Religion In The Hobbit And The Lord Of The Rings

For centuries, religion has been a focal point in people’s lives; religion was used as a reason for the Crusades. As time passes, religion has become less of a focus in everyday life as people are “losing their religion;” people are now becoming atheists and agnostics. However, religion still seems to appear in literature. In books written by J.R.R. Tolkien, the subject of religion is never actually said, but is alluded to at many times. In writing The Silmarillion, Tolkien created his own mythology, which has to do with religion. This book, though published later than the rest of his books, is the foundation of all of the books set in Middle Earth. From the ideas written in The Silmarillion, Tolkien created The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings,
and Unfinished Tales. Through his books and characters, Tolkien has conveyed his Catholic beliefs.
J.R.R. Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa on January 3, 1892. After his father died, the Tolkien’s, his mother, brother, and himself, moved to West Midlands, England. Again, the Tolkien moved; this time, to Birmingham. J.R.R. Tolkien was raised as an Anglican, but was later raised as a Catholic when his mother and aunt decided to convert to Catholicism. In 1904, his mother died after being diagnosed with diabetes. Him and his brother were then taken care of by his aunt and later by a Mrs. Faulkner. By this point, Tolkien had already mastered Latin and Greek. He even began to make up his own languages for fun. He was a part of the T.C.B.S., the Tea Club, Barrovian Society, where the members would exchange and criticize each other’s writings. He went to Exeter College in Oxford in 1911, where he majored in English Language and Literature. Over the course of his studies, he became highly interested in the couplet from Crist of Cynewulf:

“Eálá Earendel engla beorhtast
Ofer middangeard monnum sended”
This means:
“Hail Earendel brightest of angels, over Middle Earth sent to men.”
This was just the beginning of Tolkien’s journey to creating his world of Middle Earth.
In 1914, World War I broke out. Tolkien began to work on his ideas. He wanted his imaginations to be put onto paper, but was struggling to create something to his liking. Before being called off to war, he married Edith Bratt on March 22, 1916. He was sent to a hospital in England when he contracted “ trench fever.” Over his months in England, all but one member of the T.C.B.S. had been killed in action. Through this and his war experiences, Tolkien began to form his stories. After being intrigued in his college days, Tolkien began to finally create languages, characters, and the stories behind them. Tolkien's first son was born on November 16, 1917. After the armistice was signed, Tolkien was appointed Assistant Lexicographer on the New English Dictionary. He later left and was appointed Reader at the University of Leeds. At Leeds, he collaborated with E.V. Gordon on Sir Gawain and the Green Night. He also continued writing and editing The Lost Tales and invented his Elvish languages. After the birth of his next two children, he was appointed the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University. In 1929, Priscilla Tolkien was born. After Tolkien and Edith moved after their children grew up, Tolkien founded the "Inklings." This group was similar to the T.C.B.S. in that the Inklings would meet for readings of their
writings. Tolkien started to gain momentum with his ideas for his stories. In a 1961 interview he said, "For many, many years, I have been fascinated by the fairy-tale as a means of expression...I used to write without a thought of publishing anything of what I have produced, a number of letters to my children from Father Christmas and other. I was very early fascinated by such works as Beowulf and the Edda and by different languages - I even invented my own languages..."
The Hobbit came from his storytelling to his children. He even believed that what his children had to say about the story was important: “I read it to my children...the two elder ones who took a kindly and, on the whole, favourable an interest in it...criticised very severely and first opened my eyes to the whole situation which led to my essay on fairy stories...They hated asides... loathed anything that made it sound as if you were talking to a, an actual audience.”
After an employee of a publishing firm read the incomplete transcript and asked Tolkien to finish it, Tolkien presented his work to the Chairman of the firm.
The Hobbit was published in 1937. He later went on to write The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, and many more novels. Though The Hobbit was Tolkien's first published book, The Silmarillion is really where Tolkien's journey through Middle Earth begins. He created different races, such as the Elves and the Dwarves. He also, after taking an interest in languages, created a language for each of the races, but used English for the "common tongue." His mixing of existent languages to create the languages of Middle Earth was unique and extremely difficult to do, Tolkien even said that, "...of course Elvish is too complicated. I've never finished making it.” The Silmarillion was the basis of Tolkien's mythology. He used many ideas from religion, and sometime his own religion, Catholicism. Tolkien created Eru, also known as Iluvatar, who in a sense, could be called a God figure. Iluvatar then created the Ainur, who can be paralleled with archangels and sometimes the human race, and Middle
Earth. Melkor, created by Iluvatar, decided that he wanted to be more powerful than Iluvatar. Instead of creating and spreading life he destroyed and corrupted what Iluvatar and the other Ainur had created. This is alike to Lucifer going against God. Lucifer, one of God's most beloved angels, wanted to be more powerful than God, so, he fell out of grace and became what we now know as the devil or Satan: "...The name of Melkor, He who arises in Might. But that name he has forfeited...name him Morgoth, the Dark Enemy of the World. From splendour he fell ...He began with the desire of Light, but...descended through fire and wrath into a great burning, down into Darkness." After setting up new languages, races, and Middle Earth, Tolkien began writing his first book on Middle Earth, The Hobbit. It started off as a bedtime story he told to his children. He later decided to publish his imaginations in 1937. When published, one of Tolkien's friends, C.S. Lewis, wrote a review on The Hobbit: “The Hobbit... will be funnier to its youngest readers, and only years later, at a tenth or a twentieth reading, will they begin to realise what deft scholarship and profound reflection have gone to make everything in it so ripe, so friendly, and in its own way so true. Prediction is dangerous: but The Hobbit may well prove a classic.”