Thanks for bumping this thread, Eirikr (where now is my cousin Mabon, for he is long away?...)

I think this all adds up to Tolkien`s personality. We know he tended to pessimism when it come to environmental issues, also having lived the worst period of industrialization, but he had a bold and positive outlook in other things. The period of the clash between Paganism and Christianity and the prevalence of Christianity is rife with dark moments, but also of very important landmarks for our culture. I am thinking now of Thomas Cahill`s How the Irish saved Civilization, which I should reread because it is very pertinent to these discussions. I think it is true of every monastic community during the so called Dark Ages. We now have Beowulf thanks to a manuscript copied in a monastery. Tolkien was aware of all this when he considers the synergy between Christianity and Paganism. Unfortunately it was not always positive, but our civilization received much from it.