Earlier today I took part in a debate for BBC radio on Tolkien’s theology. It was a three-way debate in which I argued (with Tolkien) for the Catholicism of The Lord of the Rings against the claims of a neo-pagan professor at England’s Bristol University and an Anglican professor at England’s Nottingham University.
 
I pointed out that Lewis and Tolkien would have made the crucial distinction between genuine pre-Christian paganism and the so-called “post-Christian” pseudo-paganism espoused by today’s neo-pagans. True paganism was, I said, like the Virgin who awaits the Bridegroom (Christ). Today’s pseudo-paganism was, in contrast, the Divorcee who had deserted the Bridegroom.
 
The response from the pagan was not to engage my argument but to rant that such talk was unacceptable in a multi-faith culture. I sensed that the Anglican was in agreement with her pagan confrere, horrified that I had broken the only commandment that Englishmen obey religiously: “thou shalt not be impolite”.
 
Since I was only echoing Lewis’s own words on the topic of paganism, a view that Tolkien would have endorsed, it is evident that the views of Lewis and Tolkien would be as unacceptable as those that I had voiced.
 
The fact is that modernity’s divorce from Christendom has led to the rise of an intolerance of all dissenting opinions. The views held and upheld in the past are now “unacceptable”. Conformism to radical relativism and secular fundamentalism is the only opinion that can be held in polite society. In practice, if not in theory, phony pagans and phony Christians worship only one god. It is not to God or to the gods that modern man owes his obedience. It is to the Zeitgeist that every modern knee must bow. In failing to genuflect before the idol of intellectual fashion I had committed the most grievous of sins!