It is certainly true that J.R.R. Tolkien is wildly popular amongst Christians. Last night, 17 of us from Campus Crusade crowded one of our apartments to watch the Director's cut of The Fellowship of the Ring. Many of us considered The Lord of The Rings to be amongst our favorite fictional books. And now, I've been repeatedly asked by others if they can borrow my LOTR DVD.
Why was the movie so popular? Well, part of it was that in a 3 hr. movie, there wasnt so much as a single use of profanity, nor was there any nudity -- always refreshing in an era when Hollywood's films often go for cheap titillation over substance. But it has to go much deeper than that: my belief is that the worldview of JRR Tolkien was fundamentally Christian, and he could not help but see it influence his work.
Granted, Tolkien specifically noted that The Lord of the Rings was not a religious allegory, and that he intentionally left out any (overt) religious imagery. My contention, however, is that Tolkien, as a committed Christian, could not help but have Christain figures influence the shape of his fantasy. Thus, when we see an exiled King return to take the crown that is rightfully his, or when we see a man upon whom the Ring of evil has no power over (Tom Bombadil), or the like, we see a glimpse of Jesus Christ was in the mind of J.R.R. Tolkien. And that is refreshing in an era when Christianity is ridiculed by American culture.
There's a chance of nudity in The Two Towers. Gandalf says in the book:
"Then darkness took me; and I strayed out of thought and time, and I wandered far on roads that I will not tell. 'Naked I was sent back - for a brief time, until my task is done. And naked I lay upon the mountain-top."
I suspect it will be done with taste, however...the FOTR being so excellent.
Tolkein was a WW I vet--and that profoundly influenced him. His imagery of hiking, climate, dawns, twilight, storms, geography, etc were heavily drawn upon the time he spend in the military.
Moreover, if you read some of the PC critics of Tolkein, they are outraged, simply outraged! by his "paternalistic and simplistic" treatment of good vs. evil. His critics are also upset that in his stories, Western characters are the heroes (very English and Dutch-like), while the villains speak a language that is an amalgamation of Russian and Arabic. (I am not kidding--there are whole articles pointing this out and ridiculing Tolkein on this).
Tolkien was an amazing philologist and a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford. I expect what alarms his critics is that Tolkein saw a greater good in Judeo-Christian values than they do.
But, critics find what the wish: homosexuals have seized on the friendship of Sam and Frodo to suggest they were "gay." This projection shows the hole in their own souls--not in Tolkein's. John Ronald Reuel Tolkein knew the value of supreme friendship through his military service and what he and his comrades went through. I guess we cannot expect people who worship at the altar of buggery to understand this.
LOTR did indeed spawn the whole "Dungeons and Dragons" and (ultimately) Harry Potter phenomena. Yet many conservatives who relentlessly attack the fantasy genre give a free pass to Tolkien. Also, in his appendix to The Return of the King he says that there was no language like Hebrew in Middle Earth (a strange opinion for a conservative chr*stian and for someone with an interest in ancient languages). I once purchased a "LOTR" fantasy roll playing game (which I never played; it was too complicated!) and the description of Gollum struck me as eerily similar to the anti-Semitic view of the Jews (though of course Tolkien did not write this description!).
Despite its chr*stianity, Chr*st is not present in the work and the creation myth of Silmarillion seems ultimately ad odds with Monotheism.
But then, I am viewing things through my own particular lens, which is a Fundamentalist one. This means adaptation of chr*stianity to pre-chr*stian European culture is seen as a defilement and departure from the Hebrew original, which must be restored (hence the Fundamentalist rejection of liturgical chr*stianity while adopting Jewish elements instead).