A while back I was contacted by a young man named Colin Cutler, a student at Patrick Henry College. It had been suggested to him that I might be willing to serve as his mentor in a student writing project. He wanted to write a mythic treatment of the Christian gospel, in Anglo-Saxon/Viking style.
I agreed to help, and gave him some pointers as he produced a very worthwhile story, The Ward of Heaven and The Wyrm in the Sea.
Recently he has published the story in book form, and he asked me to write an Introduction. You can read my Introduction below the fold.
There’s an idea abroad in the land concerning The Lord of the Rings, which I consider entirely wrongheaded. You hear this idea expressed when people look at Tolkien’s declarations that he did not want his fantasy to be read as Christian allegory, and conclude on that basis that the whole epic has nothing to do with Christianity.
This error rises from a misunderstanding of Tolkien’s deepest purposes, and of his whole conception of myth. Most mythopoeic-minded Christians are aware of the tale of C. S. Lewis’s conversion to Christianity—how he spent a night arguing with his friends Tolkien and Hugo Dyson, and how at length they helped him to see that one did not need to choose between the great heathen myths and Christ. Rather, Christ fulfilled the myths in time and space. This is not irrelevant to the creation of Middle Earth. Tolkien’s great purpose in his “subcreation” was to recreate a specifically English mythology, to fill the place of one that must have existed, but has been lost.
He took up this project in order (aside from the sheer fun of playing with languages) not to create a new, heathen religion, but to lay down a mythic road to the gospel—the same kind of road his friend Jack Lewis had walked when the pursuit of Norse mythology led him, after many turnings, to Jesus Christ. The glory of God was the goal, and submitting the beauty of myth to the service of the gospel was the means. If the myth was to truly glorify God, it must be true myth. If it was to be true myth, it could never be allegory.
This is the sort of challenge Colin Cutler has assumed in imagining a mythic version of the Christian gospel. It’s not an allegory like Pilgrim’s Progress, in which specific doctrines are to be noted and commented on. It’s an adventure to be entered into and looked along (as C. S. Lewis would have put it) rather than at. Those with theological understanding (which is a very good thing) may find points to criticize. Let them be reminded that this is not theology. It is story. It is myth. It serves God in its own peculiar way, like those holy fools of God we read of in old books, and occasionally meet in real life.
He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
Lars Walker
Author of The Year Of the Warrior, Troll Valley, etc.
Minneapolis, Minnesota, July, 2012
It worked for me. Niggle’s Parish by the Bay was indeed an excellent introduction to the Mountains.
Do you think this “looking along” may apply to Overstreet’s work? I think he is pointing more toward art or beauty saving the world, not anything theological, but I haven’t read the fourth one yet.
I had the same thought, Phil, and was prepared to defend him on those grounds. But he took it to lengths that I couldn’t follow.
Lars,
Kind of along these lines (I wasn’t sure where else to ask), have you read Tolkien’s The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun. I’m working on it now. It seems like something up your alley and I’d be interested in your review of it.
I haven’t read it yet. Need to get to it.