It blows my mind that Christians sometimes have an aversion to LotR, since Tolkien was a devout Catholic and LotR is like....really wholesome imo. The moral current within the books is a huge part of what gives his works so much beauty

A fellow Catholic once asked me what my favourite book/author was and when I replied "Anything by Tolkien", they responded with "what a typical Catholic answer" haha

So many of the themes of the Lord of the Rings point towards Christian doctrine. I remember when I first watched the Peter Jackson films as a 13 yr old, seeing Bilbo argue with Gandalf over giving up the one ring "I'm not here to rob you... I'm trying to help you." That's Jesus offering to take our sins away. It's a powerful moment in the story and one that resonates with me in my walk with the Lord even to this day

For those who think all fantasy is anti Christian, I'd ask them to explain the high medieval Arthurian legends, especially the Quest for the Holy Grail.

Melon Geek: Years ago, I had to write a lengthy defense of Tolkien to defend this Catholic author who was being attacked. This attacker was using a "Bible Christian" site to claim Tolkien's works were full of witchcraft, etc. ad nauseam. I had to make a point-by-point refutation using not only the legendarium, but also Tolkien's Letters and books written in those early days of the 1970s that illuminated Tolkien's Catholic underpinnings for his works. The main premise of these types of Christian arguments seems to be that if you're writing anything, it has to be dogmatic and strictly based on Scripture. This I refuted by demonstrating that fantasy, i.e., fairytales, have been used since ancient times to teach moral lessons. Nobody ever mistook fairytales for literal magic from the diabolical. Tolkien did not let out his underlying purposes in writing till his stories made him famous. As you rightly said, he wanted to write a "rousing good story." But after a while, the interviewers got out of him the symbolic "types" he used, like lembas being a type of the Eucharist, and Galadriel being a type of the Blessed Virgin. Tolkien despised allegory such as Lewis' Narnia. But that didn't stop him from employing these literary types in order to convey a deeper theological meaning. "In making a myth, in practicing 'mythopoeia,' and peopling the world with elves and dragons and goblins, a story-teller . is actually fulfilling God's purpose, and reflecting a splintered fragment of the true light." [J.R.R. Tolkien, Quoted by Colin Gunton, Professor of Christian Doctrine in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at King's College, London. His article first appeared in the King's Theological Review (Vol. 12, No 1), in 1989. Included as a chapter in Tolkien: A Celebration, edited by Joseph Pearce (London: Fount, 1999), page 130]. The good professor is here explaining the work of a Catholic storyteller. In other words, it is the duty of the educated Catholic author to bring to bear his God-given talents in order to promote, in as far as his vocation allows, the universal truth. There is much more that could be said. I commend you, dear Geek, for tackling this controversial topic. Namarie.

I once saw an even broader version of the "fantasy is bad" idea. When I was a kid, a lady in our church told my father that it bothered her that her daughter like reading fiction, simply because, well, fiction is "lies." My father (who was an elder in the church and is the one who introduced me to science fiction and fantasy) replied, "But you know the parables are fiction. It's not like there really was a prodigal son, or seven foolish maidens invited to a wedding party. Jesus used fiction." And she was candid enough to say, "Yes, I know. I just wish He hadn't."

I’ll never forget a similar discussion amongst friends. One was saying how his son was reading Harry Potter and one of our friends piped in saying he didn’t allow his kids to read Harry Potter or other fantasy books like Lord of the Rings. The dad whose son was reading Harry Potter asked the critic if he had read his kids the Chronicles of Narnia. He had, to which HP dad reminded him that Aslan, the Christ character, literally cites Deep Magic and Deeper Magic as the thing that brought him back to life. Critic Dad thankfully lets his kids read LotR and Harry Potter now lol

It was written by a devout Christian and is the most wholesome fiction ever written lol

Gandalf as a Wizard seems to be taken from the original Middle English conception of that term as "wise-man", or "one who judges rightly", rather than "old man with dark occultic powers".

As a Protestant who normally shies away from typical modern fantasy, I love LOTR. I even teach it as literature at a local Christian school because it so exemplifies the virtue and character I would like to see in students.

As a Christian, a very conservative Bible believing Christian I find that most people in my circle love Tolkien's writings.

What has always been interesting to me is that both Christians and Pagans that I know feel a deep connection to these stories and see their faiths in them.

