Destroy the Ring.

I was talking with my sister this morning in the kitchen, she was baking bread for her tea party and I was trying to think up ideas for my blog in the same place. She paused for a moment and said, "You know it's odd that Frodo has to destroy the ring. The whole point of the Lord of the Rings isn't just peace. It's destruction. "

I paused for a moment, my first thought was 'yes' and then it was 'no, and then it was 'yes' again. Which pretty much sums up the point of this blog.

The funny thing is that, the point of both The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings is the destruction of evil. In the first the point is the destruction of the dragon and in the second the destruction of an even greater Evil. The purpose of both novels boils down to destroying something. Question is... is that Christian?

Th answer is... yes. Yes it is.

See Christianity is an active Religion. Unlike the Eastern faiths which emphasize apathy and balance, Christianity emphasizes both redemption and judgement. We believe that God has set the absolute laws of What Is, and there is no way around them. Evil either must be changed or it will be destroyed in the end.

This is not to say that it is our job to force Evil to change or to judge it. Both Redemption and Judgement are things which both lie in the hand of our Lord. But in our novels we must remember that Evil cannot be allowed to remain. The Ring must be destroyed. Forces of Darkness vanquished.

Note that this doesn't mean we have to bring every character who isn't a Christian to a bad end. But rather we have to emphasize the point that evil has consequences. As long as we call ourselves Christian our work cannot be apathetic or amoral. We do not have the option of being the unbiased observer. The scientific critic of morality. The author beyond good and evil. We are subject to that paradigm.

It's a little bit of a harsher post then a normally post. A little bit more hellfire and judgement then I usually write. It's quite possible to take judgement too far. To end up like Javert from Les Mis. However it's also important to realize that evil cannot go without being punished. Mercy cannot exist without justice. The two support each other. Good is a singular whole.