ClosingTalkights Subscribe und watched every Wednesday Bye Ask Near the center of every great story is a great conflict, a great war. Two soldiers, each with a gift for storytelling, survive the storm and steel of the greatest war the world had ever seen. J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. Together, they used their imagination to battle the darkest forces of their age. A hobbit, a wardrobe, had a great war. The generation of Tolkien and Lewis endured unspeakable loss in a war that they believed would advance the cause of humanity, the war to end all wars. Instead, the funeral of a great myth is about to begin. The rise of technology opens a window into the human heart. We are so clever, look at all these wonderful scientific inventions we have and what do we use them for destroying each other. When war came, they thought it would be over very quickly. They had no idea that it would turn out to be the worst conflict of that time in human history. The takes, the mortars, the machine guns, those soldiers who fought this war could ever forget the terrors of combat. Tolkien and Lewis will remember them well. The essential thing that turned the modern world into what it is was the trauma of the First World War and of course both men were right at the heart of it. And yet out of the ashes of that conflict, a friendship emerged here amid the dreaming spires of Oxford. The friendship between Lewis and Tolkien is really one of the literary masterpieces of all time. They simply didn't buy into the idea that there's an inevitable progression of humanity upwards into wider and greater knowledge and that whatever is new is better and truer. They thought that was a painfully absurd. How could they actually grapple with their experiences or come to terms with what they had seen and they were using mythology as a way of doing that? Tolkien and Lewis had a profound influence on each other. Remember, Lewis went into the wars in atheists and he came out as an atheist. Without the presence of Tolkien in his life, he might never have shaken off his existential angst and produced works alive with the themes of faith, hope and joy. For his part, Tolkien once admitted that, where not for Lewis's great encouragement, he never would have brought to a conclusion his epic trilogy. He needed Lewis's constant pride and demands for more. You know what Jack Lewis was like. He was such a boy. He had to have a story. And that story, the Lord of the Rings, was written to keep him quiet. Imagine a world without the Lord of the Rings and without the Chronicles of Narnia, if it wasn't for the friendship between Lewis and Tolkien, we would have neither. Lewis said, well, since children are going to grow up in a world of dragons and giants, let us at least show the children that dragons and giants can be overcome. The key character that emerges from Lord of the Rings is Sammai's Gamji. He is the Hobbit that is just the normal person. He's a gardener. But at the end of the day, he achieves the final quest. And Tolkien sees him as the epitome of the average British soldier. The true heroism is Hobbit-sized. It's in the everyday heroism of somebody who says, don't know the way. The Hobbit is the small character who is overlooked by all the great ones of the world. But it's on the Hobbit's obedience and courage and endurance that Middle-earth is saved. Likewise, Lucy saves the day in Prince Kasby. So you don't have to be, you know, the strong man. You don't have to be, you know, armed to the teeth. You just need to do your duty. Tolkien and Lewis are casting a vision for a better world and inviting us to be caught up in it. They saw not a irrelevant other world in which you could escape, but curious enough exactly the diagnostic tool that they needed to critique the world that they were in. And they did so to devastating effect. Their great hope was to re-enchant the world through Christian faith and pagan beauty in many ways against all expectations. That's exactly what they did. A Hobbit, a wardrobe and a great war. The Hobbit is a great, a great, a great war. The Hobbit is a great, a great war. The Hobbit is a great, a great war. The Hobbit is a great, a great war. The Hobbit is a great, a great war. The Hobbit is a great, a great war. The Hobbit is a great, a great war. The Hobbit is a great, a great war.