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Finding God in the Lord of the
Rings
by Kurt D. Bruner, Jim Ware
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Amazon.com
There's more to Middle-earth than meets the eye, argue Kurt Bruner
and Jim Ware in Finding God in The Lord of the Rings. J.R.R.
Tolkien, a devout Christian, helped bring C.S. Lewis into the faith
and met weekly with Lewis and Charles Williams at an Oxford pub for
heated religious and literary discussions that informed The Lord of
the Rings.
Although Bruner and Ware avoid any simplistic claim that Tolkien's
saga is "a covert allegory of the Gospel," the authors
assert that the books have evangelistic power because they "can
open the heart's back door when the front door is
locked."
Twenty-one short chapters describe various scenes and themes from
Tolkien's work in order to illustrate truths of Christian life. For
instance, Frodo and Sam's awareness that their adventures are part
of a larger story "reflects the Christian understanding of
providence, that we are all part of a story being written by the
creator of all that is."
Finding God successfully clarifies the ways that Tolkien's
Christian worldview influenced the creation of his fantasy world,
while respecting the artistic integrity of his achievement.
--Michael Joseph Gross
Ordering information at Amazon.com
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