Listen to this seminar online.
In 2011, we held our first Sylvania Seminar on the intersection of the arts with faith. Ken Myers from Mars Hill Audio Journal was our speaker. This year, Dr. Ralph Wood will be our guest on Friday, December 7, 2012 at 7:30 pm at Sylvania Church. Dr. Wood is the Professor of Theology and Literature at Baylor University. He is a frequent guest on Mars Hill Audio, and is an expert on many authors including Flannery O’Connor, T. S. Eliot, G. K. Chesterton, Walker Percy, and C. S. Lewis. The title of his talk will be: “J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, A Story for our Time of Terror.” Here are Dr. Wood’s own words describing his long study of Tolkien’s masterpiece and his thoughts for our evening together.
Tolkien has had remarkable popularity, and it has been charged that he appeals only to shallow and naive readers who desire to escape from reality. “The contrary truth is that the Rings-epic is indeed an escape—from the prison of inward spiritual death and outward physical violence, and thus an escape into the freedom and joy of true life and unprecedented good. Hence his attempt to write a pre-Christian epic deeply imbued with moral concerns, so as to appeal to all people of good will, not Christians alone (or even primarily), refusing to cheapen the Gospel by turning art into evangelism, yet silently imbuing his work with implicitly Christians answers to the three terroristic powers of the Ruling Ring by way of the three theological virtues: faith, hope, and love.
You are warmly invited to attend his lecture and the Q&A that will follow. Admission is free. For more information, visit kalosfoundation.com.