Hat tip to one of Mark Horne's commentators for the following link:
Conflict and convergence on fundamental matters in C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien by John C. Wood.
There is so much in the article to digest that I recommend everyone to read it and think about it. These men were both geniuses in their individual ways. Some of the points in the article re-enforce my long held contention that JRRT was a better fiction writer in general than CSL, but CSL was a better essayist. Scholastically, CSL might have been more prolific but I contend that they were both excellent in their respective fields.
These men were both Christians, and I find my ecumenical outlook more alike to CSL than to JRRT, with reservations on certain theological issues. There are such great insights from both these great men. This is one of the reasons that though I may not be a great scholar of literature, I dearly love to read the great writers of history, because the extraordinary creativity and insight can inform my life and faith. Even a writer like Dostoevsky who was so profoundly different from these two great writers informs my faith and provokes my thoughts to a higher plane. Even as I read the article referenced above, I have been closing in on the end of FD's story, "Poor Folk" and I can see that FD is more of a modernist than the two medievalists CSL & JRRT. I couldn't help but think that as JRRT described the great conflict in Middle Earth against the forces of darkness, FD was describing the life of humans in thrall in Mordor and showing that even in misery, the little glimmers of God shine through in the human image bearers of Christ.
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