Fantasy and Myth: Christian Contributions and Consumption Segments 1-3
September 21st, 2007
Madeleine L’Engle, CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien each embraced the Christian faith and found in their imaginative fantasy a way to explore and understand it. Yet to this day, some Christians see no place for fantasy literature. Tonight’s subject is Fantasy and Myth: Christian Contributions and Consumption. We explore the subject with author and film critic Jeffrey Overstreet whose most recent book Auralia’s Colors is a work of fantasy; Greg Wright, Senior Editor of HollywoodJesus.com, author of Tolkien in Perspective: Sifting the Gold from the Glitter and Peter Jackson in Perspective: The Power Behind Cinema’s The Lord of the Rings; and Jennie Spohr producer of The Kindlings Muse.
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I so enjoyed this podcast, and I’m loving Overstreet’s book. Could you do a similar podcast some day for SciFi and Christianity? If you can get ahold of Stephen Lawhead, he writes some great Christian SciFi these days.
actually, i dont think they explore their faith in their fantasy. tolkien was very opposed to people looking at Lord of the Rings through a lens of an allegory. and even Lewis said he began the Chronicles of Narnia without allegory in mind. and L’engle’s stuff isnt that faith based either.
it is just fantasy.
there is nothing wrong with that. i think that is great. i have read all of Lewis, L’engle and much of Tolkien’s fiction works. but there isnt always a faith message. sometimes its just a story.
peter
I agree with your essential point, but many people are unaware of this quote that puts LOTR in a broader perspective theologically: “The Lord of the Rings is a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; Unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. It was my desire to stay theologically orthodox that led me to avoid being too specific, despite the biblical parallels in the creation story…That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like ‘religion,’ to cults or practices, in the imaginary world…For the religious element is absorbed into the story and into the symbolism ” J.R.R. Tolkien, just before book one was published, in a 1953 letter to a friend, Father Robert Murray, January 8, 2003
Dick, I just wanted to thank you for this podcast. I listened to it while I mowed my yard, then came into the house and felt inspired to write again.
You do a good thing here.