Members of the C.S. Lewis Society of South Mississippi are gearing up to host Holly Ordway, a world-renowned scholar on J.R.R. Tolkien – author of such works as The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings – for a speaking engagement on the University of Southern Mississippi campus.
Ordway, who serves as the Cardinal Francis George Professor of Faith and Culture at the Word on Fire Institute and Visiting Professor of Apologetics at Houston Christian University, will speak at 7 p.m. March 19 in the Ogletree Alumni House, 102 Alumni Drive in Hattiesburg. The topic of her presentation is “Tolkien’s Faith and the Foundations of Middle-earth,” which will focus on the author’s devotion to Catholicism and its impact on his works.
“Tolkien was a very committed Catholic, and so is Dr. Ordway, so for those who weren’t raised in that tradition, that in itself is sort of an education,” said Hattiesburg attorney Randy Pope, who serves as president of the C.S. Lewis Society of South Mississippi. “Tolkien was really one of those that was very instrumental in Lewis (author of The Chronicles of Narnia) eventually becoming a Christian, so they have a lot in common, as well as writing the kind of literature they wrote.”
Pope said because most people perhaps know the works of Tolkien and Lewis through the movie adaptations rather than the books, Ordway’s presentation will help connect the dots between the two.
“For example, all these characters in The Lord of the Rings – where did they come from?” he said. “It is not a specifically Christian book, but there are a lot of overtones and currents of Tolkien’s faith in The Lord of the Rings. So it really will be helping people understand, maybe on another level, why Tolkien wrote as he did and how he wrote as he did.
“I think it will provide background and context for The Lord of the Rings, helping people understand where these ideas came from. What Tolkien did with The Lord of the Rings was really something that hadn’t been done before – he not only created a story, but he created the history. This is one chapter of a bigger history – the geography, the characters, the language.”
Ordway is the author of several books, including two on Tolkien – Tolkien’s Faith: A Spiritual Biography and Tolkien’s Modern Reading: Middle-earth Beyond the Middle Ages. The latter received the 2022 Mythopoeic Society Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies, while the former was released on September 2, 2023, in time for the 50th anniversary of Tolkien’s death.
Some of her other books include Tales of Faith: A Guide to Sharing the Gospel through Literature; Apologetics and the Christian Imagination: An Integrated Approach to Defending the Faith; and, as editor, As Kingfishers Catch Fire: Selected and Annotated Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Ordway also has contributed chapters on imaginative apologetics, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Inklings to volumes such as C.S. Lewis in Poets’ Corner, The Inklings and King Arthur, and C.S. Lewis’s List.
For more information on Ordway and links to purchase her books, visit www.hollyordway.com.
“(Ordway’s presentation) is an opportunity to sort of look behind the curtain, so to speak, of where Tolkien got these ideas, and what are perhaps some of the things you might not see in The Lord of the Rings that reflect (Tolkien’s) faith as a Christian,” Pope said. “I think that’s why it’s significant and will be interesting to a lot of people.”