I feel that any religious person who is already coming to this with such a staunch, close-mindedness mentality is probably not someone who would likely end up enjoying LotR or HP even if he or she ended up giving it a chance, so what's the point in trying to convince them?

Still easier than trying with Dungeons and Dragons.

It’s not hard. Just tell them Tolkien wrote it from a Catholic perspective. Tolkien openly admitted as much. You can see similarities for the one God, angels, Satan, demons, etc. He just incorporated a little Nordic mythology into it. The purpose of LOTR and all the other works of Tolkien was to briefly give the reader an escape from the real world into a fantasy world where things make sense and the line between good and evil is clearly drawn. It’s perfect for calming the chatter in your mind before bedtime. I believe his work was meant to be therapeutic for the mind. I know it has been for me.

Thank you for your time and thought in making this video. I'd like to add a couple of thoughts.... with basic english and not resorting to Tolkienese. First, magic users in fiction either have an innate ability or step beyond their natural gifts. Tolkien gave each race certain capabilities. To non elves, the elven abilities are called magic... but to elves it is just what they do. The same is true for dwarves, et al. Gandalf is an angel.... therefore his abilities are angelic and will appear to be magic to the hobbits, et al. In Tolkien's expanded stories produced by his son, many humans actively pursue non-innate abilities... immortality, necromancy, witchcraft, telepathy.... these abilities are not natural to humans and are attempted by contracting with fallen angels. Therefore a person using a natural ability is good and natural according to it's kind. But a person using unnatural abilities due to help from demons is evil. Second, Tolkien's theology of creation is dramatically described by his son. Tolkien's universe is completely and unalterably monotheistic. An uncreated creator gives all and sustains all. Almost every other fantasy setting (and every single D&D setting) I've come across is not creationist. Duality and pantheism are the two most dominant setting for literature. Other settings include animism, spiritism, the Force, collective intelligence, and every other theology/cosmology imaginable. After reading The Silmarillion, Tolkien's work is inescapably creationist.... though without reading Tolkien's son's works, it is possible to not know this. Third, the Christology of The Lord of the Rings is unmistakable to me. While different views of the themes of the work are proposed... ecology, technology, fate, providence, morality, multiculturalism, friendship, power, temptation, sin, and more.... the three types of Christ see most obvious to me. These are the three main offices of ancient Israel that typefy the messiah... prophet, priest and king. The function of these reveal how God interacts with his people. The prophet brings the word of God... good or bad, harsh or kind... the prophet resolutely tells the people of God. He appears unexpectedly. He disappears quickly. Often, he does not have a home... he wanders... almost blown by the wind or the breath of God. Gandalf fulfills this aspect of the messiah. He always turns up and brings the news, good and bad. Either way, his purpose is to turn people's hearts towards hope. Gandalf rarely does magic, but he always instills a desire to do better... in the Shire, in Rivendell, in Rohan, in Gondor, at the Black Gate. People always have a change of heart or take a courageous stand when Gandalf shows up. Bilbo, Frodo, Sam, Gimli, Legolas, Merry, Pippin, and Denethor all make the most definitive choices of their lives after Gandalf shows up. Next is the priest. A priest's job is to get the people into a correct relationship with God. He makes the sacrifices. He presents himself as the middle man. His work makes the people righteous before God. This is sometimes seen as the most important job of the messiah. The messiah makes himself the sacrifice. He brings the people into God's presence with his very death. In Tolkien's work, Frodo is the priest. He voluntarily goes to destroy the Ring. No one makes him do this. The destruction of the Ring will bring the people back into correct living. Frodo accepts that this will result in his own death. Now this analogy breaks down because Frodo does not die. But Tolkien cannot have Frodo's death be the atonement because Frodo is mortal. The messiah is God, therefore his death as a sacrifice lasts for eternity, while also being human means it applies to humans. Frodo, as a hobbit (human subspecies) and not divine, cannot die for anyone.... it is the destruction of the Ring, the symbol and the embodiment of temptation and evil, that brings healing. The last of Tolkien's types of Christ is the king. The purpose of a king is to establish peace and justice for the people. Peace means safety from outside attack. Justice is the application of the law to all people.... regardless of their gender, ethnicity, age, and beliefs. This is the easiest of the types of the messiah to identify due to the last of the trilogy being titles The Return of the King. Aragorn is the king. After Gandalf has kindled the hearts of the free peoples and Frodo has destroyed the Ring, it is Aragorn's job to fill the power void and provide the structure for people to continue to courageously live. Peace and justice are the two ways to accomplish this. There are other clues for Aragorn as well... prophecy, the presumed dead (yet only hidden) royal lineage, and multiple physical signs of authority (an ancient ring, a broken sword, and a dead tree). If people claim that The Lord of the Rings is anti-Christian, then they have not read it. To me the inescapable conclusion is that cultures and nations are at war within and without, yet the only hope is for a messiah to perform his three offices. Tolkien believed that people who seek God will respond to the prophet, will work with the priest, and will follow the king.

