WILL THERE BE VIOLENCE AT THE RETURN OF OUR KING? A reflection on “The coronation of Aragorn son of Arathorn” in Philip Ryken’s The Messiah Comes to Middle Earth

 

     Eschatology[1] is a notoriously thorny issue within Christian theology.  Not least among the scandals occasioned to a mind formed by, say, the Sermon on the Mount[2] is the spectre of Jesus astride a white horse and descending from heaven to slaughter his enemies at the battle of Armageddon and to – presumably – ride into Jerusalem in his battle-stained robes to claim the throne of David and launch his millennial reign.[3]  Disturbingly, perhaps, for some lovers of Tolkien is the fact that this is precisely how The Return of the King portrays, to coin a phrase, “the return of the king” of Gondor to a besieged White City at the head of the army of undead Oathbreakers to help carry the day at the battles of the Pelennor Fields and the Black Gate[4], before returning once again to Minas Tirith to be crowned, at his insistence, by Gandalf, upon which (in the Jackson film) King Aragorn invites the peoples of the West to share in “the days of peace”.[5]

     To be fair to Tolkien, the biblical-eschatological underpinning of Aragorn’s return to the throne of Gondor is itself based squarely on a time-honoured conception among Christians of how the purposes of God are supposed to play out during “the end times”, i.e., a premillennial understanding, based on a “straightforward” reading of certain biblical texts and according to which Jesus will return to destroy his enemies before inaugurating his thousand-year reign on earth (whether or not Tolkien subscribed to a “rapture” of believers prior to a 7-year period of tribulation prior to the “real” return of Christ is neither here nor there[6]).  All this to say that a cursory reading of The Return of the King may simply serve to fill in the “missing details” of an understanding of the return of Christ which is taken for granted by many Christian readers of Tolkien.

     To grasp the nettle once again: how does a reader of the New Testament square the Jesus of the Gospels, who orders his followers to love their enemies, turn the other cheek and to forgive all – friend and foe – on pain of not being pardoned by God,[7] with the Jesus of Revelation, who can hold his own with (the caricature of) any Old Testament prophet who proffered threats of divine(ly-sanctioned) violence?[8]  A possible resolution of this dilemma is to read Revelation’s Jesus in terms of the Jesus of the Gospels.  The “evangelical”[9] Jesus (a hostage to fortune!) is crucified precisely as the “King of the Jews” – the cross is his throne, he is crowned with thorns and “lifted up” for all to see (Jn. 3.14, passim) with unfortunate souls “enthroned” to his left and his right in “glory” (cf. Mt. 20.21-23).  The Gospels(’ Jesus) take(s) great pains to deconstruct both biblical and contemporary notions of “glory”, “power” and “victory”.  On their reading, the kingship of Jesus is thoroughly ironical and subversive.[10]  The Gospels are clear – through Christ’s cross and resurrection, the messianic battle has been waged and won, the Temple has been both relativized and (the true one) rebuilt (cf. Jn. 2.19-22), the (new) covenant between Yahweh and his people has been ratified and, most importantly for our purposes, the cup of the wrath of God has been drained to the dregs by Jesus (cf. Mt. 26.39-42).  As Jesus hangs on the cross, the evangelists invite us to see, the wrath of God is poured out on human sin and evil and (proleptically) on his own rebellious people (cf. Mk. 13 and parallels; cf. Is. 51.17; Jer. 21, passim).  If we embrace the “evangelical” depiction/interpretation of the cross, we will look forward, not to a future wrathful destruction of the “enemies of God” (performed by God’s people?) but rather for the restoration of all things (Ac. 3.21) and the healing of the nations[11] (Rev. 22.2; cf. Rm. 8.18-25; 1 Cor. 15.20-28).

     So, what to do with the “white rider”[12] of Revelation?  Perhaps we should think of him as the stuff of a dream – the result of the fusion of John’s biblical imagination/memory with the brutal facts of calvary.[13]  Let the reader notice that the rider’s robe is dipped in blood before he engages his enemies in battle (Rev. 19.13)…  If Aragorn is indeed a Christ/kingly-figure, his victory resembles that of David[14] much more than that of the Son of David.  To repeat our question: will there be violence at the return of our king?  The answer is undoubtedly Yes!  The world has ever been full of violence, but the shalom of the Age to Come will not be fashioned by war, but rather by the prince of peace, who:

“…shall judge between the nations,
    and shall arbitrate for many peoples;
they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
    and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
    neither shall they learn war any more.” (Is. 2.4)

 

“The one who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.”

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev. 22.20)

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[1] The subtitle of this paper refers to the third chapter of a book which was originally the final installment in the first Hansen Lectureship Series at the Marion E. Wade Center of Wheaton College, delivered on March 31, 2016: https://www.wheaton.edu/academics/academic-centers/wadecenter/events/ken-and-jean-hansen-lectureship/ryken-2015-2016/ (accessed October 09, 2023); cf. Philip Ryken, The Messiah Comes to Middle Earth: Images of Christ’s Threefold Office in the Lord of the Rings, Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2017, pp. 87-124.  It is clear to Ryken that the return of Aragorn is a picture of the return of Christ.

[2] E.g., the Anabaptist tradition.

[3] Cf. Ps. 2.7-9; Is. chapters 11 & 63; Rev. 19.11 – 20.6; cp. Mt. 21.1-10.

