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The Critical Religion Association

~ Critical Approaches to the Study of Religion

The Critical Religion Association

Tag Archives: faith

More than the One Ring? Tolkien, faith and critical religion

18 Sunday May 2014

Posted by Francis Stewart in Critical Religion, University of Stirling

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C S Lewis, faith, Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, religion, Tolkein

Interest in the world of Middle Earth is riding high again with the successful Hobbit films currently being released by Peter Jackson a decade after his adaption of the longer story The Lord of the Rings. Both stories, and others (personally I am hoping Jackson takes on ‘The Children of Hurin’), were written by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (J.R.R. as he preferred, or Ronald to his friends) whom many know was an Oxford professor of philology and mythology. What is perhaps less well known is Tolkien’s approach to his personal faith and his understanding of religion which he infused all his stories, indeed his created world of Middle Earth with.

J.R.R. Tolkien lost his father when he was 4 years old. His mother, Mabel, responded to his death by converting to Catholicism. This resulted in tension and ostracism from her Unitarian and Methodist family with the consequences that she moved her two sons to live in the countryside outside Birmingham and worked hard to sustain them. She provided their early education but succumbed to complications arising from diabetes when Tolkien was 12 years old. The Catholic Church took them in and provided for both boys’ education in good schools. For Tolkien, Catholicism took on “the place in his affections that she had previously occupied.” (Carpenter, 1977, p50)

As is well-documented, Tolkien began to create his world of Middle Earth, and indeed to write the beginnings of what would become ‘The Silmarilion’ during his time serving in the trenches in World War 1 (he was badly injured during the Battle of the Somme). His experiences in the war caused him to become focused on the questions of good and evil in man and the notion of forgiveness, with redemption being the ultimate expression of it.

After the war he was appointed first to Leeds then to Oxford where he remained for the rest of his career. He was joined by numerous scholars and writers the most famous probably being Clive Staples Lewis (C S Lewis author of the Narnia tales). Another was Charles Williams, a poet and author who was fascinated by Christian mysticism and alchemy. These men, along with various others at different points, formed the group known as The Inklings who met once or twice a week in a pub to discuss language, read their current writings and receive criticism and then to debate matters of faith and ideas. Of them all Tolkien was closest to Lewis and was devastated when Lewis turned from his agnostic path back to his Ulster heritage of Protestant Anglicanism.

Although a devout Catholic, Tolkien was critical of any notion of an absolute or universal religion and he frequently chided Lewis for treating religion as a sacred thing that existed in its own right and place in the world. Tolkien lamented that this was a childish understanding of faith. In one of his many letters (he was prolific as a letter writer) to Lewis in regards to his book ‘Christian Behaviour’ he takes Lewis to task for treating all Muslims are being the same as each other, while demanding that they recognise the variety that exists within Christianity. He refers to the use of Muslims as a counterfoil for Christianity as “a stinking red herring” (Carpenter & Tolkien, 1981, p60) by Lewis to disguise the presumption that religion exists because it exists and cannot therefore be challenged or altered. In the same letter he continues to reprimand Lewis for ignoring that irreligious folk live and behave in moral ways as determined by their laws, their society and their own conscience.

Partly in reaction to Lewis and partly because he genuinely believed what he was arguing, his own writings contain no explicit reference to religion at all, but rather they deal with vague matters of faith. He viewed this as a necessary form of freedom if faith was to survive and be relevant in the world (both the physical world he lived in and the imaginary world he created). So, for example, in a letter to W. H. Auden he outlined that he does not deal in absolutes such as good and evil but rather in perceptions. He writes; “The Eldar and the Numenoreans believed in The One, the true God, and held worship of any other person to be an abomination. Sauron desired to be a God-King, and was held to be this by his servants.” (Carpenter & Tolkien, 1981, p243) He reasoned that each acted according to their own perception and so for each their cause was right. He then continues to liken it to his current world of wealthy bosses who rule over the masses who must live in fear and squalor while the state (he later changes this to state-God) promises them that doing so will ensure “peace and abundance and … mutual esteem and trust.” (ibid p244) It is unknown how Auden responded to this as the letter resulted in a personal visit rather than a written response.

For Tolkien religion was a term he was uncomfortable with (and of course he would have known its etymology intimately in a variety of languages) and he did not want the concept of it to be overt in his writings and his imagination. He reasons for doing so were complex, they were bound up with the death of his mother, the experiences on the battle fields of the First World War, and his mistrust of a rising ‘secular’ state that he thought worshipped only ‘damned capitalism, money and power’. He wanted to create as realistic a world as possible, it was to be his gift to his country (to replace his lament that England has no mythology) and for Tolkien religion as a concept was a false one and so had no place in Middle Earth. This cue he took from Old Norse and Celtic mythology in which aspects of faith were suffused within everyday aspects of life rather than a separate institution. (Shippey, 2000, p174) In the midst of the phenomenal writings, the spectacular films there is an important message that continues to speak to the work, interests and purpose of Critical Religion.

