canadanthony writes: The University of Toronto is hosting a FREE one hour lecture on “The Christian Imagination of J.R.R. Tolkien” on Saturday, October 16, at 10 AM. You have to register to attend the lecture, and you may have to be an alumnus of U of T. It will be presented by the Reverend Guy Trudel at St. Michael’s College and the description is as follows:
The Academy Awards generously rewarded Peter Jackson for his adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. This success has made many more people aware of the very popular novels by J.R.R. Tolkien. Many fans of both the novels and their movie representations do not know of Tolkien’s deeply held Christian beliefs and how they made their way into his fictional works. While many might argue about the influence of Christianity upon The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien’s frequent letters in response to theological questions raised by his epic work reveal that he thought of The Lord of the Rings as Catholic and Christian. Tolkien disliked allegory as a means of storytelling because it seemed to subjugate the story to some larger theological, philosophical or ideological point; so he crafted a tale which would engage readers first as a story, but a story which, through its creation of a fictive world, would lead readers to reconsider the elements which paralleled the primary world. [More]
