• Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.

  • Christian Forums is looking to bring on new moderators to the CF Staff Team! If you have been an active member of CF for at least three months with 200 posts during that time, you're eligible to apply! This is a great way to give back to CF and keep the forums running smoothly! If you're interested, you can submit your application here!

How Tolkien influenced the conversion to Christianity of his friend C.S. Lewis

Michie

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
Feb 5, 2002
178,819
64,172
Woods
✟5,627,207.00
Country
United States
Gender
Female
Faith
Catholic
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Others
One of the most emblematic museums in the city of Rome, the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art, is currently hosting an exhibition on the life of the writer J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of “The Lord of the Rings” who played a decisive role in the conversion to Christianity of his great friend C.S Lewis.

The exhibition, titled “Tolkien: Man, Professor, Author,” which will remain open until Feb. 11, goes through the different stages of the life of the English writer John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, whose literary works are imbued with Catholic elements.

As noted in the exhibition, the creative activity of Tolkien, who wrote that “the only cure for sagging or fainting faith is Communion,” could not have developed without his involvement with the so-called “Inklings,” an informal group of writers and academics with ties to Oxford University who met during the 1930s and 1940s.

This group included some important intellectuals of the time such as Owen Barfield and Charles Williams, but the person with whom Tolkien developed a close friendship was C. S. Lewis, the author of “The Chronicles of Narnia” who held a deep-seated rejection of Christianity during his youth.

Continued below.
 

FireDragon76

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
Apr 30, 2013
32,860
20,311
Orlando, Florida
✟1,458,580.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
United Ch. of Christ
Marital Status
Private
Politics
US-Democrat
Owen Barfield was actually the first and the last Inkling. He lived a very long time. His ideas were influenced by German Romanticism, especially Rudolph Steiner, a German esotericist who created the spiritual movement called Anthroposophy (and also developed the concept of organic farming, BTW). Barfield's ideas about language very much influenced Tolkien as well.

Lewis, on the other hand, had a much more dogmatic, modern Protestant perspective, focused on rationality, and was wary of the imagination's use in religion beyond a certain point, only pointing to the dogmas of "mere Christianity" as "true myth". Whereas Barfield himself sees the imagination as a kind of sacramental participation. Tolkien held similar views.
 
Upvote 0