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This is part three of a conversation between two authors whose books discuss the faith of J. R. R. Tolkien and the religious values underpinning The Lord of the Rings. Parts one and two appeared on our website earlier this week.

Bradley J. Birzer is assistant professor of history at Hillsdale College in Michigan, where he specializes in the history of the American West, and related topics. His book, J. R. R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle-earth, was just published by ISI Books.

Mark Eddy Smith is a graphic designer at InterVarsity Press, which published his book, Tolkien's Ordinary Virtues: Exploring the Spiritual Themes of The Lord of the Rings, earlier this year. (purchase)

Dear Mark,

What a great response—thought provoking to be sure! I laughed pretty hard when I read your "out of my depth" comment. I felt the exact same when I sent the email (number 2) to you yesterday. I thought, "Oh man, I really hope I got all this right." And, I probably didn't get it all right. But, then, I can give the excuse I got in theology classes most of my life—"well, it's all a mystery." A few years ago, that response frustrated me to no end. Now, it comforts me.

And, writing of mystery, I was particularly fascinated by your discussion of modernity. I'd like to stay there for a bit, as I think it was one of Tolkien's (as well as Lewis's) most important contributions to (well, really against) twentieth-century thought. For a Catholic (and a Christian Humanist such as Lewis), modernism, and hence, modernity is/are brief, fleeting, and, ultimately, in error. There are several reasons: first, pertaining to the above comments, modernity attempts to destroy mystery (that is, the unknowable Good in God's creation) and know all things through science, ideology, and materialist philosophies; second, it divorces faith from culture, and, hence, places man at the center of the universe: "ye too shall be as gods"; third, it attempts to alleviate all suffering on this earth; fourth, through its love of technology and egalitarianism, it mechanizes the human person.

The third point, I think, is the hardest for any of us. I don't think either one of us (or any who are reading this) would want to go to the dentist 100 years ago; so there are things in modernity that aid us greatly. Yet, Tolkien and Lewis believed we were simply pilgrims on this earth—never to become too comfortable here, especially as it manifests a desire for immortality, or at least prolonging our lives as long as possible and fearing death (the temptation of Sauron to man in the Second Age of the mythology). And, our suffering, St. Peter wrote, is a gift to Christ (1 Peter 4:13). Finally, death is simply a gift from God. As Aragorn tells Arwen when he chooses to end his earthly pilgrimage: "Behold! We are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory. Farewell!"

As to the fourth point (and very much related to the first two points): When Harvey Breitt of the New York Times Book Review asked Tolkien in 1955 what made him tick, the then-relatively obscure author responded: "I don't tick. I am not a machine. (If I did tick, I should have no views on it, and you had better ask the winder.)" Tolkien stressed—especially through the Fellowship—that we are each unique individuals, born in a certain time, in a certain place, for a certain purpose—all according to God's Divine Economy. Tolkien wrote that the saints living in the modern world were those "who have for all their imperfections never finally bowed head and will to the world or the evil spirit (in modern but not universal terms: mechanism, 'scientific' materialism, Socialism in either of its factions now at war)." For both thinkers, an attack on man also meant an attack on Creation itself. Radical democracy, by equalizing humans, makes them less than God intended them to be. God, according to Tolkien, loved hierarchy, as he created each thing different, unique, and yet all reflecting his infiniteness.

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December (Web-only) 2002, Vol. 46