The Standard August 2, 2025
As kids, my younger brother loved J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, while I was a huge fan of the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. At some point my mom had read Lewis’ Mere Christianity, but never got into Tolkien’s fantasy world of The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Both Tolkien and Lewis served on the Western Front in World War I. New technology and trench warfare used during this first global conflict caused unprecedented destruction and death. Survivors were left with unspeakable emotional, psychological, spiritual, and physical trauma.
After the war, both Tolkien, a devout Catholic, and Lewis, a professed atheist, taught at Oxford University. A close friendship developed between the two after they met in 1926, partly due to their love of so-called fairy stories. In September of 1931 on Addison’s Walk, Hugo Dyson, Lewis, and Tolkien were discussing Tolkien’s premise that we all crave well-told stories about a supernatural world existing, good conquering evil, victory overcoming almost-certain defeat, pure love lasting forever, and escaping death thanks to someone’s sacrificial heroism. They spoke of the typical human sentiment that good should triumph and that death is a thief. Most of us have experienced the deep longing for the wrong to be made right and the broken to be made whole.
Tolkien went on to explain that the story of Jesus was the “true myth,” because it really happened. Christ through his resurrection broke into this world to rescue us in a way that we could not rescue ourselves. The themes in our myths or “fairy stories” touch us at a deep level because God has put these ideas into our hearts as to how life should be. There is a supernatural world. God’s perfect good conquers evil. The victory of Christ on the cross overcomes death. We have a certain hope of eternity with God. Through Christ, our wrongs can be made right, and our brokenness can be remedied.
While strolling that otherwise still evening, the three experienced a sudden rush of wind which caused a bunch of leaves to fall down on them so that it seemed like rain. Tolkien and Dyson were reminded of a verse in Acts regarding the day of Pentecost when the disciples were all together and the Holy Spirit came upon them. “Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.” Acts 2:2
A few days after the walking and talking of the trio of friends, Lewis came to the belief that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of the world. Faith changed the trajectory of his life.
“Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.’” John 14:6, 9-11a
The Holy Spirit used Dyson and Tolkien to befriend and walk alongside a man who would become one of the most significant Christian authors of our lifetime. Are you and I prepared today to develop friendships and eventually to have such conversations with nonbelievers or seekers in our midst?
celiastone 