Cleaning the Windows of the Imagination
The Theological Roots of Middle Earth
These tales say that apples were golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. They make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water. G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
At its heart, Tolkien’s fantasy is a deeply theological work, saturated with a Christian vision of the world.
Drawing on Chesterton’s chapter “The Ethics of Elfland” from Orthodoxy, Tolkien writes with a deep understanding of faithful sub-creation. There are many things that can be changed, elves can have pointy ears, hobbits can have furry feet, trees can give off light instead of fruit, but the deep structures of reality, those can’t be changed if you want a truth-telling story. Cowardice and despair are always wrong. Stories that make cruelty a virtue are evil stories. Tales that make egalitarianism the goal are civilization’s enemy. That is how Middle Earth can be deeply Christian without mentioning Christ. It’s invites our imagination live in and be formed by Middle Earth, a world that reflect the inviolable realities of God’s world. By changing out the things that can be different (like the existence of dwarves) it ends up emphasizing non-negotiables, like courage, authority, and what to do with dragons.
In a world fascinated by power, Tolkien insists that salvation will not come by strength or control, but through sacrificial love, obedience, and trust in a wisdom higher than our own. This is what makes The Lord of the Rings not only a story of battle and bravery, but catechesis for the imagination in hope, honor, and humility.
Providence quietly pervades every chapter: the unlikely victories, the chance meetings, the spare moments of mercy—all point to a divine Hand guiding even the darkest moments. Frodo’s journey with the Ring is a cruciform path—marked by temptation, loneliness, and sorrow. He is a suffering servant, called to bear a burden on behalf of others. Samwise embodies steadfast love as he serves without desire for glory and believes without seeing.
Aragorn, by contrast, prefigures the coming king, long prophesied, walking in hidden humility before being revealed with healing in his hands. His self-mastery, willingness to serve, and growing sense of responsibility evoke the character of a just ruler—an image of Christ’s kingship over a world waiting on healing. Even the battle at Helm’s Deep is a metaphor for the Church Militant holding throughout her history: besieged, weary, outnumbered, pinioned by promises, looking for final deliverance at dawn.
Tolkien believed that the West was in need of recovery. He believed that fantasy could help. But it helped in a particular way.
“We need, in any case, to clean our windows; so that the things seen clearly may be freed from the drab blur of triteness or familiarity—from possessiveness." — On Fairy Stories
What fantasy could do is reignite imaginations to the beauty of virtue, order, and honor by removing them from the drab blur of the modern world so that, firmly and lovingly embedded in our imaginations, we could return to this world with them. The only place that civilization is safe is in the hearts of us and our children. Fantasy and Faerie have the power to recivilize our hearts so we can recivlize the world.