Mining Middle-Earth

Theology and Tolkien: Practical Theology
edited by Douglas Estes

Lexington Books, 2023
(292 pages, $95.00, hardcover)

Had The Lord of the Rings never been written and the Peter Jackson film trilogy never produced, I would not be the person I am. My relationship with my children would be slightly different as well, for we communicate often through Tolkien’s words and Jackson’s images. So much of what I think about life and death, adventure and danger, choice and fate, joy and sorrow, justice and mercy—and what I’ve shared about those topics with my children—goes back to Tolkien’s epic and its incarnation on film. 

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Louis Markos , Professor in English and Scholar in Residence at Houston Baptist University, holds the Robert H. Ray Chair in Humanities. His 19 books include Lewis Agonistes; Restoring Beauty: The Good, the True, and the Beautiful in the Writings of C. S. Lewis; On the Shoulders of Hobbits: The Road to Virtue with Tolkien and Lewis; and From A to Z to Narnia with C. S. Lewis.

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more from the online archives

8.4—Fall 1995

The Demise of Biblical Preaching

Distortions of the Gospel and its Recovery by Donald G. Bloesch

19.10—December 2006

Enchanting Children

Training Up a Child Requires a Well-Formed Imagination by David Mills

31.2—March/April 2018

Watchful Dragons

Neil Gaiman’s Brush with Narnia Lingers by Russell D. Moore

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