Tolkien’s best story wasn’t in Lord of the Rings

It was published posthumously:

A forgotten dialogue on how God would save Middle Earth from death

This story might change how you see the crucifixion forever…🧵 Tolkien’s story “Athrabeth Findrod ah Andreth,” appears in the book “Morgoth’s Ring”

It follows a conversation between Finrod, an immortal elf, and Andreth, a wise woman

They’re plagued by a haunting question:

“Why do men die?”

Dante’s Inferno is packed with horror:

Decapitations, eviscerations, and demons clawing the damned

But there’s a method in this madness of Hell:

Every punishment has a purpose

Here’s what Dante’s Hell reveals about God’s justice, and his love….🧵 The poem begins with protagonist Dante lost in a dark wilderness

He’s in exile because he “wandered from the straight and true”

This wilderness is both literal and spiritual:

Sin has mired his soul and threatens his salvation

One myth shaped the soul of Western Civilization

It inspired Rome, England, Charlemagne — even the American Founders

Dante modeled The Divine Comedy on it too

Here’s the myth behind the greatest minds and dynasties of the West…🧵 Virgil’s Aeneid is the myth behind the empires

Written in 19BC, it follows Aeneas — a survivor of the Trojan War from Homer’s Iliad

Aeneas has a special destiny from the gods:

If he follows their bidding, he’ll found a grand empire

The Reign of Terror was a bloody nightmare

Tens of thousands were slaughtered in the name of virtue and equality

And one man fueled it all

Here’s the tyrant, and his ideology that fueled the worst nightmare in French history…🧵 Maximilian Robespierre was born in May 6, 1758 in Arras, France

He had a miserable childhood:

His mother died when he was 6, and his father abandoned his family

How did Robespierre handle his grief?

CS Lewis, Tolkien, and Chesterton were all inspired by one writer

His works shaped Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia, and countless other tales

Here’s the writer behind the writers —

And his books that inspired the greatest thinkers of the 20th century…🧵 George Macdonald was a 19th century author

He was a pioneer of the fantasy genre, and a personal mentor to Lewis Caroll

On the surface, he wrote simple children stories

But his worlds were also imbued with a hidden genius

Hamlet is the greatest play of all time

It also asks one of the most disturbing questions in all of literature

Not, “To be or not to be?”

But a simpler 2-word question:

It drove Hamlet insane, and still haunts readers to this day…🧵 The central question of Hamlet is the opening line:

“Who’s there?”

On the surface it's a simple question - a guard asks it as a stranger approaches

But there's far more to this question than meets the eye:

It hauntingly lingers throughout the entire play

Lord of the Rings has inspired 100s of millions

But what inspired Lord of the Rings?

Of all things, Tolkien’s genius was forged in the blood-soaked trenches of WWI

Here’s how Hell on Earth inspired the greatest fantasy story of all time…🧵 Tolkien’s upbringing was brutal:

He was raised poor, and both his parents died by the time he was 12

He had a lonely adolescence too, raised in an orphanage

Only one joy sustained him during these early years

80 years ago, CS Lewis made a grave prediction:

First, we’d stop believing the Devil exists

Then, we’d start celebrating him

Here’s what he warned, and why it’s coming true before our eyes…🧵 CS Lewis made his warning in his scholarly work, “A Preface to Paradise Lost”

It analyzes John Milton’s epic poem “Paradise Lost”

The poem details Satan’s rebellion and the Fall of Man

It’s a masterpiece, but Lewis says modern readers are making a grave mistake

You know the 7 day Creation story — but do you know the pattern beneath it?

Augustine says Genesis points to a hidden design that ripples through all reality

Once you see it, you might just glimpse the face of God himself…🧵 Augustine reads the creation story as a blueprint:

A map of the soul’s journey to God

Each day is a stage in the mind’s ascent to Truth and Enlightenment

But there’s a key point that many people miss:

You can see the Trinity in the first lines of scripture

Dostoevsky understood the Devil like no one else

He captured his evil in one of the most chilling scenes in all literature

Here’s what he wrote, and what it reveals about Satan and the “unforgivable sin…”🧵 The devil appears in Dostoevsky’s novel Brothers Karamazov

To understand him, you have to understand his target — Ivan Karamazov:

Ivan is a coldhearted intellectual who hates God

But his unbelief isn’t your typical atheism

Ever wonder why Tolkien made Sauron an eye?

