Sir Martin Gilbert and the Inklings

By |2024-02-23T18:05:16-06:00February 23rd, 2024|Categories: Bradley J. Birzer, Christianity, Inklings, J.R.R. Tolkien, Oxford University, Timeless Essays|

Sir Martin Gilbert, the official biographer of Winston Churchill, knew J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and the Inklings personally. At one memorable lunch, Sir Martin gave me his impressions of these great men and of the Oxford of their day. During my time at Hillsdale College—having arrived in the fall of 1999—the college hired a number [...]

St. Augustine and J.R.R. Tolkien

By |2024-02-15T20:13:18-06:00February 15th, 2024|Categories: Bradley J. Birzer, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literature, Myth, Senior Contributors, St. Augustine, StAR, Timeless Essays|

As did St. Augustine as the barbarians tore through Rome’s gate on August 24, 410, at midnight, J.R.R. Tolkien looked out over a ruined world: a world on one side controlled by ideologues, and, consequently, a world of the Gulag, the Holocaust camps, the Killing fields, and total war; on the other: a world of [...]

J.R.R. Tolkien’s Sanctifying Myth

By |2024-01-02T19:03:13-06:00January 2nd, 2024|Categories: Books, Bradley J. Birzer, Imagination, J.R.R. Tolkien, Myth, Senior Contributors, Timeless Essays|

Myth, J.R.R. Tolkien thought, can convey the sort of profound truth that is intransigent to description or analysis in terms of facts and figures. But, Tolkien admitted, myth can be dangerous if it remains pagan. Therefore, one must sanctify it. To enter faerie—that is, a sacramental and liturgical understanding of creation—is to open oneself to [...]

Fantasy & the Real World: Tolkien’s Philosophy of Myth

By |2024-01-02T19:46:13-06:00January 2nd, 2024|Categories: Imagination, J.R.R. Tolkien, Joseph Pearce, Myth, Senior Contributors, Timeless Essays|

Fantasy shows us ourselves in the light of the fullness of the natural and supernatural reality in which we find ourselves. Does so-called fantasy literature have any relevance to the so-called real world? Such a question is worth asking and indeed answering but can only be addressed if we have a clear understanding of what [...]

Pagans, a Pope, & Sauron: How We Got New Year’s Day

By |2023-12-31T18:31:01-06:00December 31st, 2023|Categories: Christianity, Culture, History, J.R.R. Tolkien, New Year's Day, Timeless Essays|

As you celebrate New Year’s Day remember that for one thousand years the welcoming of a new year was not just a calendar event, but a culturally religious event which linked the renewal of nature with the redemption of the world. Some atheists, Muslims, and Christian fundamentalists like to grumble and gibe that the celebration [...]

Tolkien and Lewis Under the Christmas Tree

By |2023-12-15T17:26:54-06:00December 14th, 2023|Categories: Books, C.S. Lewis, Christian Humanism, Christmas, Gifts for Imaginative Conservatives, J.R.R. Tolkien, Louis Markos, Senior Contributors, Timeless Essays|

With a seemingly (and thankfully) endless supply of books about J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis flowing out from every conceivable press, it is easy to overlook some hidden gems. To assist Imaginative Conservative readers with their Christmas book shopping, I have highlighted below some books about Lewis and/or Tolkien that have been published over the [...]

Pitiful Caliban and Gollum

By |2023-12-06T20:05:20-06:00December 6th, 2023|Categories: Dwight Longenecker, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literature, Senior Contributors, William Shakespeare|

Gollum and Caliban are not humans who transmogrify temporarily into beasts. They are horrific hybrids: half humans (or hobbits) who have been taken over by the bestial nature of the dark side. While they have become monstrous, their horror is mixed with humanity. J.R.R. Tolkien was famously antipathetic towards Shakespeare, and there is no suggestion [...]

A Hobbit’s Journey Home: Crossing the Atlantic and the Tiber

By |2023-09-18T17:05:48-05:00September 19th, 2023|Categories: Dwight Longenecker, J.R.R. Tolkien, Joseph Pearce, Senior Contributors|

Truth is indeed stranger than fiction, and the ways of God more strange and more beautiful than anything the mind of man can fathom. What else could explain Father Dwight Longenecker's journey from undergraduate at Bob Jones University, to Anglican country parson, to Catholic priest for the diocese of Charleston? At the conclusion of the [...]

A Hobbit’s Journey Home: Dreaming of the Shire

By |2023-09-19T17:34:31-05:00September 11th, 2023|Categories: Dwight Longenecker, J.R.R. Tolkien, Joseph Pearce, Senior Contributors|

Father Dwight Longenecker’s account of his own life’s adventure is subtitled “a somewhat religious odyssey”, indicating that his life, like all our lives, is a journey, or a pilgrimage, or a quest, the goal of which is, or should be, to get to heaven. “I am in fact a Hobbit in all but size,” wrote [...]

Tolkien’s “The Children of Húrin”

By |2023-09-10T12:53:29-05:00September 10th, 2023|Categories: Books, Bradley J. Birzer, Fiction, Imagination, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literature, Senior Contributors, Timeless Essays, Tolkien Series|

How does one account for J.R.R. Tolkien’s seeming ability to live inside of mythology? He read it, he translated it, and he absorbed it. After all these grand things, he rewrote it. Yet, no matter how deeply he delved into the profound and pervasive paganisms of pre-Christian cultures, he never lost his ability to baptize [...]

The Tragedy of Despair

By |2023-09-04T15:36:18-05:00September 5th, 2023|Categories: Evil, Hope, J.R.R. Tolkien, Western Civilization, Western Tradition|

My heart breaks for Tolkien's Denethor, whose life ended unnecessarily, as bitterness, anger, and hopelessness in the face of evil consumed him. Let our prayer be that, even as we observe the darkness at the doorstep of Western Civilization, we imaginative conservatives stand at our posts and look to the Heavenly Father as our protector. [...]

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