I'm a Christian, and I approve this video. 😁

Here is a simple way to put it for the stubborn: "Lord of the rings is a story where an Angel (Gandalf) is sent to guide a group of mortals against the forces of the Devil (Sauron). In this quest the Angel guides one man to desttoy an artifact created by the Devil, and has to defeat one of his fallen brothers (Sauruman), and bring the light of God into the hearts of the world once more".

Every time you post I'm glad you didn't give up on this channel. Thanks!

I've never met a Christian who disapproved of LotR. Tolkien was a devout Christian and there are countless biblical allegories in his stories. He even played a large role in C.S. Lewis' conversion to Christianity.

LOTR is the greatest Christian novel ever written aside from the Bible. It is awash in biblical scripture.

Ironically, im an atheist, and i almost quit reading due to its rather religious themes. Good and evil, redemption, resurrection, and sinas well as a creator God and a fall are among the subtext. Personally it was too Christian for me. I realized i could just enjoy the story

I think the Tolkien Geek here hit on a chronic problem in my community (professing Bible-believing Protestants): terrible understanding of theory of literature, and specifically of genre analysis. It is always amazing to sit in Bible studies and hear the absolute worst manglings of Scripture take place from well-meaning people who jump to “iNtErPrEt ThE bIbLe LiTeRaLlY” without taking a second to try to ask themselves how the particular passage they want to discuss SHOULD be interpreted. A lot of the same interpretive issues there bleed over into these kinds of discussions and I am sorry you and your wife had to even discuss it.

I think the guy’s response is more reflective of general, invincible boomer logic (or lack thereof) than it is necessarily indicative of evangelical sentiments towards Catholics.

This video just popped up on my timeline, to my surprise, because I thought you’d taken a long break from KZfaq! It appears I’ve missed months of content without knowing it. 😳 Anyway, glad you’ve returned!

Latter Day Saint(or "Mormon")here, and Lord of the Rings is my All-Time favorite fantasy!😁😁😁🥰

Very interesting topic for a video. I myself identify as an evangelical Christian, yet I have never come across any of the Christians that your wife encountered. To the contrary, everyone to whom I have talked about Tolkien always had positive things to say.

They think the book is religiously dangerous? When my family first moved into the Southern US, they told us that Catholicism was evil. Tolkien wouldn't stand a chance.

As a Christian who's had this convo with my mom far too many times, I clicked so fast lol On a serious note, I genuinely find the best fantasy is beneficial to my faith. I'll find fodder for theological musings in anything, but I really love when a work of fiction has enough for me to really dig deep. Tolkien's works are the best I've ever found for that.

5:08 St. Thomas Aquinas is fairly clear, angels do have power over matter, not internal structure, that's God's domain, but movements and that would involve those that would light a fire. The problem with this route is that this type of Evangelicals is usually not very open to St. Thomas Aquinas either. A Fundie who is, like Jonathan Sarfati, isn't likely to be this level of anti-Catholic or anti-Tolkien.

I’m a conservative Christian, and I approve this video.

Interesting video. I think if I knew anyone who needed this sort of convincing, I would very shortly not be associating with them anymore, but I enjoyed the video regardless. Thanks for all the quality content.

An excellent presentation. Good work! xxx

Thank you for the analysis. I am christian and never made a secret of being a die hard Tolkien fan. And also I got a lot of shitstorm from my brethren through the years (interestingly never from any pastor). And I used the same arguments with more or less success. Star Wars is also on the hit list of these people, and I love that too (at least the pre-Disney movies and expanded universe)

20:06 The witch craze is not Medieval. If you could take an i-phone to 1300 and to 1500, but you wanted to know which one was safer, 1300 is the bet.

