The Hobbit Should Be Banned Essay

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

Throughout recorded human history, some people have written books and others have, sometimes, decided on disliking certain books. Once someone is against a book to the point where it offends them on one level or another, this is where challenges or bans against a book arise. More times than not, a book is banned/ challenged due to religious or spiritual reasons. This is exactly the case of the only reported challenge on The Lord of the Rings, the 40th most commonly challenged classic book on the ALA Banned and Challenged Classics list, written by J.R.R. Tolkien.
Although the reasoning behind reported challenges against The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, another famous work of literature by Tolkien
based on the same storyline, are those of religious offense, it can easily be proven that in writing his novels, Tolkien never set out to spark controversy with his work. There is no talk of God or the Creation in either the Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit. In fact, it's almost ironic that so many people found his work to be of a satanic influence when he was rather religious and spiritual himself. Tolkien was a devout Catholic, along with his family. Although there was no intent on having his work by any means a spiritual or religious writing, once into it, he clearly saw the parallels between his work and Christianity [Kimbriel].
It's no secret that The Lord of the Rings features content that might be seen as less than "holy" what with wizards, elves, and other magical/ mythical folk.
There are borrowed bits and pieces of Norse and Pagan myth in the Lord of the Rings, but these are used to add great effect in reinforcing the same basic morals that Christianity teaches: good always triumphs and hope endures [source 8]. When there is talk of magic that isn't granted or influenced by God or the Gospel, it could offend religious people, the challengers. So when the Christ Community Church of Alamogordo, New Mexico had their opportunity to publically denounce the work of Tolkien and other similar books, they had a book
burning.
According to the Book View Cafe, which conducted an interview with members of the staff and faculty of Christ Community Church, employees of the CCC say it began with a member of the church asking the priest, Pastor Jack Brock, whether or not she should buy Harry Potter books for her grandchildren that Christmas. Not knowing much about these novels, Brock did his research on Potter. "[Pastor] found many great articles from much larger and more notable pastors, such as Chuck Smith (founding pastor of Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa), who wrote about the dangers of Harry Potter and the blatant witchcraft found in the books," says CCC employee. And so, with this news, Brock shared his findings and preached a sermon about the dangers of witchcraft found in these and other books. In this sermon, Brock mentioned to the members of the church that if they'd want to bring any of these books to their annual bonfire, they could do so.
At the Christ Community Church, there is an old tradition of hosting a yearly Holy Bonfire in which the church invites the community to get together and burn items that symbolize their sins and the like. Many other churches have a similar events towards year's end where people can write their sins on a paper and cast them into a bonfire. Although the CCC states they do not condone book burning, that's precisely the impression they gave off when word of the bonfire got out. Everyone had heard of what the church was planning and this sparked a lot of controversy; extremists arose on both ends of the argument, and the church received a lot of attention. Pastor Brock says he saw this attention as a blessing [Deseret News], "There are those that are doing their best to make us look bad, but because of this, I've been able to preach the gospel around the world." So while some people were burning their books and other items, others were standing across the street, protesting the church. Radical protesters against the book burning would burn bibles and leave them on doorsteps, and extremists of the church would burn items that the Church never encouraged in the first place. People gathered down the roads and chanted "stop burning books!" Member's of the community say that although it may be useless now after the burning, the community does not stand by the church [Deseret News]. At the Holy Bonfire, items that were cast into the fire that night at the Christ Community Church included the Lord of the Rings films and books (including The Hobbit), other books that mentioned or were about witchcraft and wizardry, Star Wars products, ACDC records, and much more. These items were considered "masterpieces of satanic deception" [BBC News].
When we talk about the spark that lit the fire, quite literally, it can be traced back to the people of religious power not wanting children to follow in the wizardly ways that are talked about in The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter.
However, this isn’t much of an issue for some priests according to Katherine Kimbriel in “An Accidental Burning,” an article on The Book View Cafe. She spoke to a friend of hers who is a catholic priest and he stated these books aren’t a problem to him because many children tell him the books are make-believe and just for fun. Also, he acknowledges that the children can take away great moral lessons from some of the messages in The Lord of the Rings [Book View
Cafe].
Censorship has always been a controversial topic regarding these books. Communities across the United States are banning books in the genre of the Lord of the Rings for their fantasy ideas and sacrilegious beliefs. Parents do not want their children reading books that go against their religious beliefs. Though it’s understandable to sympathize with people who feel that rejecting a book for their own spiritual or moralistic well-being is best for them, I do not agree with those who want to ban books entirely so that no one can read them.
Burning a book is like burning a flag in the sense that it says something unique that cannot be expressed any other way but by doing so. An argument used against people who believe in the censorship of books, music, and art, is that this country was based upon a system of freedoms in thoughts, beliefs, and speech, and so censorship is contracting to freedom in concept. However, it could also be said that these freedoms also entail the freedom to protest as one should please. The Christ Community Church had every right to protest against their beliefs [Banning Gandalf].
All in all, the Lord of the Rings still stands in bookstores and although the Christ Community Church did spark controversy with their Holy Bonfire, the CCC does no longer preach sermons against the work of Tolkien and they no longer permit books in their annual bonfire. Though it can still be considered a highly controversial book, the Lord of the Rings has had no challenges since the 2001 Holy Bonfire of the Christ Community Church. Little is to be found when researching this topic, but when searching The Alamogordo Daily News website, there is an article from 2008 stating that the photos that were taken by photographer Gerald Moore were to be sold as a fundraiser to raise money for the Alamogordo library fund, which makes for an ironic ending to the entire situation.