"Other forces at work..."

Wise counsel from a work of fiction:

...Tolkien’s assessment of history isn’t just the musings of some dour and curmudgeonly professor. His views never amounted to despair or cynicism; as is his read on history, they are tethered and illumined by hope.

This is alluded to throughout The Lord of the Rings. In the film adaptation, while Frodo and Gandalf are in the Mines of Moria, Frodo laments,

“It's a pity Bilbo didn't kill Gollum when he had the chance.” Notice how Gandalf’s answer isn’t merely a reprimand or a lecture on providence.

Gandalf: “Pity? It's pity that stayed Bilbo's hand. Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends. My heart tells me that Gollum has some part to play in it, for good or evil, before this is over. The pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many.”

Frodo: “I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.”

Gandalf: “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides that of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, in which case you were also meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought.”

There are other forces at work, indeed. ....

In the epic of Tolkien’s literary masterpiece, he does in fantasy and fairy tale what few theologians and professors can do in lectures. In his characters, we see despair assuaged, courage enlivened, contempt tempered. Ultimately, Tolkien reminds us that God has chosen what is foolish in the world to shame the wise (1 Cor. 1:27). Precisely because this is what God does, we can trust that the best strategy for the church and for us individually in the Christian life is not to relent to our reactionary impulses but to “Let folly be our cloak!”

We might think hanging on to the ordinary means of grace is an act of despair, but it's not. We can’t fathom that in these plain practices, by faith, we are participating in the most powerful things in the world. Not in a methodological, technical, or pragmatic sense; the rituals of the church do not coax God as if he’s a feral animal. God’s mystical and mysterious work is beyond all of that. Rather, they are the very inbreaking of the New Creation in our lives.

You see, in a world where God has revealed himself, become incarnate, died for our sins, and risen for our justification, who promises to come again to judge the living and the dead, there is no room for cultural moods to dictate our life and ministry. .... (more)

Caleb Wait, "A Veil Before the Eyes of the Enemy: On Tolkien, Foolishness, and the Ordinary Means of Grace," Modern Reformation, May 19, 2026.