WOF 402: The Faith of J.R.R. Tolkien w/ Holly Ordway
The Word on Fire Show - Catholic Faith and Culture
Brandon Vogt
4.9 • 5.8K Ratings
🗓️ 4 September 2023
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
J.R.R. Tolkien's masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings, is one of the best-selling books ever, selling over 150 million copies. In a 1999 poll of Amazon.com customers, The Lord of the Rings was judged to be their favorite "book of the millennium".
However, few people know that Tolkien was an ardent Catholic. Holly Ordway has written a fascinating new volume titled Tolkien's Faith: A Spiritual Biography, which shows how his faith and his fiction were related, though in subtle and complex ways. This long-overdue spiritual biography gives new insight into his works by shedding fresh light on their author's deepest-held convictions.
Brandon Vogt recently sat down with Holly to discuss her new book and the depth of Tolkien's Catholic life.
Links
- Tolkien's Faith: A Spiritual Biography by J.R.R. Tolkien
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to The Word on Fire Show. I'm Brandon Vaat, the host and the senior publishing |
| 0:11.0 | director. Today we're pleased to share with you an interview that I recently conducted |
| 0:15.7 | with Dr. Holly Ordway. Holly is a professor of our Word on Fire Institute. She's also the |
| 0:22.4 | author of a brand new book just published by Word on Fire titled Tolkien's Faith, a |
| 0:28.1 | spiritual biography. This book looks at the profound Catholic faith life of J. R. R. Tolkien, |
| 0:35.7 | the best-selling author of The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. Maybe you've read those books, |
| 0:41.1 | maybe you know a little bit about Tolkien in his life. This book specifically zooms in on the |
| 0:47.2 | spiritual life, the prayer life, the sacramental life of this highly esteemed author. It's a |
| 0:52.8 | fascinating book. I really enjoyed it. And I think you'll enjoy a lot of the things that Hallie |
| 0:57.5 | has to share in this interview. So sit back and enjoy this discussion with Holly Ordway about |
| 1:03.2 | her new book, Tolkien's Faith. Enjoy. |
| 1:12.8 | The Lord of the Rings is one of the best-selling books ever written. It's sold over 150 million copies |
| 1:19.8 | and in numerous polls it has been voted as not only the best book of the past century, but even |
| 1:25.6 | the best book of the past millennium in a 1999 Amazon.com poll. However, few people know that the |
| 1:32.4 | author of The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien, was an ardent devoted Catholic. Hallie Ordway has |
| 1:39.3 | written a fascinating new volume titled Tolkien's Faith, a spiritual biography, which shows how Tolkien's |
| 1:46.4 | faith and his fiction were related, although in subtle, complex and interesting ways. This long |
| 1:53.2 | overdue spiritual biography gives new insight into his works by shedding fresh light on their |
| 1:59.4 | author's deepest-held convictions. Hallie joins us today. Hallie is the Cardinal Francis George |
| 2:05.7 | Professor of Faith and Culture at the World on Fire Institute. She's also a visiting professor |
| 2:11.3 | at Houston, Christian University, and holds a PhD in English from the University of Massachusetts |
| 2:18.1 | Hallie is a subject editor for the Journal of Inklings Studies and her academic work focuses |
... |
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