More dangerous than anything you will ever meet

12 Saturday Oct 2019

Posted by memoirandremains in C.S. Lewis, Fear, Literature

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danger, Fear, fear of God, Lord of the Rings, Tolkien

The Two Towers, Chapter 5

Tolkien here draws together two ideas which Gimili naively thinks to be exclusive of one-another. This is similar to Lewis’ comment that the lion is good and dangerous. The lion is certainly not safe.

The source of this idea is God himself. God is good, perfectly good. God is love. Who has ever been more kind than Christ? And yet God is very dangerous; more dangerous than anything we could imagine: more dangerous than anything you will ever meet:

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

Matt10.28

It is a simplistic concept to think that danger and good are separate.

This helps a bit understand the tension in Christianity that we are to love God, trust God, put our hope in God – fear God.

The Inklings

11 Monday May 2015

Posted by memoirandremains in C.S. Lewis, Church History

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C.S. Lewis, Inklings, Oxford, Tolkien

During the hectic middle decades of the 20th century, from the end of the Great Depression through the Second World War and into the 1950s, a small circle of intellectuals gathered weekly in and around the University of Oxford to drink, smoke, quip, cavil, read aloud their works in progress, and endure or enjoy with as much grace as they could muster the sometimes blistering critiques that followed. This erudite club included writers and painters, philologists and physicians, historians and theologians, soldiers and actors. They called themselves, with typical self-effacing humor, the Inklings.

http://chronicle.com/article/Oxfords-Influential-Inklings/229967/

Tolkien Snubs a German Publisher

29 Tuesday Apr 2014

Posted by memoirandremains in Literature

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Aryan, Hitler, Jewish, Tolkien

Thank you for your letter. I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people.

Read about Tolkien’s burning grudge

You’ll be glad you did.