seems to speak against their stringent view of how, where and when the cultural products that they consume should advocate for ‘lifestyles’ which they find sinful or abhorrent. Tolkien wasn’t writing about gay relationships, they say. Surely not, in any direct sense, but perhaps he was more aware of them than some readings of his novels are wont to admit. Likewise, the urge to classify Tolkien as a basically apologetic writer has meant that Christians sometimes approach his writings as they do those of CS Lewis: as in part answers to difficult questions put to them by non-believers. Why do good people suffer? Well, god has a plan, and Tolkien writes about it in the Ainulindalë. Let’s not think about the troubling implications of Túrin story, for example, or if we must consider it, let’s make sure that we can fit it back into the peg of Christian responses to suffering. I granted above that the Amon-sûl podcast at least gives Túrin a fair hearing; but they do sometimes struggle to understand why Tolkien might have been moved to write it at all. Doesn’t Christianity teach that suffering is ‘soul-building’, to use contemporary philosophical jargon; aren’t the answers to those sorts of questions already built in to the fabric of the faith? I want to say that, for Tolkien, they were perhaps on some occasions, and perhaps on others he found those answers wanting. Hence works like The Children of Húrin or ‘The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen’ which eschew tidy religious readings.
I’ll have more to say about this in future posts, and as I review the new Nature of Middle-earth volume in a future podcast with Daniel Stride (look out for that!). In the meantime, I would urge Christian readers of Tolkien to consider their non-religious peers. Might it not be fun to interview one of them, for a change?