What Tolkien Did So Well, What We Do So Poorly

Hobbiton...where the story began

One of the great strengths of Tolkien’s work is its grounding in history. One of the great weaknesses of the contemporary church is its detachment from its own history. Few of today’s Christians have a clear sense of how the church came to be. They know of Acts and Reformation and Billy Graham, but the rest is a blur. They do not know their forebears, the ones who faithfully proclaimed and finally handed down the faith. They have no grounding in history—their own history.

This is not universally true, of course. I have been among some who cling tightly to their history—Reformed Presbyterians who love the Covenanters, Anglicans who esteem Cranmer and many of his contemporaries, Dutch Reformed believers who honor the men who framed their confessions. (I even went to one of their schools, Guido de Brès High School in Hamilton.) But for many others, they are completely unmoored from the past.

There are many reasons we ought to teach believers their history. History gives us purpose. History gives us hope. History gives us theological grounding. But as much as anything, history reminds us that we live in the shadow of those who have come before and that those who follow will, in turn, look back to us. Read More