Based on my readings, Tolkien was a deeply religious individual—In fact, it’s my understanding that Tolkien brought his colleague at Oxford, C. S. Lewis, back into to the Christian fold.
Anybody think that would happen with the calibre of college professors out there today?
Membership in the "Christian fold" is not dependent on someone's calibre or how good they are; in fact if it were dependent upon how good we are, as Mark Twain put it, "You're dog would go to heaven and you wouldn't."
Like people every other walk of life, college professors can come to faith in Jesus. It sometimes takes a conversion experience like Paul had, but it happens.
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--I sure didn't.
God certainly works in mysterious ways, doesn't He?
--I have often heard about Tolkien's Catholic faith.
--I was reading his bio and saw that he had been bitten by a BABOON SPIDER! He recovered, of course, but it reminded me of when I was bitten by a camel spider IN MY HOME when my husband and I lived in Saudi Arabia (five years).
“The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision.”
-Tolkien