"...to rule them all." — Warrior+Priest

“Three Rings for the Elven Lords under the Sky

Seven for the Dwarf Lords in their halls of Stone

Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die

One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne

In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them

One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.” - J.R.R. Tolkien, ‘The Lord of the Rings’

“It began with the forging of the Great Rings. Three were given to the Elves, immortal, wisest and fairest of all beings. Seven to the Dwarf-Lords, great miners and craftsmen of the mountain halls. And nine, nine rings were gifted to the race of Men, who above all else desire power. For within these rings was bound the strength and the will to govern each race. But they were all of them deceived, for another ring was made. Deep in the land of Mordor, in the Fires of Mount Doom, the Dark Lord Sauron forged a master ring, and into this ring he poured his cruelty, his malice and his will to dominate all life.

“One Ring to rule them all.” - from Galadriel’s prologue in the cinematic version of ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’

The central plot of The Lord of the Rings, in both the original novels and its later cinematic adaptations, revolves around the quest to destroy the once lost Ring of Power. The One Ring, as it is called, was forged by the Dark Lord Sauron as a way to enthrall whoever possessed the other nine great rings which he crafted and convinced the rulers of men, elves and dwarves to take: “One Ring to rule them all.”

It’s interesting to note that Sauron crafted the rings of power in order to give them to those who already ruled the peoples of Middle Earth. Those with power were offered even more and they hastened to take it.

As the story goes, once Sauron’s plot was revealed the kings of men were still so taken by the temptations of their rings that they were all eventually enslaved to Sauron, becoming corrupted and transformed into the form of the Nazgul.

It isn’t hard to figure out the kinds of lessons Tolkien was intending to teach with his masterpiece. After all, he had seen the toxic effects of unchecked power on those in authority who only seemed to want more of it: he served in the British army at the nightmarish Battle of the Somme during the Great War.

Much of our society’s most celebrated entertainment these days features plots that revolve around the subject of power: it’s temptations, it’s corruptions, and what it does to people that seek for it at any cost. Not just Lord of the Rings, but hugely successful shows like Game of Thrones and House of Cards, are primarily focused on it, as well.

But despite both the undeniable quality and widespread popularity of shows and movies like these, many of us seem either unable or unwilling to connect the artistic dots to their metaphorical contact points in the real world. We watch and discuss these stories at length but completely fail to grasp any of their nonfiction parallels. We are moved by how true-to-life and honestly reflective they seem to be on the screen but can’t wrap our minds around the idea that somebody somewhere might actually embody the kinds of things these shows and movies have been created to warn us about.

Our society has seen a great deal of governmental overreach this past year within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of the decisions and action points handed down from state capitols and city halls were accompanied by a generous serving of hypocrisy, incoherence and irrationality. Governors and mayors issued mask mandates and stay-at-home orders that they themselves proceeded not to heed. Sports organizations came up with guidelines for players and coaches that involved social distancing on NBA benches and masking on NFL sidelines and in MLB dugouts while the players on the fields and courts touched, breathed and sweated all over one another. Businesses were shuttered even after data emerged that linked single digit percentages of viral transmission to the places most affected by the closings.

Everywhere you look, inconsistency and illogic reign, even from the so-called experts and governmental authorities elected and employed to think the most clearly and make the most well-informed and widely altruistic decisions available.

Why is this? What explains the almost complete lack of consistency or accountability from those who are supposed to be leading us with their credentialed expertise and inimitable example?

The writers of those stories tried to tell us. And based on their popularity you would’ve been forgiven for thinking people should have known.

Those who love power are not interested in coherence and integrity because being coherent and honorable isn’t their goal. The goal of the powerful is, as Tolkien tried to tell us, more power. And power is solidified through compliance. Consider this quote from Theodore Dalrymple:

“Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lost once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.”

Compliance and conformity is the goal. Making sense is not.

If you are finding it hard to understand just why there would be such a massive disconnect between data, the facts on the ground and the decisions being made by those in authority, it is most likely because you don’t desire power for yourself. You don’t see the need for widespread compliance with government bureaucrats as some kind of ultimate end. You don’t relate to an elitist mentality that places oneself in a higher and completely separate category from the governed majority.

If that is the case, I share your frustration. And I also think you should thank God for being spared from being able to relate to or imagine such things.

That being said, it is not enough to stop there. Not being able to fathom something doesn’t preclude it from happening. Being unable to relate to someone doesn’t mean they must not be the way they appear to be.

If you yourself are not obsessed with power or willing to do just about anything to get it, that does not mean that there are not others in the world who would gladly step over their own mothers for a chance to call the shots in other people’s lives.

The simple fact is that history is loaded with examples of mortal people who thought they were divine, enlightened, or unique and sought ever-increasing levels of power to prove it. There are myriad lessons from dictators, emperors, kings and tyrants who thought that they knew best about how the world should be run and how the people in it ought to live. Untold millions have suffered greatly because of these impulses. Are we really to believe that these same kinds of people no longer exist in our own allegedly sophisticated society?

In I Samuel 8:11-18, the prophet relays the words of the Lord to the people of Israel who are demanding from Him a human king:

“He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”

God warned His people about the oppression that would surely come their way if they subjected themselves to the standards of human rulers. They ignored his exhortations and paid an awful price. Because human power is like money, not inherently evil in-and-of itself, but highly radioactive: the more of it you get your hands on, the more dangerous it becomes.

In the end, there really are only two kinds of people who seek after power: those who, as we’ve discussed, desire it for themselves, feel entitled to and deserving of it, and will do whatever it takes in order to acquire it. The others are those who are so fed up and angry over what has taken place that they seek power only as an opportunity to make a change and serve as a bulwark against even more overreach and oppression. There are no neutral players in the quest for power.

Of these two, the first ought never to be given even the slightest hint of influence or control of anything. And the second, though their intentions may be pure at the beginning, are still highly susceptible to the lure and corruptions of the One Ring.

I’ll leave it to you to decide which kind of person represents the majority and which the minority in our modern society.

Those who have warned us about the kinds of people who seek for power knew what they were talking about. We ought to have listened to them more carefully and if we did not before, we most definitely should start listening now. It may already be to late to heed their calls seriously. But either way, we should not be at all shocked when we see the extent to which those who would have power are willing to go.

Christian, never allow your lack of ability to relate give rise to an inability or unwillingness to see.

Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust, who does not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after a lie! - Psalm 40:4

Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. - Psalm 146:3