Finding God in the Lord of the Rings
There's more to Middle-earth than meets the eye, argue Kurt Bruner and  Jim Ware inFinding God inThe Lord of the Rings. J.R.R. Tolkien, a  devout Christian, helped bring C.S. Lewis into the faith and met weekly with  Lewis and Charles Williams at an Oxford pub for heated religious and literary  discussions that informedThe Lord of the Rings. Although Bruner and Ware  avoid any simplistic claim that Tolkien's saga is "a covert allegory of the  Gospel," the authors assert that the books have evangelistic power because they  "can open the heart's back door when the front door is locked." Twenty-one short  chapters describe various scenes and themes from Tolkien's work in order to  illustrate truths of Christian life. For instance, Frodo and Sam's awareness  that their adventures are part of a larger story "reflects the Christian  understanding of providence, that we are all part of a story being written by  the creator of all that is."Finding Godsuccessfully clarifies the ways  that Tolkien's Christian worldview influenced the creation of his fantasy world,  while respecting the artistic integrity of his achievement.--Michael Joseph  Gross