[4] The fact that most of Aragorn’s foes are sub-human creatures (namely orcs) will probably fail to dissuade readers from an interpretation of the story according to which those who see themselves as the forces of good are legitimized in their efforts to destroy those perceived as being “evil”, even if said evil forces would describe themselves as sharing a common humanity with the “good”.  To put it succinctly, the relationship between orcs and the other races of Middle Earth is not analogous with that which obtains between humans and “spiritual forces of evil” (cf. Eph. 6.12), in the case that such an allegorical interpretation of the LOTR might commend itself (orcs are not “spiritual” beings who must be overcome through prayer; they are material, sentient creatures with ambiguous origins who must be killed in order for “good” to prevail).  And now I hear Bonhoeffer’s voice echoing in my mind…; cf. Groom, Nick, Tolkien in the Twenty-First Century: The Meaning of Middle-Earth Today, New York: Pegasus Books, 2023, pp. 274-77.

[5] Cf. Tolkien, J.R.R. The Return of the King, London: HarperCollins, 2007 [1955, 1966, 1991, 2004], pp. 1098-1112, 1255-1274.

[6] Or anywhere (in Scripture), in my opinion.

[7] Cf. Mt. 5.39, 44; 18.21-35; Lk. 6.37, etc.

[8] Though it must be noticed that divinely-sanctioned biblical violence is far from being one-sided.  While there are numerous examples of the people of God being ordered to commit acts of violence against Gentile nations, the OT prophets often portray acts of war committed against the people of God as being Yahweh’s just judgment on Israel (Jesus also speaks in the same way concerning the Romans and the city of Jerusalem: cf. Mk. 13 and parallels, known as the “eschatological discourse”).  On a personal note, I once had a seminary professor tell me that the only reason Jesus did not call on the avenging angels to rescue him from arrest in Gethsemane was that God’s plan required him to get killed, so Jesus made a one-off exception to (what was taken to be) God’s standard policy of fighting fire with fire.  As far as this professor was concerned, the crucifixion of Jesus was simply a soteriological device, rather than the ultimate revelation of the one true God and his love (cf. Rm. 5.8; 1 Cor. 1.18-25).  How much of our theology is based on sustained meditation on the meaning of the cross and the story the Gospels are actually telling as they portray the fulfillment of the Scriptures as well as their deconstruction?  I still feel that my professor’s stance vis-à-vis Jesus’ (in)actions in Gethsemane makes a mockery of the Gospels taken as a whole, and indeed, of God’s character.  Not for the last time, the opinion of this evangelical professor struck me as being more “Islamic” than Christian… (cp. Evangelical understandings of Scriptural inerrancy with Muslim attitudes towards the Koran).

[9] I.e., as portrayed in the Gospels.

[10] The fact that Luke avails himself of the imperial vocabulary of “gospel”, “son of god”, “lord” and “saviour” in his infancy narrative to describe Jesus is testament to this fact.  The Ceasars carried the titles of lord and saviour of the (Roman) world (as seen on coins minted during their reigns) as well as “son of god” (i.e., successor of the previous and apotheosized emperor), and their accession and military victories were referred to as euangelion.  In the Gospels, Jesus is indeed playing the power game, but he’s playing by his own rules; cf. Philip Ryken, The Messiah Comes to Middle Earth, Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2017, pp. 122-23, where Ryken quotes Calvin on the fact that the Gospel passion narratives depict the cross as Christ’s throne.  However, Ryken fails to make the connection between Calvin’s insight and the absence of non-violent royal activity in Aragorn’s victory over the forces of Mordor which leads to his coronation.  Once again, I feel that Ryken failed to integrate the fact that Jesus deconstructed/reinterpreted the biblical mandates of prophet, priest and king as he combined them and allowed the resulting subversive understanding of his vocation to lead him to the cross with his portrayal of Aragorn as a Christ-figure.  In our Western Christian culture, it is all too easy to (mis)read the Gospels through the lens of “might is right” (right deserves might?).  This often leads to a belief that as long as you’re on the right side, you can use whatever means necessary to “win”.  The Return of the King definitely makes sense when read against Tolkien’s circumstances during the years preceding publication – the Allied defeat of the Nazis and other axis powers during WW II.  However, it is all too easy to depict current global conflicts as being fought between the powers of “good” and “evil”.

[11] There seems to be a deliberate “non-violent hermeneutic” being utilized by the NT authors as they quote the Hebrew Scriptures.  Ps. 2 is one of the most frequently quoted Psalms in the NT to refer to Jesus’ messiahship (cf. the voice from heaven at Jesus’ baptism, Ac. 4.25-26, passim). Interestingly, Revelation is the only NT book to quote Ps. 2.9 (Yahweh’s anointed will rule the nations with a “rod of iron”; cf. Rev. 2.27; 12.5; 19.15).  Also, Luke omits Is. 61.2b (“the day of vengeance of our God”) as he has Jesus read from the scroll of Isaiah in Lk. 4.17-19.

[12] Cf. Tolkien, J.R.R. The Two Towers, London: HarperCollins, 2007 [1954, 1966, 1991, 2004], p. 658.

[13] Cf. Wright, N.T. Revelation for Everyone, Louisville: WJK Press, 2011, pp. 171-75.

[14] I.e., an anointed king who lived as a fugitive in exile who, upon the death of his predecessor, must conquer Jerusalem upon being recognized/crowned by the people of Israel: 2 Sm. 1, 5.