The Gospel According to Tolkien

From Tolkien Gateway
The Gospel According to Tolkien
Visions of the Kingdom in Middle-Earth
GospelTolkien.jpg
AuthorRalph C. Wood
PublisherWestminster John Knox Press
Released1 October, 2003
FormatPaperback
Pages169
ISBN0664226108

The Gospel According to Tolkien: Visions of the Kingdom in Middle-Earth is a 2003 book by Christian author and scholar Ralph C. Wood, examining Christian elements in The Lord of the Rings.

From the publisher[edit | edit source]

Readers have repeatedly called The Lord of the Rings the most important book of our age--reading all 1500 of its pages with absorbed interest and seeing the Peter Jackson movies in unprecedented numbers. Tolkien's masterpiece is a deeply Christian work because it does not blink back the horrors of our terrible times, but confronts them with startling honesty about the victories that the forces of evil have already won and seem destined still to win. Yet readers from ages 8 to 80 keep turning to this work because here they are immersed in depth after depth of significance and meaning--perceiving the Hope that can be found amidst despair, the Charity that overcomes vengeance, and the Faith that springs from the strange power of weakness--not from the seizing and wielding of destructive might, but from the utter foreswearing of it for the sake of friendship and fidelity.