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Could Reading C.S. Lewis or J.R.R. Tolkien Be Subversive in the UK?
PJ Media ^ | 04/13/2023 | Lincoln Brown

Posted on 04/13/2023 8:51:08 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

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It is true that Tolkien was a Roman Catholic. And when The Lord of the Rings movies came out and gave a boost to the books, pastors everywhere scrambled to preach sermons on how the story was a Christian one. While it may be a stretch to say that The Lord of the Rings is a Christian work, Tolkien’s faith obviously influenced his writing, as did his time in the trenches during the First World War.

Not only do the characters act on faith against overwhelming evil, but the story’s climax is built on the backs of two ordinary people who sacrifice everything to defeat the darkness, and for that matter, one could argue that the One Ring is ultimately destroyed through an act of divine intervention. Woven throughout are themes of friendship, opposition to tyranny, reconciliation, and even redemption. These ideas perhaps may be heretical enough to land the books on RICU’s list.

Lewis also served in the First World War. During the Second World War, he often addressed the British people via the BBC. And he gave lectures about faith to British servicemen. Those talks formed the basis for Mere Christianity. And there can be no doubt that Lewis is a Christian writer. His Space Trilogy bears witness to that, and The Chronicles of Narnia is solidly and immutably Christian. Some people claim that Aslan represents Christ, while others say that Aslan is Christ and has come to redeem another world. Whatever your feelings on that, Aslan is meant to portray Christ.

1 posted on 04/13/2023 8:51:08 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

THESE BOOKS BY C.S. LEWIS ON MY OWN PERSONAL READING LIST COULD BE CONSIDERED SUBVERSIVE:

Men Without Chests posits a moral law and refutes relativism.

The Abolition of Man also wrestles with these subjects and goes so far as to foresee a future in which thought and values are controlled by a group of elitists.
The Great Divorce in part forces the reader to examine the thoughts and choices that separate people from one another and from God.

The Screwtape Letters is a collection of missives from a senior demon in Hell named Screwtape to his nephew on Earth called Wormwood who is trying to take a man’s soul. The letters instruct Wormwood on how to use and leverage the most ordinary things in life, along with the traumatic ones, to lead a person to damnation through his own desires, fears, and ambitions.

2 posted on 04/13/2023 8:53:01 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

Oh good grief...Huxley was a progressive/lefty and Orwell was a Socialist!

That list is a hodge-podge of insanity and makes NO sense at all. Thank GOD I have hard copies of this stuff!


3 posted on 04/13/2023 9:05:20 PM PDT by nopardons
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To: SeekAndFind

The way things are headed, reading itself will be considered subversive.


4 posted on 04/13/2023 9:08:39 PM PDT by Southside_Chicago_Republican (The more I learn about people, the more I like my dog. )
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To: nopardons

I do not think Orwell was a Socialist in the normal sense of the word.


5 posted on 04/13/2023 9:16:02 PM PDT by Fai Mao (Starve the beast and steal its food!)
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To: SeekAndFind
While it may be a stretch to say that The Lord of the Rings is a Christian work, Tolkien’s faith obviously influenced his writing

Tolkien himself said the Lord of the Rings is fundamentally a Catholic book, which means it's a Christian book.

6 posted on 04/13/2023 9:34:33 PM PDT by fidelis (👈 Under no obligation to respond to rude, ignorant, abusive, bellicose, and obnoxious posts.)
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To: Fai Mao
Oh yes he was and flirted with being a Commie, before his eyes were opened to how terrible the USSR was.

If the only books of his that you've read are ANIMAL FARM and 1984, you wouldn't know. But DOWN AND OUT IN PARIS AND LONDON and KEEP THE ASPIDISTRA FLYING would prove I'm correct.

7 posted on 04/13/2023 9:36:11 PM PDT by nopardons
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To: SeekAndFind

Perhaps, but in the United Kingdom of today, reading Rudyard Kipling is definitely a subversive act.


8 posted on 04/13/2023 9:37:58 PM PDT by Natty Bumppo@frontier.net (We are the dangerous ones, who stand between all we love and a more dangerous world.)
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To: Southside_Chicago_Republican

You are right.


