The Paradox of J.R.R. Tolkien

Anyone glancing at a list of the works of the now phenomenally popular J. R. R. Tolkien would think him a man of great energy and efficiency. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings alone run to several thousand words. Then he wrote several books of shorter tales, among them Farmer Giles of Ham, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, and Smith of Wootton Major. Add to that his significant contributions to the study of medieval literature, primarily his edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and his seminal essay “Beowulf and the Critics.” For more than thirty years he taught medieval languages and literature at Oxford, which only requires its professors to give thirty-six lectures a year. One year Tolkien gave 136 lectures, and over a ten-year period he averaged seventy-two a year. He kept up a full load of individual tutorials. And he also succeeded in reforming the syllabus of the English department at Oxford—a triumph of patience and politics.

Yet paradoxically Tolkien’s colleagues found him dilatory in scholarly productivity. And his friends, the best known being C. S. Lewis, thought him a procrastinator. At his death in 1973 Tolkien left a vast amount of unpublished material, among which was The Silmarillion, a mammoth work begun long before The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit. Well, that’s not quite accurate, as Humphrey Carpenter explains in the new and authorized biography, Tolkien (Houghton Mifflin, $10). Tolkien had finished too many versions of The Silmarillion and did not know which one to publish.

The Oxford scholar had an obsession to revise and rewrite; nothing was ever quite perfect. And as a result he could never meet deadlines. Publishers and friends nudged, prodded, begged, and pushed him to work consistently and efficiently. They knew he was a man of immense imagination and intellect, but with higgledy-piggledy work habits. With a more singleminded attitude he might have published much more and become one of this century’s most prolific fiction writers. Without the needling of C. S. Lewis Tolkien might never have finished The Hobbit. Fortunately Christopher Tolkien does not share his father’s weakness. Thanks to his efforts we already have The Father Christmas Letters and Tolkien’s final translations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo, all in one volume. His edited version of The Silmarillion is scheduled for American publication this fall (all from Houghton Mifflin).

Carpenter’s felicitously written biography reveals a brilliant though sometimes petty and jealous man. He was disciplined in his practice of Christianity and rigidly kept accounts of household expenses, even down to razor blades and postage stamps. Yet unable to keep his mind on a project until completion he resented Lewis’s ability to write quickly with few revisions needed. Lewis, for example, wrote and published his seven books for children, the Narnia series, in half the time it took Tolkien to plan and write The Lord of the Rings.

Carpenter is a model for other aspiring biographers. Tolkien’s personality, not Carpenter’s, dominates the book. In allowing Tolkien to, in a sense, tell his own story the reader is not only entertained and informed but admonished. Tolkien subtly reminds us that to whom much is given, much is required.

Kenneth Kantzer: A Biographical Sketch

In our last issue (August 26, p. 24) we announced that the Board of Directors of CHRISTIANITY TODAY has elected Kenneth Kantzer to be its next editor. He is to assume full editorial responsibility on the first of March. Our present editor Harold Lindsell, who has served in the position since 1968, will be retiring.

Like his two predecessors, Lindsell and the first editor Carl F. H. Henry, Kantzer comes to the post from a career in theological education. He has been a top administrator at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School since 1963. During that time the seminary, which is located near Deerfield, a northern suburb of Chicago, has grown from a student body of thirty-one to more than 700. In addition to serving as dean and vice-president of graduate studies he is also professor of biblical and systematic theology.

Prior to serving at Trinity Kantzer taught Bible at Wheaton College in another Chicago suburb for seventeen years. The sixty-year old theologian is a minister in the Evangelical Free Church, which has roots in Scandinavian pietism and is the denomination that operates Trinity. Before going to Wheaton College in 1946, Kantzer taught briefly at The King’s College and at Gordon College and Divinity School on the East Coast. He also served as a pastor while at Gordon.

Kantzer is a member of the American Theological Society, the American Academy of Religion, and the Evangelical Theological Society. He has been president of the latter and also served for many years as the book review editor of its journal.