It’s no mere fantasy symbol — it points to a Satanic evil

Here’s what the Eye really means, and why Sauron’s evil is worse than you think…🧵 Tolkien didn’t believe in absolute evil

But he said Sauron was as close as you could get to pure evil

To understand why, we have to look at his roots:

Sauron used to be good — an angel

Dostoevsky demolished Karl Marx in a single paragraph

In just a few lines, he dismantled Communism — and exposed the evil at its rotten core

Here’s what Dostoevsky wrote, and how it put Marx and Communism to shame…🧵
First, let’s recap Marx’s communism:

He called for the poor to overthrow the rich and seize the means of production

Why?

Because it would (in theory) create a utopian society, free of suffering

CS Lewis rejected pacifism

He called it a moral failure — incompatible with Christian duty

Here’s why Lewis denounced pacifism, and his take on the warrior ethos of Christianity…🧵 CS Lewis argues against pacifism in his book "Weight of Glory"

He begins by summarizing the pacifist stance:

“War is evil, and I’m always against it”

He warns this is dangerously simplistic, and raises moral concerns

The Tower of Babel is more than a story — it’s a prophecy

It reveals the fate of every society that abandons God:

Uniformity. Blind “progress.” And finally — destruction

Here’s what Babel really means, and why every godless culture is doomed to fall…🧵 Genesis 11 says mankind was united with “one language and few words”

Man came together with a simple plan:

“Let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens…”

This sounds innocent, but it’s not

On this Good Friday, walk with Christ through His Passion, Death, and Resurrection...

As depicted through the masterpieces of Christian art

A thread🧵 The Agony in the Garden – Andrea Mantegna

“Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done” (LK 22:42)

For Tolkien, music was more than beauty — it was a gateway to God

He said music was the language of creation — revealing its creator

He even wrote his own creation story to explain it

Here’s the story, and how its vision of music can help your soul find the face of God…🧵 Tolkien’s creation story is found in the “Silmarillion”:

It's the backstory to Lord of the Rings

It begins with God, named Eru, who lives in a grand hall beyond space and time

He gives life to Ainur (angels) and trains them for a master plan

Few men endured terror like St. Anthony

His troubles began with a simple vow — live in poverty, prayer, and penance

What followed was a lifetime of demonic attacks

Here’s why the demonic hated St. Anthony, and how his faith conquered a lifetime of spiritual horror…🧵 Anthony was born in Egypt, 251 AD, to a wealthy family

He enjoyed a comfortable upbringing until age 20, when his parents passed away

He was left alone to care for himself and his younger sister

In the midst of this heartbreak, however, destiny called him

The monsters of Greek myth aren’t just legend

They echo an ancient evil rooted in the Bible itself:

A perverse spirit that turns men into monsters and corrupts God’s creation

Here’s the meaning of the monsters in myth, and how to slay the spirit that corrupts all creation…🧵 Greek myth is filled with monsters:

The hydra, the chimera, cerberus, etc.

Most people know their names, but few know their origins…

In fact, most of them are siblings

Many monsters of Greek myth trace back to one source of evil

Aquinas spent his whole life studying, praying and seeking God

Then he found him… literally!

A divine vision left him awestruck, and he stopped writing forever

Here’s what God revealed to Aquinas, and how it transformed history’s greatest theologian…🧵 At first Aquinas seemed an unlikely theologian

His aristocratic family valued secular affairs over religious life

Making matters worse, Aquinas was bullied in school

Students called him the “Dumb Ox,” mistaking his humility for ignorance

Remember the labyrinth and minotaur story?

It’s not just a myth — it’s a map of your soul

The beast at the center is the root of all evil:

Conquer it, and you master yourself. Run, and you’re lost forever

Here’s how to slay your Minotaur—and why your life depends on it…🧵 The minotaur story begins with a wicked ruler — King Minos

The son of Zeus, he sought to prove his divine right to rule Crete

To do so, he struck up an ill-fated deal with the gods

Alexander the Great conquered the known world

He never lost a battle until he met one man:

A beggar-philosopher mocked him to his face and left him speechless

Here’s what he said, and how his wisdom humbled the greatest conqueror in history…🧵 Since birth, Alexander was bred for greatness

The son of King Philip II, he was trained for war and mentored by Aristotle

He inherited his father’s kingdom at age 21:

This included his father’s army — the strongest war machine in the world