By: Shafer Parker, FBB Content Director

Someone has well said that  J. R. R. Tolkien’s gift was his ability, perhaps his unique ability, to make good people interesting. Most novelists, even Christian novelists, find that to maintain interest they must present a protagonist torn between his better and worse natures, perpetually caught between temptation and the call to duty. But not Tolkien. He could present a hobbit, a man, an elf, or a wizard as an entirely good person, and still captivate his readers.

Tolkien was just as unique in his presentation of evil. Whether the subject was a fallen angel such as Sauron or a grubby, nasty orc, these creatures tend to personify evil, not through ordinary failings such as lust or greed, but through spiritual sins, such as the rejection of obedience toward Eru (Tolkien’s name for God, or the One in his sub-created world), or such apparently mild sins as an orcish inability to appreciate goodness or beauty, disappointment with one’s lot in life (think Denethor, who fell because he could see no way to rise), or even an obsession with something that in itself is good (compare Saruman, who fell from the desire to accumulate power for the purpose of doing good, with Gandalf and Galadriel, who sensed the same weakness in themselves).

These are not sins that appeal to the desires of the flesh. They are almost entirely spiritual. And they perfectly capture the zeitgeist of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Mind you, I’m not suggesting that modern human beings don’t struggle with fleshly desires. They do. But Tolkien saw and expressed the subtle corrupting power of spiritual temptations perhaps better than anyone else—ever. To my mind, his explorations of neglected aspects of the fall explains much of his popularity. It also explains why literally thousands of reader testimonials begin with some variation of, “When I first encountered The Lord of the Rings, I could not put it down. I missed meals and neglected obligations until I’d read all three volumes.” Ask yourself, how could a book filled with mythical creatures, little romance, and no sex elicit such attraction? One senses these readers were, perhaps unknowingly, drinking life from Tolkien’s pages. Which is ironic when you consider that he thought his books were all about death.

In fact, Tolkien’s works are almost all extended riffs on the deeper meaning of David’s words in Psalm 23: “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” For Tolkien the greatest forms of evil were found, not so much in the indulgence of the flesh as in the “shadow” life that results from turning away from fullness of life in God. This is true in all his works, but especially true in his short, eight-page attempt to write a sequel to The Lord of the Rings, which he dubbed The New Shadow. Long known to exist, The New Shadow finally saw the light of day in 1996 as part of The Peoples of Middle Earth, a collection of previously unpublished material compiled by his son and literary executor Christopher.

The New Shadow takes place about 100 years after the fall of Sauron (The Return of the King), and mainly consists of a conversation between Borlas, an old man who can still remember the idealistic heroism of that ancient war, and Saelon, a much younger man, a neighbour, and a lifelong friend of Borlas’ son.

Early in this fragment of story Saelon reminds the older man that he had once been caught in Borlas’ orchard breaking off green apples and using them as weapons in a childish game. He reminds Borlas that he had been caught and made the unwilling recipient of a lecture on righteousness and the meaning of life. This Borlas remembered.  But then Saelon revealed the encounter had birthed a resentment that still festered. Borlas had told the lad that stealing food if one was hungry might be wrong, but understandable. “But pulling down unripe apples to break or cast away! That is Orcs’ work. How did you come to do such a thing, lad?”

The adult Saelon accuses Borlas of making the mistake of wanting to “improve” him. “Orcs’ work!” he exclaims. “I was angered by that, Master Borlas, and too proud to answer, though it was in my heart to say in child’s words: ‘If it was wrong for a boy to steal an apple to eat, then it is wrong to steal one to play with. But not more wrong.’ Don’t speak to me of Orcs’ work, or I may show you some!” Saelon then tells the elder Borlas that the conversation had sparked a desire in him to “think of the sweetness of revenge” and do some real Orcs’ work like cutting down the trees themselves.

Disturbed by Saelon’s long-lived animosity, Borlas tries to explain that to break off fruit before it fulfils its purpose “is to do worse than just to rob the man that has tended it: it robs the world, hinders a good thing from fulfilment. Those who do so join forces with all that is amiss, with the blights and the cankers and the ill winds. And that was the way of Orcs.”

Saelon disagrees. He claims that everyone uses trees and their fruit in whatever way they wish, and that they feel justified in doing so. His argument reveals Tolkien’s deep understanding of the rot afflicting the minds of too many of today’s Gen X-ers and Millennials (ages 25-45). Saelon levels the value of men and trees, suggesting that if trees had a say they would consider all men as orcs. After all, it is men who cut down trees at will, for lumber, for fuel, or “merely to open the view.” Then, going further, Saelon reveals that he flat out rejects Borlas’ contention that God made man as the apex of creation, and that He had made trees, and all things, to serve man. In doing this, Saelon reveals that from his perspective there is no hierarchy of values, no purpose in anything, and certainly no holiness anywhere. To Saelon, there is only power.

To cap the shocking revelations of his inner being Saelon reveals that he is a follower of  “Herumor,” which, had Tolkien finished the story, the reader can discern would have been the name for a revived Sauron-like character. Later, as Borlas decides to accept Saelon’s invitation to a secret meeting of Herumor’s followers, he says to himself, “Scent has a long memory. I think I could still smell the old Evil, and know it for what it is.”

But that raises a disturbing question. Who among us can still smell the old Evil? Who among us any longer “knows it for what it is?” Do we realise that many of our children are practical atheists, and that this is revealed in their radical flattening of creation, especially among all living creatures—that to too many of them “a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy?” Do we discern that recent generations reject the hierarchy that God establishes in Genesis 1 and 2? Have we figured out that in rejecting the plain sense of the Bible’s story of creation, we have also laid the foundation for widespread unbelief, which is the root of all evil? Or have we gone nose blind through our own compromises with the world’s rejection of the One?

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