Actively involved with promoting Christianity globally, Kantzer currently serves on the boards of The Evangelical Alliance Mission (TEAM), the China Graduate School of Theology in Hong Kong, and the Institute for Holy Land Studies in Jerusalem.

Published writings by the editor-elect include many articles in various periodicals and essays in several books. Of particular interest is the thirty-page chapter, “Unity and Diversity in Evangelical Faith,” in The Evangelicals edited by David Wells and John Woodbridge and recently reprinted by Baker Book House. He also has essays in Religions in a Changing World, Inspiration and Interpretation, The Word for This Century, and Jesus of Nazareth: Savior and Lord. He is the editor of a forthcoming volume, Evangelical Roots, to be published by Thomas Nelson as a tribute to the late Wilbur M. Smith. Smith was a colleague of Henry’s and Lindsell’s at Fuller Seminary before moving to Trinity where he served with Kantzer.

Kantzer earned a bachelor’s degree at Ashland College, in Ohio, the school of the Brethren Church, a small denomination with German pietist roots and Arminian leanings. His theological degrees are from Faith Theological Seminary, a Calvinist school that has close ties with the Bible Presbyterian Church. He has a master’s degree from Ohio State and a Ph.D. from Harvard. He engaged in post-doctoral studies at Göttingen and Basel universities in Europe.

The directors and staff of CHRISTIANITY TODAY look forward to Kenneth Kantzer’s coming. We are confident that our readers will appreciate him, too. As he said in his acceptance statement he comes “with a deep sense of dependence upon God and upon the prayers of God’s people.”

A Time Apart

Most Christians are either too busy or too unconcerned to care much about the solitary life. But the follower of Jesus must temporarily withdraw from the frenetic tempo of the world to pursue holiness. Everybody needs a change of pace. Even the deepest devotion of the Christian to the work of God must include time for solitude, time for refreshment of spirit, and time to regain spiritual vitality.

The Scripture speaks of Jesus’ attitude toward the busy life and his own need for a recess from the heavy demands on his time and energy: “He went up into a mountain apart to pray” (Matt. 14:23). The word “apart” indicates his need to get away from it all and to commune in secret with his Father. He was not deserting the battle nor was he lazy. He knew that what he was doing was an essential component of the normal Christian life. If he did it, and if he needed it, we need it too.

Some thoughts of Thomas Á Kempis in The Imitation of Christ are apt:

“Seek a convenient time to retire unto thy self, and mediate often upon God’s lovingkindness.

“Meddle not with curiosities; but read such things as may rather yield compunction to thy heart, than occupation to thy head.

“If thou wilt withdraw thyself from speaking vainly, and from gadding idly, and also from hearkening after novelties and rumours, thou shalt find leisure enough and suitable for meditation on good things.

“The greatest Saints avoided the society of men, when they could conveniently, and did rather choose to live to God, in secret.”

Those who go away, return to find they can think clearer, work better, see plainer, and live for God more nobly. Why not try it?

As we expected, the Minister’s Workshop article by J. Grant Swank, Jr., provocatively entitled “Counseling Is a Waste of Time” (July 29 issue) evoked considerable response. Here are excerpts from some of the letters. We knew that many of our readers have had more positive experience in this area than Swank. It is noteworthy that some fault Swank for being too “directive” in his understanding of counseling while others charge him with not being “directive” enough.

The problem is that the kind of pastoral counseling we are doing does not produce fruit. The key in his article was the word “traditional.” May I suggest to Swank and others that they try directive biblical counseling. We use it on a daily basis and have seen many cures effected.

EDWARD E. GREY, SR.

Director of Counseling

Christian Broadcasting Network

Atlanta, Ga.

Our culture teaches us that in order to be successful in any pursuit, a person must learn the proper role. The successful helping relationship is characterized by the absence of role. For one who has not experienced this, it is well nigh impossible to imagine it. Emphasis on techniques and acting in the role of “pastoral counselor” work to destroy a helping relationship rather than facilitating it.