It's mind-boggling that there are still people so desperately worried about fictional media. Honestly, I don't think literary analysis can save most people like this, because their problem is a toxic worldview that has corrupted their approach to media and the world at large. It's hard to reason with someone who is dogmatically opposed to the very concept of imagination. It's coming from a preoccupation (obsession?) with identifying and condemning things for being heretical. Heck, even pointing out how Tolkien's Catholic faith influenced Lord of the Rings could outright backfire. People like this are likely to have _certain opinions_ about Catholics...

I wrote a paper in high school on the Christian themes of The Lord of The Rings. I don’t remember most of my paper on this other than the lambas bread is like sacrament/communion.

Im a practicing Catholic and love LoTR.

how the fuck do they not know how catholic Tolkein is? Gandalf is a friggin angel! what?

Interesting topic. The thing about good fantasy and science fiction is that it provides a recognisable world with slightly different rules and assumptions that allow us to explore deep themes about human nature, existence, religion, philosophy etc. at a slight remove from day to day life. I think Tolkien understood this at a deep level when he talked about 'man' as sub creator.

Star Trek, especially the original series, had tons of psionic beings, beings who had such strong mental powers that they were able to create illusions, teleport people, etc. It also had an alien who claimed to be the Greek God Apollo, able to seize a star ship in its orbit and shot lightning bolts. Granted, his power was based on technology, but still. The Next Generation has Q. Enough said.

I like the Star Wars analogy

I feel like most Christians are more inclined to incorporate LOTR into the unofficial Canon like Paradise Lost, Dante's Inferno or the Curious Tale of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young.

Orthodox Christian here, never heard anybody calling LoTR satanic. Heard plenty about Harry Potter, though. (Honestly, examining Harry Potter, and J.K Rowling herself, I thinks it's true) Tolkien and C.S. Lewis are really well liked in Orthodoxy, despite being heterodox. C.S. Lewis especially, most of us would consider him the closest a man can get to being Orthodox, without being Orthodox, so we like him a lot. Though, to be honest, when Orthodox people call something satanic we aren't really that... Hype up about it. Pretty much anything _can_ be satanic, even, or rather especially, things that seem good. We're more relaxed about it, is what I mean. A Protestant would be ranting and raving about how something is satanic, an Orthodox person would just state "Yeah, its satanic. Is what it is". We aren't as... Maniacal about it. At the risk of getting a little preachy, I honestly think it's because they themselves are satanic. The Holy Spirit brings calm and clarity, not rage and... Whatever the heck it is that Pentacostals do with throwing themselves around like they're reenacting a scene from the Exorcist. Also, satanic doesn't just mean "satan worshipping", it means "anything that isn't of God". Atheism, Paganism, Manosphere, Ancap, Communism etc are all equally satanic.

I found two Necromancer references in the Bible, both in the Old Testament. Deuteronomy 18:11 tells us that God find necromancy to be an abomination. Leviticus 20:27 says, "A man or woman who is a medium or a necromancer shall surely be put to death."

I've come across Christians who take this kind of line about Star Wars, but not any who do it with LOTR. The Force,and the Jedi religion are heavily influenced by Eastern religions, and they play that aspect of the Star Wars films up a lot.

19:20 Depends on which season. By now there are seasons of Star Trek where characters have spiritual symbiotes, which sounds _really_ like "familiar spirit" .... The discussion is kind of interesting. When I was in my heighday writing a fan fiction involving both CSL and JRRT characters, I concluded, The Lost Road can't involve true time travel to real past times because it contradicts Biblical history (JRRT was obviously alive at a point when Catholic clergy in the West started getting too loose on this one), but God creating Narnia is fine, since pretending He couldn't would go against the condemnation of thesis 34 in Bishop Tempier's Syllabus. However, since then there is a problem with Narnia too. Not with reading, since I can't deny both works have helped to deepen my faith, and keep me in the faith, but in writing on same premisses. To CSL, Aslan is a "parallel incarnation" of God the Son, in another universe. The problem is stating there could be another universe for which the Incarnation in Nazareth / Bethlehem _weren't valid._ That's not all. I tried to get around that by pushing instead the narrative that in the world of Narnia, Jesus, in a human body, is present under the accidents of the body of a talking lion. Catholic theology, no problem. The problem is, this approach contradicts the words in CSL's actual books, most notably the dialogue between Aslan and Bree in HHB. So, I got stuck.

