Recently, I heard the sad news that the politics of J.D. Vance, the Republican candidate for U.S. Vice-President, was shaped by The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien.  J.K. Granberg-Michaelson noted in his essay that, on hearing this, his reaction was, “JD Vance doesn’t get to claim The Lord of the Rings.”

Like that writer, I have been an almost lifelong fan of Tolkien’s trilogy of the imagined Middle-Earth and his other works.  It is not a surprise that Vance and other members of the right wing Maga hoard would glom onto this epic tale of the battle between good and evil.  It is very possible to have a superficial understanding of that as a battle between the quasi-European force of good represented by the loveable Hobbit sand blond beautiful elves and even the cave dwelling dwarfs who rallied to defeat the (non-white) dark forces of monsters lead by the ultimate evil of Sauron who had gone to the dark side of the force – to use an analogy from a different imagined world. 

Tolkien, in his epic work, depicts the struggle to resist the temptation to succumb to temptation to use ultimate power to defeat the forces of evil.  This is a theme that was also explored by the other members of the famous Oxford group of writers, the Inklings – including C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams - in their works such as the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Lewis) and Descent into Hell (Williams). 

In the Lord of the Rings, the humble Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins is the one selected to take the ring of ultimate power to be destroyed in Mount Doom.  He was faithful in not succumbing to the temptation to use that power for his own purposes until the very end when it is his shadow (to use Jung’s term) the despised and conflicted Gollum. who, on briefly regaining the ring, meets his destruction along with the ring of power in the eternal fires of Mount Doom. 

Many, but not exclusively, on the right of politics fail to have eyes to see the message in the Lord of the Rings and other works by the Inklings, that ultimately power cannot be defeated by using that power even if with the best of intentions.  Granberg-Michaelson noted that, “Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), even used The Lord of the Rings as late as 2006 to endorse a continued U.S. presence in Iraq.”  More recently, Republican politician Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) recently declared in a statement that exposed a shocking ignorance of basic Christian doctrine, at a “Christian” conference no less, “Jesus didn’t have enough AR-15 rifles to “keep his government from killing him.”  Similarly, Donald Trump jr. recently declared, “We’ve turned the other cheek, and I understand, sort of, the biblical reference — I understand the mentality — but it’s gotten us nothing.”

This, of course, misses the basic message of the crucifixion and Christianity.  As Jesus told Pilot:

My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.

Tolkien and the other Inklings were wrestling mightily with the all-too human temptation to want to use the same weapons used by evil to defeat the forces of evil.  They have shown us brilliantly that this does not work in the Kingdom that Jesus Christ proclaimed.  As much as it goes against our basic instincts, we must turn the other cheek, and go the second mile and, yes, even love our enemies.  That will be a true blessing on our journey.