Individual Books

Theology and Tolkien

Practical Theology

Editor
Douglas Estes
Pages
292
Format
Academic Hardback
ISBN
978-1-9787-1266-9
Year of Release
2023
About the Book

Can we learn from Tolkien? Can we grow from reading The Lord of the Rings? Infamous early critic of Tolkien’s work, Paul West, snidely says “no”—the LOTR “is something delusive to pass the time away, to shut off the mind.”1 Surprisingly, Tolkien half agrees with West, explaining that he has “no didactic purpose, and no allegorical intent” to his work (Letters, 215). Tolkien makes clear that his writing is “a work of narrative art, of which the object aimed at by the author was to be enjoyed as such: to be read with literary pleasure” (Letters, 329). Or, as he also remarked, “it was written to amuse” (Letters, 181). How then do so many people find themselves challenged for the better in reading his works?

This is the challenge a group of fourteen international scholars undertook--looking not simply at what theological ideas Tolkien had but to discern how those ideas could teach us something about faith and ministry today. Chapters include ...

PART ONE: THE SHIRE
Chapter 1: Koinonia in The Lord of the Rings - Philip Ryken
Chapter 2: Searching for Home in Middle-earth - J. Collin Huber
Chapter 3: Love at the Burning Edge of Doom: Friendship and Biblical Theology in The Lord of the Rings - Chris Bruno and Mark Brians
Chapter 4: “Her Heart Changed, or at Least She Understood It” - Christine Falk Dalessio

PART TWO: OSGILIATH
Chapter 5: Gandalf the Grey, Apostle to Men and Elves - Douglas Estes
Chapter 6: Reading Barth on Jackson’s Set: Threefold Salvation in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy - Jerome Van Kuiken
Chapter 7: Art and Sub-Creation: Tolkien’s Theology of Art - Miguel Benitez Jr.
Chapter 8: The Culture Wars and The Lord of the Rings: Models of Christian Engagement - Alex Sosler
Chapter 9: Theodicies in The Lord of the Rings - Rodrigo Follis, Fábio Augusto Darius, and Ismael Silva

PART THREE: THE GREENWAY
Chapter 10: A Nutritious Reading: A Theological View of Food in Tolkien’s Writing - Federico Maria Rossi
Chapter 11: Nazgûl and the Perversion of Spiritual Senses - Trevor B. Williams
Chapter 12: “Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost”: Greed and Power in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Works - Anthony Glaise
Chapter 13: The Doom of Elves and Men: A Thought Experiment on Death and Immortality - Keith A. Mathison
Chapter 14: Thinking Like an Ent: Treebeard and the Pastoral Wisdom of Eugene Peterson - Trygve D. Johnson

Retail Price:

$95.00 (Hardback)
$45.00 (Kindle)

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Reviews

A Great Service

Estes has done a great service for scholars and fans of Middle-earth alike who want to dig deeper into such key Tolkien themes as friendship and fellowship, death and immortality, salvation and sub-creation, theodicy and the corruption of the senses, the art of power and the power of art, and even home and food. All the writers balance a critical eye with a robust love of the legendarium and a desire to be changed, theoretically and practically, by their interaction with Tolkien. I was particularly glad to see several of the contributors analyze Jackson’s films alongside Tolkien’s epic in a positive and fruitful way.

  • Louis Markos
  • Houston Christian University; author of Tolkien for Beginners and On the Shoulders of Hobbits

Engaging Insights

Each new generation of scholars re-discovers important texts by reading and interpreting them with new eyes. This is the aim of Theology and Tolkien, which unites a wide range of approaches in order to provide engaging insights into the ‘theology’ of Tolkien’s works in an easily accessible form, illustrating theological concepts by means of ‘practical’ applications to Tolkien’s texts.

  • Thomas Honegger
  • Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Germany

Friendship, Home, and Food

Rather than assessing the compatibility of Tolkien’s legendarium with Christian theology, the essays in Estes’s collection use Tolkien’s Middle-earth writings to explore everyday themes such as friendship, home, and food, as well as more obviously theological concepts, like apostleship, salvation, and theodicy. Both sides of the equation benefit.

  • Sam McBride
  • La Sierra University

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