Word on Fire’s Dr. Holly Ordway will deliver a talk on famed author J.R.R. Tolkien’s Catholic Faith at Christendom College on Monday, January 29, as part of the college’s Major Speaker Series. Ordway, who is the Cardinal Francis George Professor of Faith and Culture at the Word on Fire Institute and the author of the award-winning Tolkien’s Modern Reading, will deliver her talk in the college’s Old Chapel Hall beginning at 7:00 pm.
Ordway, who is also the Visiting Professor of Apologetics at Houston Christian University, will speak on “Tolkien’s Faith and the Foundations of Middle-earth” at Christendom. Fifty years after Tolkien’s death, his writings are more popular than ever; The Lord of the Rings and his other Middle-earth writings are internationally beloved, loved by millions who do not share his religious beliefs. Yet Tolkien declared, “I am a Christian (which can be deduced from my stories).” His writings were not allegories, so how, then, were his faith and his fiction related? Ordway aims to answer this question biographically, looking at some of the ways that Tolkien’s dramatic life story, including his being raised by a Catholic priest at the Birmingham Oratory, and his experiences in the Great War, shaped his faith and found their way – in a subtle and complex manner – into his writings.
Ordway holds a PhD in English from the University of Massachusetts and is a subject editor for the Journal of Inklings Studies. She is the author of the award-winning Tolkien’s Modern Reading: Middle-earth Beyond the Middle Ages, and has contributed chapters on Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and the Inklings to volumes such as C.S. Lewis in Poets’ Corner, The Inklings and King Arthur, and C.S. Lewis’s List. Her book Tolkien’s Faith: A Spiritual Biography was released in time for the fifthieth anniversary of Tolkien’s death.
Christendom College’s Major Speaker Series is an important aspect of the academic life at the college, offering the students and community an opportunity for cultural, intellectual, and spiritual enrichment beyond the classroom. The series offers students the opportunity to gain greater insights and depth of understanding of important issues, and to interact personally with a wide range of men and women who are shapers and critics of our society.
See more from the college’s Major Speaker Series here.