26:26 _"Without even paying attention to the Silmarillion."_ Did you know some Russian Orthodox have tried to argue Tolkien's work is Gnostic, therefore heretic, _because_ they looked at Ainulindale? Now, the key point here is "creation by someone other than God" ... That priest and Aquinas agree this could not happen. However, Aquinas would have said, if God granted me to create or shape creation in some way, this would still not be _me_ creating, this would be God creating, because God was the one giving actual being to the thing I had thought up. Here is the point, Tolkien absolutely does NOT violate that, good Thomist as he is. But to some of _those_ guys Tolkien and Aquinas are _both_ offlimits.

As an American Catholic who once had to explain that Catholicism is a form of Christianity to a nondenominational Protestant (and then had to explain the Reformation, lol) I laughed a little too hard at the part about Tolkien having been a devout Catholic maybe not helping your case with a lot of these people.

There is also a conspiracy going around (I still don't know where they get it from) that both Lewis and Tolkien were part of the Golden Dawn.

I’d have expected it to be the other way round as most discussions (or other KZfaq channels) tend to ‘safely’ acknowledge Tolkien’s Catholicism and that it influenced his writings but quickly move on to something else. I don’t know if that’s because non-Christians don’t want to offend anyone talking about something they’re not really involved in maybe. I’m not a Christian but I’ll happily find out anything to do with LotR.

I was raised in a Baptist and Catholic family, but have become agnostic as time progressed as I got tired of not being able to question anything with respect to blind belief; I love Christian morals, but not a blind follower worldview. If some Christians, and other religions, want to criticize the brilliant Tolkien as a heretic, he's more than welcome to join the rest of us apostates who support his beautiful and inspiring work, which, in my opinion, is far "holier" than the loons who defame him. People worried about "witchcraft", which is fantastical, and wizards (who are almost always a force of good) are nuts. Even if a human, or angel or elf, could perform magic, that does not by definition make them evil objectively, how they use it would.

I have a much more basic method. When somebody complains that Tolkien or his work are anti-Christian, I simply ignore everything that person says subsequently.

I'm just a plain Christian as you would find in the New Testament and I love LOTR! In fact, Gollum is one of my favorite Middle Earth characters. Bilbo being the other.

Someone picky could see Aragorn controlling/commanding the dead men as necromancy

I have yet to have a pastor that doesn’t occasionally reference the Lord of the Rings lol.

The Lord of The Rings and the Silmarillion were both very useful and inspiring in my own faith in Christ. When other Christians make ignorant claims, dismissive or ridiculous comments about Tolkien and his work, I pretty much stop taking their commentary on anything very seriously. Not very charitable of me, but it’s the default reaction I have.

Trying to persuade such people is a complete waste of time. Once they learn that the God in Tolkien's stories is named Eru rather than Jehovah, they'll scream blasphemy.

As a Christian... If someone is afraid of Harry Potter or Lord of the rings, they are beyond repair. Some people you should just forget about, it's not worth trying to convince them of anything.

16:48 _"dragons, trolls"_ Dinosaurs, nephelim.

"Future fiction" ... I think there is a word for that, "speculative fiction", where the setting is an advanced future, but the story isn't about the technology.

D&D came out around 72 or 73(without looking it up) At the same time that a reawakening of Christian movement called The Way. This was a youthful movement which i ascribed to and rejected D&D as being occult. I was so disappointed in that aspect!!😊

I am Catholic and I indeed share this. Amazing, mellon!

As a Christian, Tolkien’s Middle Earth is a BEAUTIFUL work of art described in all his books. It(specifically the Silmarillian. It reads like the KJVB) have very obvious Christian themes or are like stories from scripture.

Also, there's an angel in the Bible that sets fire to something with his staff, when he appears to the parents of Sampson and lights up under a meal or sacrifice?

Youre going all John Carswell on us today! Thats always a good thing.

Thank you for your explanation.

I approve. And declare this channel. SANCTIFIED AND SECURE .... WELCOME

Maybe this is pedantic but one of the most overt displays of what most people would call magic from LOTR I remember was when Elrond used Vilya to flood the river and kill the nazgul’s horses. Of course there is nothing supernatural about this but I doubt people unfamiliar with Tolkien’s wider world would understand that difference.

George Lucas was raised a methodist christian, but he explicitly set out to create a kind of "ur-religion" with the force, if you strip all deities, angels, demons, spirits etc. from religion what you are left with is a type of primitive animism, wherein there is a de-personified universal spiritual life force ("the force of others" in the original draft) that guides peoples actions.