9 posted on 04/13/2023 10:17:14 PM PDT by frank ballenger (You have summoned up a thundercloud. You're gonna hear from me. Anthem by Leonard Cohen)
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To: SeekAndFind

bkmk C. S. Lewis


10 posted on 04/13/2023 10:46:14 PM PDT by linMcHlp
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To: SeekAndFind

But Marx, Nietzsche, Hegel and Feuerbach don’t make the list. Hmm...


11 posted on 04/13/2023 10:48:24 PM PDT by Dr. Sivana ("If you can’t say something nice . . . say the Rosary." [Red Badger])
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To: Dr. Sivana

Hmmm, I don’t think that list holds together.


12 posted on 04/13/2023 11:10:44 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: nopardons

Oh good grief...don’t be an ignorant dumbA.


13 posted on 04/13/2023 11:23:12 PM PDT by A strike ("The worse, the better."- Lenin (& Schwab & Soros)
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To: Southside_Chicago_Republican
The way things are headed, reading itself will be considered subversive.

Fahrenheit 451 here we come......

Of course, that will be banned, too.

14 posted on 04/14/2023 12:11:40 AM PDT by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith….)
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To: fidelis
Tolkien himself said the Lord of the Rings is fundamentally a Catholic book, which means it's a Christian book.

Not necessarily.

Catholic does not by default equate to Christian.

Catholicism has elements of Christianity in it, but there's too much syncretism in Catholicism to classify the whole religion as Christian. And besides, there's this whole issue with your pope and the College of Cardinals that installed him......

Simply adding Jesus to a religion does not make it by default Christian. He's not a window dressing.

15 posted on 04/14/2023 12:15:47 AM PDT by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith….)
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To: metmom

That’s your personal prejudiced opinion. The fact is, Catholics are Christians no matter what anti-Catholics say. It is an irrefutable matter of history that that the Catholic Church was established by Jesus himself 2000 years ago. All other Christian churches were founded long after the fact by fallible men, including the one you now belong to.


16 posted on 04/14/2023 12:26:12 AM PDT by fidelis (👈 Under no obligation to respond to rude, ignorant, abusive, bellicose, and obnoxious posts.)
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To: SeekAndFind

why not?
i am sure the mufti would have a fit if he saw one of his mohammdan brethren reading either o e!


17 posted on 04/14/2023 1:42:36 AM PDT by Terry L Smith
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To: fidelis
That’s your personal prejudiced opinion. The fact is, Catholics are Christians no matter what anti-Catholics say. It is an irrefutable matter of history that that the Catholic Church was established by Jesus himself 2000 years ago. All other Christian churches were founded long after the fact by fallible men, including the one you now belong to.

Every time I see a Catholic attempt to explain matters of church and religion, I hope to finally observe one who would know the difference. But, alas, each remains Catholic and so cannot. It is an irrefutable lie that Christ founded the Catholic Church. He founded a religion and churches are institutions created among adherents for the practice of that religion. The one church today which least resembles the assembly of Christ's followers at the time, and the one which is most hostile to the religion's initial form and doctrine, is the modern Catholic Church. Jesus would hardly recognize it. If we were to try to recreate the original form as experienced by the Apostles themselves, the Catholics would denounce it. Christianity is the following of Christ, not a two-thousand year old game of tapping a bishop on the shoulder and saying "your it".

18 posted on 04/14/2023 3:45:48 AM PDT by Brass Lamp
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To: SeekAndFind

From 2016...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/02/inside-ricu-the-shadowy-propaganda-unit-inspired-by-the-cold-war

Note the timing of the funding increase.

2015/2016.

Fighting Islamism was the excuse, not the reason.


19 posted on 04/14/2023 3:56:13 AM PDT by mewzilla (We will never restore the republic if we don't first secure the ballot box.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Personally, I find both Tolkien and C. S. Lewis absolutely boring to read.

To Lewis’s credit I’ve always found apologetic writers burdensome in their arguments.


20 posted on 04/14/2023 4:06:52 AM PDT by Clutch Martin ("The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right." )
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