For this week's midweek episode, the title says it all! In this podcast, I argue that parables are incarnational stories, that they are perfect vehicles for communicating the central truth of the Christian worldview: that God has become human. Parables are in their literary form what they wish to communicate in content: God becoming king on earth as in heaven! In this episode, I talk about the relationship between myth, allegory, parable, and fairy story (content from my book, The Good News of the Return of the King: The Gospel in Middle earth) and argue that many Tolkien scholars have overlooked some important nuances about Tolkien's view of allegory because they have not read widely enough on this subject in biblical scholarship, and because parables have not been a central part of their theology. Parables are not the same thing as the "conscious and intentional" allegory which Tolkien disliked, but they could be said to be a subset of allegory (as many scholars have argued). I also point out that in a letter, Tolkien does, in fact, call The Lord of the Rings an allegory--but obviously not the kind which he "cordially disliked" (the conscious and intentional kind). Finally, I argue for the resemblance between fairy stories and parables as one of Tolkien's good friends Father Robert Murray began to do in his 1992 essay "Tolkien and the Art of the Parable," and develop his argument further (which is what I do in my book). Fairy stories/parables are a type of allegory, but distinct from the type Tolkien disliked! The way this kind of story reflects truth, and how it is "incarnational" is the final topic of this podcast, and I think you're really going to enjoy it!
