There was recently a post published to Medium, titled “No, the Lord of the Rings is not Christian.” This post, which made rounds throughout the internet, argued that, despite a popular understanding, Tolkien’s great work is not only not fundamentally a Christian work, but that it is actually fundamentally secular, and even philosophically "progressive." I provided a response post to my blog, which seems to have struck a chord with many, so I decided to read it here. The original article superficially touched on so many topics, so I decided that a response worth giving will actually require a series, explore the Christian elements behind Tolkien’s stories, his broader religious framework, his literary philosophy, and so forth. This first response post primarily looks at Tolkien’s narratives themselves. If you would like to keep up with the series, you can subscribe to my site, andrewnsnyder.com or, to gain access to all of my blog readings, past, present, and future as they come out, you can support me on Patreon at patreon.com/andrewnsnyder at any tier. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app