Tolkien on Sub-Creation

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Christianity, J.R.R. Tolkien, Medievalist Monday, Mythopoeia, On Fairy-Stories, Sub-Creation, Sub-Creator

J.R.R. Tolkien was a man who worked to create a mythology for his own nation of England. That was the driving thought behind his entire work, and the reason why his world-building was so extensive and stretched across three ages in his world, including his own version of the creation story. While C.S. Lewis wove Christian elements throughout his Narnia series with allegory, such as having Aslan stand in for Jesus, Tolkien absolutely hated allegory and (mostly) avoided writing it in his own works. Which is why in his books you can hunt for the areas in his book where his own Christian thought influenced his writing, but you won’t find a simple answer such as “Gandalf is Jesus”. It isn’t as simple as that.

The discussions between Tolkien and Lewis on the place of allegory in their fiction ultimately led to Tolkien writing a poem, “Mythopoeia”, in response to Lewis’ claim that myths were “lies breathed through silver”. If you have not read it, the poem is fantastic and worth the 5-10 minutes invested. But the focus I want to spend today is looking at a similar work that Tolkien did, his lecture “On Fairy Stories”, which is also very much worth the 30-60 minutes invested in reading that lecture. I will have links to both of those included at the end of this post.

In the lecture, Tolkien expresses the idea (among many other ideas, such as that Fairy-Stories are not simply for entertaining children) that we like to create things because we were created in the image and likeness of God. When you open the Bible to the first page, the first words you read are “In the beginning, God created”. We serve a creator God, who formed the heavens, the earth, the stars, the oceans, the birds and beasts, men and women, and so much more. When He made man, he created him to be in the image of God. So it stands to reason that, because God Himself enjoyed creating things, it is perfectly normal and natural for mankind to enjoy creating things. Tolkien termed this as sub-creation, because man cannot create something out of nothing like God, but rather can take things and form them into something new. This was, in some ways, Tolkien’s way also of defending his decision to write fantasy stories rather than something that Oxford might find more worthwhile, such as literary fiction.

I have always been drawn to this perspective on the sub-creation, going as far as to view it as an expression of worship. To that end, I strive to glorify God with my writing whenever possible, although sometimes the stories being told may not be obviously Christian. The worldview I have influences many decisions that I make in my own writing, much as it did with Tolkien. That is why, even in some of the darkest and gloomiest moments in his stories, there are times of extreme joy that shine through.

I think it is fitting to allow Tolkien to conclude this post, so here are a few quotes from “On Fairy Stories”, followed by one from “Mythopoeia”.

“Fantasy remains a human right: we make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made: and not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker.”

“The consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending; or more correctly of the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous “turn” (for there is no true end to any fairy-tale): this joy, which is one of the things which fairy-stories can produce supremely well, is not essentially “escapist,” nor “fugitive.” In its fairy-tale — or otherworld — setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.”

“I would venture to say that approaching the Christian Story from this direction, it has long been my feeling (a joyous feeling) that God redeemed the corrupt makingcreatures, men, in a way fitting to this aspect, as to others, of their strange nature. The Gospels contain a fairy-story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories. They contain many marvels—peculiarly artistic, beautiful, and moving: ‘mythical’ in their perfect, self-contained significance; and among the marvels is the greatest and most complete conceivable eucatastrophe. But this story has entered History and the primary world; the desire and aspiration of sub-creation has been raised to the fulfillment of Creation. The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man’s history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy. It has pre-eminently the ‘inner consistency of reality’. There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many sceptical men have accepted as true on its own merits. For the Art of it has the supremely convincing tone of Primary Art, that is, of Creation. To reject it leads either to sadness or to wrath.”

A link to “On Fairy-Stories”: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0ahUKEwip9b6c_9nNAhWHx4MKHeYPBIMQFggiMAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fidiom.ucsd.edu%2F~bakovic%2Ftolkien%2Ffairy_stories.pdf&usg=AFQjCNFK3iiPL5lTYvB4fU-NZ11XRJHRDg&sig2=1u3yQeAWJbLQiu3bBvc47A

“The heart of Man is not compound of lies,
but draws some wisdom from the only Wise,
and still recalls him. Though now long estranged,
Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.
Dis-graced he may be, yet is not dethroned,
and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned,
his world-dominion by creative act:
not his to worship the great Artefact,
Man, Sub-creator, the refracted light
through whom is splintered from a single White
to many hues, and endlessly combined
in living shapes that move from mind to mind.
Though all the crannies of the world we filled
with Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build
Gods and their houses out of dark and light,
and sowed the seed of dragons, ’twas our right
(used or misused). The right has not decayed.
We make still by the law in which we’re made.“

