Avallónnë. Fifth Age. – Stratford Caldecott, in his excellent work The Power of the Ring, explores “The Spiritual Vision Behind The Lord of the Rings.”

In his introduction, Caldecott explains not only Tolkien’s purposes for the book but also the Oxford professor’s feelings about the times in which he lived. It is to be remembered that Tolkien always denied his work was drawn from the events of the 20th century but was also quick to add that The Lord of the Rings had applicability to many times and settings. The times have not changed but only intensified in the thirty-plus years since Tolkien’s death, and what was applicable then is no less so now.

In the following quotations from Caldecott, all emphases are mine.

What the book celebrates – and mourns – is a world and a tradition that appears to be passing away in a great war, or series of wars. These wars are fought in a good cause, against an enemy that cannot be allowed to win. Yet the real danger is not that the free world might be defeated; it is that we might be corrupted, brutalized and degraded by the conflict itself, and in particular by the means employed to secure victory. . . .

“Our mistake in the great wars of our own time has been to accept the false idea that the end justifies the means, and that ‘if a thing can be done, it must be done’ (Letters, 186). For, as Tolkien wrote to his son in 1944, the Allies were attempting to defeat Sauron by using the Ring. The penalty would be to breed new Saurons, and to turn Men and Elves into Orcs – ‘Not that in real life things are as clear-cut as in a story, and we started with a great many Orcs on our side.’ (L, 66)

If Caldecott’s and Tolkien’s observations are important for the free countries of the world in which we now live, they are even more important for those of us who seek to reflect and represent the Kingdom of God to an unbelieving world. Even as the free peoples in Middle-earth were engaged in spiritual warfare against Evil, so Christians struggle against principalities and powers unseen but not unknown.

Orcs in the Pulpits and Pews

Our struggle is also to maintain holiness as we battle the Enemy. It is here that the statements above have application: we are prone to corruption, to justify unrighteous means, and do something simply because we can. The relentless attacks of the Enemy and the continual need to defend ourselves by putting on the armor of God can be wearying. The subtle, insidious temptation is to allow ourselves to be slowly and quietly diminished, robbed of joy and spiritual power, rather than edified and brought to maturity in Christ Jesus.

At the same time, a blindness to slight deviations from righteousness develops in full light of day, our sight dimmed by ignorance, introspection, isolation, or some other malady. Questionable practices, perhaps excused due to desperation or exasperation to evangelize the lost and edify the church, are allowed for the sake of achieving godly purposes.

Technology lures us in and shifts our focus from “what” and “whom” to “how” and “how much.” As we utilize media and sophisticated productions to reach the lost, we become almost addicted to and enslaved by it. The church’s version of “keeping up with the Joneses” – “keeping up with the Baptists”? “with the “Emergents”? “the Seeker friendlies”? – threatens us with shallowness. We have form but no substance.

The words of Faramir, the Dúnadan of Gondor, should cause all of us to examine our own means and methods in our ministries:

‘Yet now, if the Rohirrim are grown in some ways more like to us, enhanced in arts and gentleness, we too have become more like to them, and can scarce claim the title High. We are become Middle Men, of the Twilight, but with memory of other things. For as the Rohirrim do, we now love war and valour as things good in themselves, both a sport and an end; and though we still hold that a warrior should have more skills and knowledge than only the craft of weapons and slaying, we esteem a warrior, nonetheless, above men of other crafts.’”

Even as the men of Gondor were gradually lured from their holiness and righteousness, so we are drawn away from our first Love. It is not a sudden, abrupt change of course but a slow, imperceptible drift: the current is always present and should never be far from our hearts and minds.

The Church cannot allow herself to be corrupted, or afford to adapt the ways of the world in ministry, or do something simply because we can without regard for the need or effectiveness. God has told us not only what to do, but also how to do it.

We ignore this and will suffer for it. For to do God’s work in our own way is to not do God’s work at all.



Namárië.