Smeagol

When I wrote my review of the Two Towers, I neglected to mention what I consider to be the best part the book. As Frodo and Sam make their way into Mirror they stop to rest and fall asleep while Gollum leaves them. Gollum returns and almost repents of his plan to betray them to Shelob.

Gollum looked at them. A strange expression passed over his lean hungry face. The gleam faded from his eyes, and they went dim and grey, old and tired. A spasm of pain seemed to twist him, and he turned away, peering back up towards the pass, shaking his head, as if engaged in some interior debate. Then he came back, and slowly putting out a trembling hand, very cautiously he touched Frodo’s knee –but almost the touch was a caress. For a fleeting moment, could one of the sleepers have seen him, they would have thought that they beheld an old weary hobbit, shrunken by the years that had carried him far beyond his time, beyond friends and kin, and the fields and streams of youth, an old starved pitiable thing. But at that touch Frodo stirred and cried out softly in his sleep, and immediately Sam was wide awake. The first thing he saw was Gollum –‘pawing at master,’as he thought. ‘Hey you!’he said roughly. ‘What are you up to?’‘Nothing, nothing,’said Gollum softly. ‘Nice Master!’‘I daresay,’said Sam. ‘But where have you been to –sneaking off and sneaking back, you old villain?’

Gollum withdrew himself, and a green glint flickered under his heavy lids. Almost spider-like he looked now, crouched back on his bent limbs, with his protruding eyes. The fleeting moment had passed, beyond recall. ‘Sneaking, sneaking!’ he hissed. ‘Hobbits always so polite, yes. O nice hobbits! Sméagol brings them up secret ways that nobody else could find. Tired he is, thirsty he is, yes thirsty; and he guides them and he searches for paths, and they say sneak, sneak. Very nice friends, O yes my precious, very nice.”

If Sam had spoken kindly to Gollum when he awoke, Gollum’s good side, Smeagol, might have come out on top and the plot of the would have been very different. Smeagol might have warned the hobbits about Shelob and helped them to avoid her trap. Frodo wouldn’t have been captured by the enemy and the trip to Mount Doom would have been quicker and easier.

 

 

I have been thinking of this over the past week with the Supreme Court decision regarding gay marriage. I am afraid that many Christians, myself included, have acted much like Sam in our relations with the Gay community. We have been more interested in condemning sin then in loving the sinner and perhaps have turned many of them away from from the love of God. Certainly Christians have, in the past, and all too often even now have acted in a way that has caused homosexuals to hate Christianity and Christians. We must remember that our mission is not to win debates or legislate morality but to bring souls to Heaven.

I do not mean, of course, that we should endorse the homosexual lifestyle or accept same-sex marriage. Christians must hold true to Biblical teachings concerning marriage and sexuality. Those churches which have hung up rainbow banners and celebrated the Supreme Court ruling may believe that they are doing the loving, compassionate thing, but they are making a mistake and putting themselves in grave danger of apostasy. Indeed, many of those more liberal denominations have become almost entirely apostate and can be regarded as Christians in name only. Churches which abandon the standards of scripture do not flourish. Rudderless, they sway back and forth with the wind in no set direction save momentary ideas of political correctness.

But, churches must support all the Biblical teachings regarding marriage and sexuality. A church that accepts pre-marital sex (fornication), secular ideas about divorce and remarriage, or adultery is in no position to lecture the homosexual about sexual morality. The same goes for Biblical teachings on other subjects. A church can be made up of the most upright prudes imaginable, but if they lack a spirit of love and compassion, they are no better than the pagans. Remember what Paul had to say about this.

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror;then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (1 Cor 13:1-13)

Let us not, then, become clanging cymbals. We must preach the truth, but it must be done with love understanding. And we should keep in mind that sexual sins are not the only sins we can commit. There are worse sins, excessive pride and hatred are worse. Also, I think it would be helpful if more Christians understood why God’s rules about sex and marriage are what they are. These are not arbitrary rules from the Bronze Age. God wants us to be happy and to join Him in Heaven. He understands better than any of us that an excessive or misplaced devotion to sex, like an excessive or misplaced devotion to anything other than Him will not, ultimately, make us happy or bring us to him. God does not hate “fags”. He hates that which takes them, and us, away from Him.

Related articles

• Hope and the Benedict Option (theamericanconservative.com)