Link to Mythopoeia: http://mercury.ccil.org/~cowan/mythopoeia.html

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Scripture Saturday: Amos Part 2

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Amos, Christian, Christianity, Prophets, Scripture Saturday, the Bible

Welcome to the second part of my reflections after reading the Book of Amos. It is chronologically the second book of the prophets found in the Old Testament, and was quite an interesting experience to really read, study, and reflect upon the meanings within the prophetic text. You can check out the post on Part 1, which deals with the content of the first four chapters in Amos. Today’s post deals with chapters 5-7.

 

God tells His nation, Israel, in the fifth chapter what they need to do: “Seek me and live” (Amos 5:5-6), and to “Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the gate” (Amos 5:15). God declares that He does not want their feasts held in His name, nor their animal sacrifices, nor their songs of worship (Amos 5:21-23) but rather He wants justice and righteousness (Amos 5:24) from His people. In other words, He doesn’t want them to do all these ritualistic things out of obedience. He wants them to live a life that shows an outward expression of the transformation that comes from living in alignment with God’s perspective. They need to die to themselves first, which will lead to a lasting transformation in who they are and what they aim to achieve. Worship and praise and giving only mean something if the person is doing it because their hearts are being molded and shaped by God’s love and justice and therefore they are acting in alignment with what God would want. Not because it is an obligation or a command.

The hearts of the men in Israel are further reflected in Chapter 7 by their reaction to Amos and his prophecies. They command him to flee from Israel and never prophecy there again because he said Jeroboam will die by the sword and the people will go into exile. They are unable to bear hearing those words of bad news (Amos 7:10-13) because they want only the prophets who speak good news of prosperity and growth and long-lasting rule for their king. How many churches today preach only the good news that will stimulate growth and avoid the topics that will challenge the congregation? How many walk on eggshells, trying not to offend anyone in order to maintain the number in attendance. Like Amos, we should be speaking what God commands, the things that are pleasing to God, rather than what is going to be pleasing to man.

And yet while there is plenty of doom and gloom, as well as enough punishment and condemnation to go around in there we also cannot ignore the message behind Chapter 9 in Amos. It can be easy to overlook everything preceding that chapter and fixate on this alone as the message of Amos, but that would be to do an injustice. It would be keeping the wool over our eyes and our ears stuffed with cotton so we cannot see or hear. God will certainly punish those who are deserving, both those belonging to His people and those that surround His people. We can maintain hope knowing that even if the justice God demands falls upon us today, as it did for the Israelites thousands of years ago, there could also come a time of restoration. It may be a restoration to the lands we inhabit now, or it could even be the restoration to the new heaven and new earth alluded to in Revelation (Revelation 21:1). We won’t know until the time arrives. But we know the day is coming when new crop will grow immediately after the harvest, when the mountains and the hills shall flow with sweet wine (Amos 9:13-14). This is a picture of what the Garden of Eden may have looked like, where everything was prosperous and the earth would produce in abundance without the need for back-breaking labor brought about by the sins of Adam. And God ends it by declaring that at this point that His people shall be rooted in that land and never driven away from that land again (Amos 9:15), a promise that should give us all hope for that future when it comes.

Guest Post: The Second Coming of Arthur

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Alex Ness, Apocalypse, Christianity, Guest Post, King of Ages

Two weeks ago I had Josh Brown, one of the authors in the King of Ages anthology, contribute a guest post where he discussed the indie author movement in writing and why authors should choose to do what is right for them. Today another author in the same anthology, Alex Ness, is discussing the work that went into his own short story in that collection. Read his story, “Arthurus Rex Tempus, Rex Eternae” and twelve others when you get a copy of King of Ages: A King Arthur Anthology. Enjoy!

***

The tales of King Arthur have appealed to me since my earliest memories.  When the publisher of KING OF AGES, Josh Brown presented his theme/concept for the book I immediately turned to the primal templates of Arthur and Merlyn.  Arthur lived with the blood of a brave but iniquitous man, Uther Pendragon in his veins, and was born of a rape of the mother.  Arthur was innocent, despite the perverse origins, and the one to counsel him, and announce him was Merlyn.  Understanding them, as Arthur as King and Merlyn his seer are timeless and turn up through out history, and beyond, I saw them as relating to the iconic theme of John the Baptist, and Christ the King.  However, I also saw them in the future, with Christ returning to earth, in the form of Arthur.  But wherever there is Arthur, there is Merlyn, and wherever Christ appears, he is foretold and announced by John.