It is my opinion that “traditional pastoral counseling” is, in great part, an exercise in avoiding the deep, time-consuming human interactions, wherein people’s lives are changed—both pastor’s and parishioner’s.

ROGER SWANGO

Clinical Psychologist

Coldwater State Home

Coldwater, Mich.

During the first five years of my practice I would have eagerly echoed Swank’s comments. I grew weary of placing band-aids over wounds that could never heal unless radical surgery was performed. I was then confronted with the relevance and applicability of God’s Word to man’s problems … So, no longer do I perform counseling, but biblical counseling, participating with God in surgery.…

The Holy Spirit, as Paraclete, is the counselor; it is not my duty to produce insight, change, success, but the Holy Spirit’s. It is my duty under his leadership to direct people to God’s solutions, but the Holy Spirit must bring the truths to the person’s heart, just as in salvation.…

Counseling is not just talking or listening; it is the directing of persons to biblical solutions to their problems under the leadership of the Holy Spirit. It is not idle talk, but purposeful, directive, pointed, loving confrontation from God’s Word as to our errors and biblically-based steps to correction.…

I don’t have to wrestle with another’s will; that’s the Holy Spirit’s job. I must simply and appropriately direct a person into biblical truth. Yes, it may be unrewarded effort, but I’m not to work based on reward, but on my love for the Lord and a willingness to fulfill his calling for my life.

DANIEL F. MAYER

Marriage and Family Counselor

Winston-Salem, N.C.

As pastors and preachers, we are expected to express the Word of God forcefully and convincingly, as the Scripture says, “to exhort and to teach.” All too often though, I am afraid that we transfer the same authoritarian concept from preaching into counseling. Swank seems to have the idea that pastoral counseling is giving advice. Only the most superficial pastoral counseling is advice giving, and any counselor who gives advice knows from the beginning the risk he runs that his ideas may be rejected.

Perhaps the most important rule of pastoral counseling is don’t give advice. If a person, on the basis of compassion or caring, thinks that giving advice is helping someone out of the morass of his troubles, he quickly learns that true help in counseling is to allow the counselee to come to an understanding of his needs and his ideas about those needs which in process brings him to decision.…

Any counseling relationship, no matter how superficial, can be structured by the counselor and if the counselor does not structure the relationship, the counselee will. It is essential for any healthy counseling process that the pastor be in control.… Too often the pastor does not delineate between his pastoral caring and his pastoral counseling responsibilities. Although it is appropriate to have a rather unstructured pastoral care situation, it is not appropriate to have an unstructured counseling relationship.

DONALD K. NORRIS

Jackson Ave. Evangelical Congregation

New Orleans, La.

Swank correctly points out some of the difficulties of pastoral counseling, but he does not seem to understand that those who need emotional help the most are often completely unable to act like a strong, stable individual, which is what the advice giver asks him to do. Counseling for the emotionally weak or unstable person must help him to make his own decisions (give himself advice), and then provide the necessary support so he can follow through. Giving advice usually results in a greater burden of guilt and despair for the person who is unable to act in the prescribed manner.

DORANCE D. CALHOUN

Brethren in Christ Church

Morrison, Ill.

Christian pastoral counseling is helping persons get a perspective on their problems, sort out their options, find the resources to meet their needs, and then decide what they are going to do about them. For me to tell them what to do makes me responsible for their action. For me to help them find what to do under God places the responsibility for their life’s decisions on them. They will then carry out what they choose to do. My primary task as counselor is to help them to see what the consequences of each of the options open to them are.

I, too, have spent hours helping persons struggle through the thorny problems of their lives. I have seen some count the cost of change and like the rich young ruler go away disappointed. But those who have struggled through to make significant commitments to solving their problems have been very much worth the time and effort I have put in.

JIMMY JOSEPH

Baptist Campus Minister

Middle Tennessee State University

Murfreesboro, Tenn.

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