“Banning The Lord of the Rings makes no sense at all. The works of J.R.R. Tolkien are woven so densely that the underlying Christian sensibility of them is a nearly imperceptible part of the fabric, but that hardly means they should be denounced as Satanic. In fact, some of the greatest works by some of the greatest minds including Augustine struggle with the invisible hand of God and the human discernment of free will in concert with a limited understanding of divine foreknowledge.

“I submit that divine Providence is a major character of The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien, because and not in spite of the fact that there is no religion in it at all, and anyone who takes a grossly un-intellectual approach to it should brush up on what C. S. Lewis called transferred classicism.”—Darren G. Poley, Associate Director of Research Services and Scholarly Engagement, Theology, Humanities and Classical Studies Librarian on his must-read selection for Banned Books Week