A Heavy Heart

It is 2:30 in the morning and I have to be up by 5 am so I can be to work by 6:30.  By all rights, I should be in bed asleep, but I'm not because something has been weighing on my heart since yesterday afternoon.  As I mentioned in my post last night, I read a blog about someone's views on The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia, and the like.  I'm not going to name names or anything, but I really struggled with what was said.  In the post, the author stated that these books and the movies based off of them are of Satan, that there is nothing good about them.  Anyone who knows me can probably imagine that I immediately had an issue with this.  I've always known people who didn't want to watch or didn't want their kids watching Harry Potter or even Lord of the Rings, though to a much lesser extent, because of the magic involved.  I could understand that.  I didn't think any less of them and the fact that I did read and watch them didn't seem to affect them either.  But as I read this article I felt like I was being attacked, felt that I was less of a Christian because I did enjoy them and that if I didn't do away with them then I was serving Satan, not Christ.  It hurt, it still hurts and as I said, my heart feels heavy.  I have to admit, my first instinct was to lash out at this unknown person.  How dare they make me feel this way.  You know how people talk about hitting non-Christians over the head with the Bible won't turn them to Christ?  Well, that's how I felt, like I had just been hit over the head and I didn't like it.

The person writing the post focused primarily on The Hobbit, pointing out all the issues they had with it by going off the synopsis that's listed on Wikipedia.  Now one thing to note is that this person has never read any of the books I've mentioned or seen the movies.  That's part of why I struggled so much with it.  How could someone claim something was evil, should be banished, when they had never read/seen it?  And reading through, it seemed very clear to me that this person didn't really know what they were talking about.  They knew the bare bones and that was it.  But for someone like me, who buys just about any Tolkien book I can get my hands on, who has read in depth The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings and the other histories of Middle-Earth, I could see all that they were missing, how they had no idea about the characters and what they were like, how there are very clear distinctions between good and evil.  And maybe that was the wost part, because I felt if I ever had the opportunity to explain to this person my point of view, how I saw things, they would simply look down on me.  Now, I'm sure that's not how this person is in reality, but that's the impression I got from their writing.

Now I don't want to come across like I'm putting them down.  They have a valid opinion, and this is simply my opinion.  The part that I could primarily agree with in this post was at the beginning as they talked about how we believe that the Bible is the Word of God and that is where we find our principles for living.  Their thoughts on Satan were also right on the mark with how Satan does not create, he only corrupts.  From this point though, I struggle to agree with much of what is said because to me these books and movies are not evil as this person wants to portray them.  Yes, there are evil creatures, but there are also good ones.  The lessons that I see can be learned from these movies, the inspiration that I see coming from them, this person calls candy-coating.  That is something that I simply cannot wrap my mind around, that I just cannot understand.  How someone could look at the hobbits, those people hardier than anyone can imagine, full of courage who are loyal, friendly, even innocent to an extent, and see evil is beyond me.  The same with the elves with their nobility, their will to fight against evil, to defy evil, their love of beauty, I cannot see the evil in them.  With just these two races I can see so much that can be learned from them.

I think the biggest struggle however came when someone commented a couple of links to check out.  I was curious so I read both and was quite honestly appalled by what I read and even more so when I saw that the author of the blog post thought that the links were valid and fully agreed with them.  If you're interested, here are the links, but be warned, they are, in my opinion, quite controversial and they definitely got my blood boiling.
- http://www.lasttrumpetministries.org/tracts/tract11.html
- http://www.lasttrumpetministries.org/tracts/narnia_chronicles.html

I'm not going to go into a ton of detail about what these said or what my full opinion of them was, I'll let you read them and formulate your own opinions, but I will say a few things.  First, in looking up this ministry, I found very little credible about it.  I didn't look very in-depth granted, but from what I saw, there was very little about the ministry itself other than what's on its website which isn't much.  There were, however, numerous articles similar to the ones above saying that so and so supports witchcraft because they were here at this time on this day.  Personally I find that ridiculous and find the similar statements in the articles equally ridiculous particularly those that said Lewis and Tolkien were writing instruction manuals for witchcraft.  I think what I struggled with most is that this man took two highly respected authors, C.S. Lewis, a well-known Christian author, and J.R.R. Tolkien, and tried to make them into frauds.  Reading through the second link above about Lewis, I couldn't believe that the words this man was quoting and attributing to Lewis were true and could only imagine that they had been taken out of context.  Sure enough, they had been.  If you'd like to check out the context of his quote from The World's Last Night and Other Essays, here's the link to the book.  You'll need to go several pages back and then go past the quote for another page or so to be able to get what Lewis is going at, but it makes sense.
- The World's Last Night and Other Essays

Though I could not find an online copy of the other books that were quoted from, I can only assume that they were also taken out of context.  I know for certain that Tolkien's quote was taken out of context though I'm too tired to recall exactly in what context it was originally quoted.  Now I am fully aware that Lewis had some very odd ideas about theology and he was not correct in all his writings, but for me The Chronicles of Narnia is one series of books that he got very right.  I think Christ's teaching are very obvious in these books and for the most part, really can't be ignored.

I found so much of this so hard to stomach, both with the blog post and the links posted by this other person, because I felt that both of these people seemed to be seeking, intentionally or not, to vilify two men who used their talent as writers to put their faith into their work.  C.S. Lewis was certainly more openly Christian in his writing and despite my love for Tolkien, its the charges laid at Lewis' feet that I struggle with most.  The Chronicles of Narnia played a large part in leading me to accept Christ as my savior as a child.  What I struggled to understand in reading the Bible, Lewis made clear from Aslan sacrificing himself on the stone table (Christ's crucifixion) to his return in the Last Battle to bring his children to their true home (Christ's return).  Tolkien has also played his part in my life as a Christian.

I'm off to bed now for an hour or so of sleep which I think I'll be able to do now that I've gotten this off my chest.  While I really struggled with what this blog post and the links said, they also served to get me very seriously thinking in a way that I haven't for a while.  So for that I am grateful I suppose.  I hope this was, if nothing else, interesting to read and not to confusing.