The Good News of the Return of the King: The Gospel in Middle-earth

by Michael T. Jahosky

Publisher:

Wipf and Stock

, 09/2020

Overview

Although many people today reject Christianity for intellectual reasons, greater numbers of people are rejecting Christianity because it does not engage their imagination. Christians must not only demonstrate that the Christian worldview is true, but that it is also good, beautiful, and relevant. The Good News of the Return of the King: The Gospel in Middle-earth is a book that endeavors to show the truth, goodness, and beauty of Jesus Christ, the gospel, and the biblical metanarrative by engaging the imagination through J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, as well as The Hobbit and The Silmarillion. In this book, I propose that J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is a story about what Jesus’ parables are about: the good news about the return of the king. As a work of imaginative fiction similar to Jesus’ parables, The Lord of the Rings can bypass both intellectual and imaginative objections to the gospel and pull back the “veil of familiarity” that obscures the gospel for many.

Key Features

• Seeks to share how The Lord of the Rings, as Christian literature, allows for a better understanding of Christianity
• Argues that The Lord of the Rings functions as one of Jesus’s parables, a kind of mythical "what if?" of the gospel, bringing together the mundane and the transcendent, that abstract and concrete.
• Intends to appeal to Christians of all denominations, and to those seekers outside the church desiring an understanding of Christianity

Contents

• The Lord of the Rings as Parable
• Parables Are Good News Stories
• The Lord of the Rings Is Good News
• The King Beneath the Mountain
• “Estel”

Praise for The Gospel News of the Return of the King

Michael Jahosky’s simple yet profound thesis, that The Lord of the Rings is a parable rather than an allegory, allows him to open up the world of Tolkien’s Middle-earth in such a way as to find the gospel lurking therein. Without putting words in Tolkien’s mouth, he demonstrates that Tolkien is telling the same kind of story as the gospel with its promised return of the true king.

Louis Markos, Professor in English and Scholar in Residence, Houston Baptist University, and author of On the Shoulders of Hobbits: The Road to Virtue with Tolkien and Lewis

Jahosky’s The Good News of the Return of the King is a smashing success! My heart was nourished and my imagination stirred as I read about the power of story and the coming of the king in Tolkien’s Middle-earth. This is a book for lovers of Tolkien and lovers of King Jesus who want to understand how stories are a powerful apologetic for Christianity. I highly recommend this enjoyable, well-researched, and riveting book.

Paul M. Gould, Associate Professor of Philosophy of Religion and Director of the MA Philosophy of Religion program, Palm Beach Atlantic University

Product Details

• Title: The Good News of the Return of the King: The Gospel in Middle-earth
• Author: Michael T. Jahosky
• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Print Publication Date: 09/2020
• Pages: 244
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Reader Edition
• Resource ID: LLS:GDNWSGSPMDDLRTH
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2022-07-18T22:26:03Z