Tolkiens work was inspired more by his in-depth knowledge of Norse and Germanic folklore more than his religious beliefs.
I'm not sure. These things are not mutually exclusive. I think his allegory is just not as transparent as Lewis'. It's not Christian allegory, per se, but more an allegory of the continuing battle of good vs evil, making sacrifices, is it moral to fight evil with evil (i.e. use the ring). I hadn't thought of the Norse and Germanic origins, but it seems obvious now that you point it out.
Chronicles of Narnia is christian allegory? I was a young devout Catholic when I read the series a good twenty years ago and I never made that connection. Where do the lion, the witch and the wardrobe fit into that comment?
To answer your question, the lion is Jesus Christ, the witch is Lucifer, and the wardrobe is the plain (or plane) on which the battle for the soul transpires. If I recall the Lion dies and is resurrected in the very first book. And in the last book they all go to heaven. If you were to read them again now, I'm sure it would be very obvious to you.
Even though I see it as Christian propaganda, I still highly recommend the entire series to young and old alike. I've read the first five books to my kids and they enjoyed them quite a bit. And I read the whole series to myself when I was maybe 20 or 22.
whimsical stories for children and adults alike referencing earlier influences from which their authors most probably drew.
Well, yea. It causes me some mental duress to try to see things from their perspective, because for the life of me it seems utterly ludicrous.
I mentioned that I grew up in a pretty conservative environment myself, so I'm kinda used to being around people whose views may seem skewed to the great bulk of humanity. And I doubt not a whit that some of my own opinions would be similarly assessed and dismissed. But I was at a brat meeting a few years back. (Brats are the children of military personnel.) I was at a table with some other former brats - I'm used to the nationalistic comments and the occasional intolerant remark - but I was really floored when one of the group began talking about HP and how Rowling had not really written the works herself. Not at all. It was actually the Devil hisself that wrote those books through her hand, via a process called automatic writing. I thought he was kidding at first, but he never dropped the pretense. And what was worse is that the others at the table were each nodding their heads in a vigorous up and down motion.
Being the unprincipled person that I am, I held my tongue and listened to him continue this rant for some time, with vocal and animated gestural encouragement from the assembled company. See, it's a clever ploy by the devil to make children think that magic is not dangerous, so they'll be tempted to try it themselves. It's all part of the same insidious plot that brought us Dungeons and Dragons. FOR GOD'S SAKE, the spells in that evil HP series are *REAL* spells! Don't you understand that? It's all real! That bastard is teaching *REAL* spells to *OUR* children! How can I make you understand this simple fact? The consequences of failing to recognize and thwart this diabolical plan will be terrible and irreparable. If you don't go back to your home right now and send out letters to prominent authorities protesting these books and demanding that they be expunged from our shelves of our public school libraries, you will be playing right into the hands of Satan himself! This fellow actually has pamphlets back home that explain all this to you and he'd be happy to mail them to you.
I wish this were satire, but I couldn't make anything like this up. I don't think there's enough fertilizer on the planet to inspire this. I suspect it's not the fertilizer so much as a particular kind of mushroom that gets mixed in with it that fosters this sort of imagination.
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