Blurring the boundaries – punk rock and religion

03 Monday Dec 2012

Posted by Francis Stewart in Critical Religion, University of Stirling

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Charles Taylor, Critical Religion, Dan Laughey, faith, Gordon Lynch, John Storey, punk rock, religion, spiritualities

Ever walked into a music shop? What do you find? Shelves or boxes – depending upon your predilection for large stores or small independents – which are labelled with the music ‘type’ found within. Metal, jazz, country, rock, pop, opera, classical and everything in-between. Why? On the simple premise that it makes it easier to find the type of music you want and so increase the likelihood of expenditure on your part. What is the danger of presenting music in this manner? It makes discovery much harder and exploration much less likely. You go straight to the genre you like, find what you want, have a quick look around for anything else in that genre and then head straight to the tills. Potentially missing out on undiscovered gems in other genres, classics that influenced the music you liked or even simply misfiled music.

Rock and roll has always inspired tribalism, the music genres being one manifestation of this. On a larger scale there were the mods versus the rockers, the bikers versus the hippies and the punks versus basically everything and anything! Despite its love and promotion of various notions of anarchy, punk itself is replete with labels. Terms such as crusty punk, surfer punk, skater punk, street punk, hardcore punk, 77 punk, and straight edge punk and so on are rife. Why? To delineate borders, to define identities, and to attempt to create order and control in a world which can all too easily be wrested from them by profit focused companies.  What is the danger of presenting identity in this manner? It assumes that identity, behaviour and presentation is rigid and definable, it assumes a shared understanding and therefore tradition of these identity labels, it creates a necessary ‘other’ within a subculture and finally it actually results in co-option and control being easier to obtain for large companies.

Identities are not static, but fluid as cultural theorists John Storey and Dan Laughey and sociologist of religion Gordon Lynch have argued. The boundaries between cultural and/or subcultural affiliation have become significantly less rigid and defined. It is now quite common, almost expected, that individuals will merge one or more – sometimes disparate – identities within their overall sense of self.  The multi-faceted sense of self and identity formation is partly a feature of the consumerist, choice based West, partly a feature of the rise in significance of the self/individual and partly as a result of globalisation.

This has forced a re-think on what do we mean, understand and intend in utilising terms such as ‘world religions’, ‘religion’, ‘sacred’ and ‘secular’. In conducting my own interviews amongst straight edge punks in the UK and the USA (2009 – 2011) the issue of what we mean by these terms was repeatedly raised, discussed in depth and featured prominently in graffiti, tattoos, flyers and band imagery.

As much as punks utilise labels they are carefully chosen and carry a deep significance. Each denotes an important political or musical derivation that enables deviance and recognition in addition to the more negative connotations outlined above. For example, surfer punk was the term attached to the punks who came from the Huntington Beach area of Orange Country and were involved with the sport. It denoted the difficulty and danger of surfing that particular area of the California coast. The ultra-aggressive stance of these punks demonstrated this new culture of physical extremism, which they rode as one would a wave. Would the same careful labelling be applied to terms and concepts such as ‘religion’?

Overwhelmingly, a sharp distinction was expressed by between ‘religion’ and ‘faith’ (UK) or ‘spirituality’ (USA). This is perhaps unsurprising given punks’ stance of rejection of tradition – both real and imagined – in favour of creating something new. ‘Religion’ was applied when interviewees were referring to traditional religious institutions, texts, authority figures and evangelising individuals. In contrast ‘faith’ and ‘spirituality’ were used to describe the individual believer(s), specific practises which did not fall under one religion or another, personal beliefs and really interestingly, punk rock itself!

Punk clubs were spoken of as sacred spaces and attendees got agitated with those whose behaviour desecrated that, in their opinion, or disrespected it. Bands, specific musicians and other individuals important to the local scenes were spoken of with reverence and defended vehemently. Punk rock itself became a form of desacralised salvation for many interviewees. A form of salvation that is essentially a secular yet sacred good that has both personal and collective benefits and ramifications. A result of refusing a strong delineation between sacred and profane, religious (or spiritual) and secular; it relies on muddying the waters so to speak, blurring the boundaries.

Naturally punks would not achieve this in isolation, it is not even a stated goal of theirs. Instead they are feeding off and into a long history in the West which Charles Taylor identifies as moving from a position of belief in a specific god being the only option to a belief in any god (or none at all) as one option among many. The individual becomes the centre rather than a divine being or a numinous spirituality. Concurrently society has continuously removed authority from the divine or the ineffable and simultaneously wrested it from the hands of the institutions that function under the auspices of the divine, placing it instead in secular institutions and communities.

Consequently religion as the interviewed punks define it – practices, rituals, authority figures and to an extent ideology, can no longer be assumed to be succinctly definable or corralled into a specific notion. Instead we now face a vast range of human practices which are overlapping and do not function as religious or secular solely or discreetly. And so much like a growing subculture or indeed music shop, we have to ask, are new labels now needed, or can we do away with labels once and for all? The punk ethos of “question everything, accept nothing” seems somewhat apt here!

——–

Laughey Dan. Music and Youth Culture. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006

Lynch Gordon. After Religion. London: Darton-Longman-Todd, 2002

Storey John. An Introduction to Cultural Theory and Popular Culture. Essex: Prentice Hall / Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1997

Taylor Charles. A Secular Age. Harvard: Belknap Press, 2007

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