Great Weekend at Tolkien Among the Theologians

What they saw…

I had the immense pleasure of giving a keynote address today at the Tolkien Among the Theologians conference presented by Houston Christian University. I was able to present a paper entitled, “Tolkien and Chesterton: The Orthodoxy of Middle-earth,” which focused on comparing the authors’ perspectives on adventure, cosmic patriotism, and the nature and power of story. Papers were distributed ahead of time to the registrants, so the majority of the time I was allocated involved questions and answers with the audience. The questions were wide-ranging and incredibly thoughtful; I was so excited to even be able to talk about my dissertation on distributism and my pet theory that the entire purpose of the hobbits going to destroy the Ring was so that they would gain the skills needed to defend their homeland. I think that my presentation was well received; I hope it at least provided some benefit to those in attendance.

Reality … in shorts.

This conference took place online beginning Friday night and continuing all day Saturday. Even though that consisted of over 12 hours of lectures and discussions which seems like a very long time, looking back at it, the time honestly flew by. I can’t say that there were any sessions I attended that were boring or dry. I think part of the reason for that was because of the format and the extent to which the keynote addresses were honestly more dialogues than lectures. Many presenters even attended all weekend rather than just attending during their own sessions, interacting with each other’s articles and creating a community of scholars that I enjoyed very much. This led to many high-quality and challenging questions that you could tell pushed us all further up and further in.

It was exciting to be able to spend the day with so many excellent scholars, and I can’t wait until I have another opportunity to present some of my work again.