Beowulf Freewrite!

"He could hardly have been less aware than we that in history (in England and in other lands), and in Scripture, people could depart from the one God to other services in time of trial -- precisely because that God never guaranteed to His servants immunity from temporal calamity, before or after prayer....It is to idols that men turned (and turn) for quick and literal answers."

Freewrite:

The quote selected is discussing the facets of Beowulf that are pagan or Christian.  The authors of the article are trying to decide whether the author of Beowulf was Christian or not.  They wrap up by making the point that the author had awareness of Christianity but did not make it a pointed theme in the book.  This is very similar to the way that Tolkien wrote the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings.  He was a strong Catholic, so Christianity was a huge part of his life.  However, unlike CS Lewis, he avoided obvious allegories and rather decided to create a universal story of good defeating evil.  There are hints of a higher power in the stories, like Bilbo being “meant” to find the Ring and Frodo being “meant” to be its bearer, but Tolkien does not really expound on what this means in his stories.  The meaning of this quote is that it is describing a classic facet of human nature, where weak humans quickly turn from the eternity and infinite understanding of God to something mortal that will quickly satisfy them or give them answers.  The last part of the sentence is something that has plagued humanity for all time the fact that God “never guaranteed to his servants immunity from temporal calamity before or after prayer.”  This is due to the theological reasoning that God did not create evil, but that evil is a result of humanity using their free will to turn away from God’s goodness.  God also uses trials to grow people, but often this turns people away, wondering why a good God would allow evil things to happen.  As seen in the LOTR books, sometimes evil things happen, but it does not mean that there is no reason for it.  

It took me awhile to gather my thoughts for this freewrite, but the theology really jumped out to me as an important part of not only Tolkien's writings, but life in general.  In the Lord of the Rings books specifically, there is not much detail given of the "higher powers" over Middle Earth, though Tolkien did not shy away from packing it full of Biblical themes.