More on The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, and Tolkien

I’ve been thinking about something that feels increasingly relevant to how we understand the world. The Bible tells us that there is a struggle between good and evil, and that ultimately good will prevail. Tolkien takes that ancient idea and transforms it into Middle-earth. As I argued earlier, The Lord of the Rings is not simply a story about hobbits, wizards, and a magical ring. Beneath the fantasy is a deeply Christian conception of human nature: good and evil exist, temptation is real, power can corrupt, and the battle between the two is never merely theoretical.

Islam, in its own theological tradition, also understands human history as a struggle between righteousness and evil, obedience and rebellion against God. The details and doctrines are different from Christianity. Still, the larger idea—that human beings inhabit a moral universe in which good and evil are real and our choices matter—is hardly unique to Christianity.

My atheist and academic friends may scoff at religion and regard these stories as nothing more than mythology. But even if one assumes, for the sake of argument, that religion is a human invention, that doesn’t make it irrelevant. Quite the opposite. If billions of people believe the world is governed by a moral struggle between good and evil, and those beliefs shape how they understand morality, sacrifice, politics, war, forgiveness, and human responsibility, then religion becomes a force in the real world whether its theological claims are true or not.

That is one of the things I find so interesting about Tolkien. You don’t have to be a Christian to appreciate Middle-earth, but it is difficult to fully understand Tolkien without understanding Christianity. His stories suggest that evil isn’t defeated simply by having greater power. In fact, the desire for power can become the very thing that corrupts us. Sometimes courage means resisting power rather than acquiring it; sometimes victory comes through sacrifice, humility, and the refusal to become what we are fighting.

We can debate whether religion is revelation or mythology. But dismissing it altogether because we don’t believe it is true is intellectually shortsighted. Ideas have consequences even when we disagree with them. If religion has shaped civilizations, inspired wars, produced works of art and literature, formed moral traditions, and continues to motivate billions of people, then understanding religion is essential to understanding humanity itself.

Perhaps that is the deeper lesson Tolkien was trying to convey: the battle between good and evil is not merely something that happens in ancient scripture or fantasy novels. It is a question every generation—and ultimately every individual—must confront.