Really trying to state that Tolkien promoted witch-craft would be like citing Anubis as a Satanic figure witch many sadly do. While you can make those arguments about Dungeons and Dragons whether or not it endorses the Occult (While I know its a game, they were applying in the Tiamat campaign that allying with devils would be preferred and or a necessary evil in-order to beat her. Also player characters can be connected to lords of hell. Just not Tiamat who canonically isn't evil incarnate by found web info.) There is nothing to be found in Lord of Rings that would suggest any of that. Maybe its cause the world is non-Christian but it was packed load of moral choices and role-models that can help others grow as a person such as 'don't seek wrath rashly' and 'fight back temptation' and 'not giving in when all seems hopeless'. The very fact that we have a bad-guy called The Witch King flying a hell-beast, and the fact that Tolkien made 'once convinced' Atheist C.S Lewis a Christian on of 'The most' influential 'men of faith' of his time brining faith to a post WWI world you'd think that'd be enough but, I guess not. I do understand the concern about the fantasy genre to a certain degree for I was reading the pilot novel of Terry Goodkind's myself in-shock (I didn't know this was the bad-guy) that this man had a character sacrifice a human-child who loved him, in-order to make him a demon minion written in such a way it seemed a Good-thing (I also read Scarlet St. Clair's Game of Gods. Less said about Hades Saga the better!) I pretty much wanted to put the book down and bury it were I found it. I've seen this argument against Harry Potter again and again, but again like LOTR you'd think the author herself being Christian, and her MC telling evil 'No!' right in his face repeatedly would be fine but again 'all magic bad' argument hurts what could enlighten and encourage creativity. Meanwhile Rick Riordan had referenced actual occult concepts in his Kane-Chronicles series citing Allister Crowley's 'Book of Thoth' as a ref for a pair of magician kids and their Uncle becomes an effective Satanist in the end arc (I personally don't believe that Egypt's Set is The Devil. A god who's sworn duty was to protect the Lord of Light against all forces of Darkness only acting out in Wrath cause his siblings had poisoned and overthrew the god he was protecting, doesn't say 'pure-evil' to me. The Greek Dionysus is a closer match and Rick Loves him!) and true Rick Riordan was a former Catholic, so he likely isn't telling kids to seek The Occult, but I was personally disturbed by how much he Romantized Dionysus making him a 'good' councilor for children in recent works! Honest people shouldn't be attacked for writing fantasy or having good guy magic users. Even C.S Lewis has one in Prince Caspian!

1:35 I was going to ask if this is more of an American thing, as I've never met anyone in Europe who refused to watch Lord of the Rings - or anything else, whether it's film, literature, music etc. - for religious reasons, including people of faith.

15:27 _"just writing a fun story for his kids"_ True about The Hobbit, not true about Lord of the Rings. When it comes to Gandalf, ultimately, I think he owes lots to St. Raphael in the Book of Tobit. Which obviously, some Evangelicals would think that makes it even worse.

For Christians, I would argue that Harry Potter and LOTR are fine. Be careful with A Song of Ice and Fire, though. NOT FOR PEOPLE UNDER 18!

Those who thump the Bible the loudest have usually read it the least. Pretty much every sermon in pretty much every modern "Christian" church (catholic, protestant, and orthodox alike) are chock full of teachings that are directly opposed to what the Bible actually says, yet every one of them claims what they're teaching to be "Biblical".

I was told by a woman one time that not only is The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter evil and satanic, but so is The Chronicles of Narnia.

A priest at my church talked about lotr and how great it was lol

It’s very hard to claim spiritism when there are no spirits. Which is true of the books. The movies have failed to demonstrate this accurately.

Doesn't Durin's Bane, the balrog in Moria, also use "spells" akin to how Gandalf uses magic at the door to the Chamber of Records?

I think only Valar , Maiar, and the Elves are gifted with powers but even Galadriel couldnt maintain Lothlorien without power bestowed by a Maiar.

I am baffled that Christians like that still exists. Like, Tolkien's work is explicitly and fundamentally Christian--there are even points in his legendarium where he is pretty much quoting Scripture and the more you study his work, the more you notice how fundamental Christianity is to his work

Lord of the Rings has so many Christian undertones throughout it at times (in my opinion) comes across as more Christian than many parts of the bible.

