Why did Tolkien cut out all references to religion in The Lord of the Rings? Tolkien once wrote to his friend Father Robert Murrey:
“The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like ‘religion’, to cults or practices, in the imaginary world.”
This seems to be the only way to create something intrinsically religious — cut out all references to religion. Paradoxically, the surest and quickest way to ruin religion is to mention it. True religion has very little to do with cults or practices. It has everything to do with one’s state of being.
When religion is spoken of, it usually disappears; when it remains unuttered, it always transpires. No wonder there is no temple in the New Jerusalem: “And I saw no temple in the city” (Revelation 21:22). When God is all in all, everything is a temple. The temple is not a place but Divine Being present in all things.
When God is all in all, you no longer need a source of light — neither the sun nor the moon. Since God shines through everything, everything becomes a source of light.
C.S. Lewis once called this phenomenon donegality. During his visit to County Donegal in Ireland, he was struck by the unique feel of its landscape. He coined the term to describe the distinctive atmosphere or mood that gives a place — or a narrative — its unmistakable feel.
Donegality is when a mystery becomes lucid by remaining unspoken. It cannot be pointed to directly, yet it permeates everything. It is never the subject of the story but some ineffable mood in which the story is soaked.
When dogmas speak, donegality remains silent. When dogmas fall silent, true religion speaks the unutterable.
For example, Eru Ilúvatar is never spoken of in The Lord of the Rings, yet the Music of Ilúvatar is heard in all things. In Lothlórien, this transcendence becomes almost palpable:
“Frodo felt that he was in a timeless land that did not fade or change or fall into forgetfulness. When he had gone and passed again into the outer world, still Frodo the wanderer from the Shire would walk there, upon the grass among elanor and niphredil in fair Lothlórien.”
Lothlórien was permeated with the Music of Ilúvatar — the unspoken, ineffable harmony that made all things alive. There is no temple, because worship is not something the Elves do; it is something they are.
By attuning themselves with this ineffable Music, they become “it” — part of it. They become keenly aware of its presence in all things, and worship unfolds of itself, ceaselessly. Whatever they touch, begins singing with the primordial Chant.
That’s why all they make becomes “magical.” As the leader of the Elves explained to Pippin who asked him whether the cloaks they received were magical:
“They are Elvish robes certainly, if that is what you mean. Leaf and branch, water and stone: they have the hue and beauty of all these things under the twilight of Lorien that we love; for we put the thought of all that we love into all that we make.’”
In other words, whatever the Elves do becomes “magical” by virtue of the land’s unending Worship and their love of it. Explicit religion would shatter this invisible yet all-pervasive Chant that makes all things enchanting.
In On Fairy Stories, Tolkien explains that the art of the Elves is Enchantment — not magic proper, for that is the domain of the Enemy.
“…the more potent and specially elvish craft I will, for lack of a less debatable word, call Enchantment.”
The true religion of heaven is unspoken — yet, it is heard, seen, smelled, tasted, and touched in all things because all things exist “in Chanting.” It is in this Chanting that they have their being.
When the Elves participate in the Chanting, whatever they do becomes Enchantment. And Enchantment is true Art that the Enemy has no power over.