 

“I found Him in the shining of the stars,
I marked Him in the flowering of His fields,
But in His ways with men I find Him not.
I waged His wars, and now I pass and die.”

Idylls of the King (1856–1885) by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Passing of Arthur

 

Only the setting of an apocalyptically destroyed earth was for me the prime setting for the return of the King.  Not for religious reasons, although I believe, but for the sake of purifying the setting to make the story stark by comparison.  When Arthur was drained from the sins of life, and his court, his land was ruined, when he sipped of the Grail he was renewed, and so, too, was the land.  I have loved the story of Arthur since I was able to read.  Being a poet, a lover of Arthur and his Legend, and a Christian, I sought to tell a story that utilized all of the parts of the works I love.

 

https://www.amazon.com/author/alexness

http://alexnesspoetry.blogspot.com

http://memoirsofalexness.blogspot.com/

http://cargokultmodernday.blogspot.com/

http://catastrophicmemories.blogspot.com/

Growing in Faith

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Christianity, faith, Jefferson Bethke, Jesus, Point of Grace, religion, Why I Hate Religion But Love Jesus

It feels a bit odd writing about my stance on faith. For nearly all of my life, my stance would have been either of total disbelief or else of cautious skepticism. I spent years avoiding the subject, approaching it only when it was for a class assignment. I loathed the two weeks spent in Philosophy on the subject of religion. I know my participation level would be far different if I took that class today.

I have regularly attended church for less than a year, and in that amount of time I have seen a transformation in both thoughts and actions because of this newfound faith. I have found some points in Scripture that have aligned with what I previously believed. I have found many others that have challenged or even contradicted what I once perceived as either truth or righteous.

For me the turning point in my belief came a few months after I had regularly attended Point of Grace. I was enrolled in an eight-week class they offered called Pursuit, which is learning to see God how He is so we can see ourselves the way He sees us, and also to see others how He sees them. After spending the first four weeks learning about different aspects of God, including his attributes and about the Holy Spirit, we moved into learning about the way He sees us. And the portion that really spoke to me was learning to choose to live through the Spirit instead of through the flesh.

What it comes down to is making the choice to trust in yourself or to trust in God to lead your life. When you call the shots, you are usually stuck either in an “I can do it!” or a “What’s the use?” mentality. They cycle between each other, with the outside sources around you reaffirming both of these mindsets. But when you trust in God, you learn that you have great worth apart from your performance because Christ gave his life for you. Through Christ you are deeply loved, fully pleasing, totally forgiven, accepted and complete. You don’t need to be perfect in all that you do, because you are already perfect through Christ. Romans 12:1-2 really puts this well when it says “Therefore I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

I believe that some people have a misconception about Christianity because they have had the wrong experiences or they look in the wrong places. Some people think that it is about performing rituals in order to be saved, or sacrificing everything good in life in order to be “good enough” to be saved. There is a huge difference between religion and Christ, as is pointed out by Jefferson Bethke in his poem, “Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus“. His words echo my personal belief. In a discussion about that poem Bethke says, “Religion is man-centered, Jesus is God-centered. This poem highlights my journey to discover the truth. Religion either ends in pride or despair. Pride because you make a list and can do it and act better than everyone, or despair because you can’t do your own list of rules and feel ‘not good enough’ for God. With Jesus though you have humble confidant joy because He represents you, you don’t represent yourself and His sacrifice is perfect putting us in perfect standing with God!”

The idea of faith itself is sometimes a concept that people struggle to grasp. I know I struggled with it a lot, even when I started being more active at church. It requires the ability to believe something is true when there is no direct way of determining the truth or untruth of it. Hebrews 1:1 says that “faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” This was the biggest hurdle for me to personally overcome because I always felt like I had a rational, logical way of thinking about things. 1 Corinthians 2:5 states, “so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.”

Within a year I have established a foundation for my faith, and the beliefs that stem from that faith. I want to study the Scripture more, in order to strengthen my faith and find the various ways in which God is speaking to us through His Word. I want to continue to grow in my own faith and hope, that on that journey, I influence others to join me along the way. I want to help others become followers of Christ, making disciples as Christ commanded. I want to be a spiritual leader in my home, my church, and my community.