Haha! Amazing content

Uh…Tolkien was literally staunch Catholic. Who the fuck looks at LOTR and calls it blasphemous?!

If I run into a flat earther or a hollow earther, or their ilk, I simply ignore them. There are those on either fringe of this that begs the question, is it really worth the effort? Is anyone really going to convince the devotees of either extreme, that they're wrong? I mean, I remember a big hurricane was believed to be set to run up the east coast of the US. A Christian group said they were praying for it to divert from it's predicted course, a Wiccan group said they were casting spells to do that. It did, both sides claimed they did it. Or when Florida got hit by 4 hurricanes in one year. Some 'Christians' said it was God's wrath! Was it? Or a New Age person who claimed Mary was a goddess because there's a Latin word Dea. Of course there is, the Romans had female gods! Of course she, and her followers, couldn't understand that. She also claimed that the pyramids proved she's a goddess because her name is in them, i.e. pYRAMids. Ludicrous for sure, but some fawned over her, insight. So, ignore them, feel sorry for them.

The barrow blades are +15 of slaying angmarim. They use a different critical hit table.

Men are less magical than elves who are less magical than the Maiar who are less magical than the Valar, who are less divine the Illuvatar. However, the Men of Numenor were taught magic by the elves and were more magical than men who did not help the Host of the Valar in the War of Wrath to cast down Morgoth in the First Age. This is why they were able to make the barrow blades to harm the Witch King.

Lol I remember watching LOTR movies and then youth groups and church groups showing scenes like basically all of Gandalf's scenes and their Christian interpretations lol

I think you're kind of freestyling this conversation I think a dictionary is an order for you to use to clarify some things

strange how the critics seem to place false magic on the same level as a real God.

Very interesting discussion. Thank you 😊

Yeah thing is, I disagree with the premise that people who dislike LOTR because of magic would have no problems with Star Wars. They absolutely do. I've seen lots of Christians with such stances. In a lot of ways Star Wars is actually far worse, because it basically depicts God as some "force" that specific people are capable of tapping into and using to their advantage. I dislike such strong "anti-magic" stances because its completely missing the context of WHY "magic" (which as a term isn't even used in the Bible because it wasn't written in our modern language) is condemned, namely as you say, its about communing with demonic spirits. As an example, in the KJV "magic" is never used, the only term actually used is "magician" (and only in the Old Testament). In a world where magic is commonly available its because God or whatever God of that universe actively enabled its usage. It would basically become indistinguishable from science at that point. Its like how if we went somehow went back in time with our modern technology, they'd call us sorcerers and magicians because we're capable of feats they could only dream of.

Apparently the books say they use spells. Still watching the video so not sure if you address this.

This argument was far more prevalent in the 80’s during the “Satanic Panic”. I grew up with some of this nonsensical reasoning. Cartoons like He-Man and the Smurfs were frowned upon lol😂. Most of the overly Legalistic churches or should I say in most cases “Cults”, had this way of thought. The Ironic part of their superior piety complex, is that Jesus despised the Religious Pharisees of his day…He called them Vipers and white washed tombs….If you claim to be Christian, how about you let the Holy Spirit convict people of their sin…It’s not a Christians job to police the World…If you want to have a civil conversation with a believer, fine…I don’t expect people who are not Christians, to act as they are 😂….

Maybe it’s because I know Tolkien was Catholic, but I can’t help to see the Christian/biblical parallels. I’ve only seen the movies, so forgive me, but I see King David in Aragorn and Jesus in Gandalf when he is resurrected to Gandalf the White. And even Sauron masquerading as an “Angel of light”. So I’d say, this is a good video and I’m glad I found it. 👍🏾👍🏾

Interested to hear more of objects you'd consider magical like the palantir, ent draught, elvish swords and the like

If someone thinks Lord of the Rings is witchcraft they will likely think most midea is. I myself have even heard these folks call Star Wars and Pokemon witchcraft. I'm not sure there is much that can be done to convince them otherwise.

Good question.

You dont want to waste your time trying. They have already fallen down the rabbit hole and they aint climbing back out. They have voluntarily de-programed themselves from logic.

Since Gandalf is basically an incarnate angel, he is rather like the angel Raphael in the book of Tobit, who is incarnate as a man named Azariah. Tobit is in the Catholic OT, and it seems likely Tolkien may have taken a hint or two from it.