Tolkien famously wrote that The Lord of the Rings was a "fundamentally religious and Catholic work." Of course, he was writing to a Catholic priest when he said this (and when it was less expedient to emphasize possible religious connections, he wrote that a weakness of the Arthurian tradition was that it "explicitly contains the Christian religion").

Over the next few months, we will be featuring interviews by presenters and fanworks creators who will be sharing their work at Mereth Aderthad. "[Tolkien] accidentally made a mythology that is so inclusive, and draws upon so many sources of diverse history and his own invention, that his audience became all of us," said Acha Rezak in a recent interview with Shadow about her forthcoming Mereth Aderthad presentation "Mythmakers vs. the made myths: Exploring a reader’s levels of religious alienation and connection in works about and by J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis." Acha goes on to say, "By 'us' I mean—myself and all the other non-English—a half-Asian kid growing up in Bangkok, stumbling across The Silmarillion in the British Council Library."

Religion has often been use to exclude and gatekeep in Tolkien fandom, including today, when Tolkien has been co-opted by some Christian nationalists. But Acha argues that Tolkien's work had the opposite effect on her, describing Tolkien as opening doors that she only perceived as shut when she encountered critics who read his work as essentially Christian. Acha's presentation will explore that sense of alienation, as a reader raised in a Buddhist country who found deep spiritual meaning in Tolkien.

"Nature as written by Tolkien does call to the spiritualist in me," Acha explains. "It's the clear manifestation of the growing and creative nature of existence, and I honor how he wrote it."

You can read Shadow's full interview with Acha about her paper here.

If you want to participate in Mereth Aderthad 2025, it is not to late! While we have set our program of twelve intriguing research presentations, we are still looking for fanworks to accompany those presentations. Interested? Check out our call for fanworks here!