Introducing The Inklings Option

The Beginning of a New Journey

A Scene from The Eagle and Child

On a damp Tuesday morning, C.S. Lewis entered The Eagle and Child pub, deftly folding his umbrella. Greetings were exchanged with the familiar faces scattered throughout the establishment as he made his way to the secluded back room known as The Rabbit Room – a space reserved for his regular gatherings with friends.

As Lewis entered the room, Charles Williams, engrossed in conversation, adjusted his glasses. Owen Barfield was deeply engaged in the discussion, and amidst the animated discourse, John Ronald Reul Tolkien was spotted enjoying a leisurely draw from his pipe. Meanwhile, Hugo Dyson, absorbed in a manuscript handed to him by Tolkien earlier, seemed to be immersed in its contents.

Tolkien, with a hearty laugh, called out, "Ah, Jack! Finally, you've joined us. We've been here nearly 20 minutes." Lewis, nonchalantly, hung his long jacket on the coat rack, took a seat, and, with practiced ease, drew his pipe from his leather bag.

As he settled in, Lewis remarked, "The laborers receive the same payment at the end of the day, you know that, Tollers." Tolkien, still amused, and with a playful grin, retorted, "Well, better late than never, I suppose."

Amid the banter, Hugo returned the manuscript, prompting Tolkien to announce, "I'd like to share with you what I'm calling 'The Lord of The Rings.'" A hush fell over the room, for they knew that Ronald had been quite hesitant to share his mythology with them.

With anticipation in the air, Tolkien commenced reading the opening poem:

“Three Rings for the Elven-kings 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
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.”

Lewis, intrigued, responded, “Goodness, Tollers! A ring that binds and subjects all other rings to its power. Is this not a counterspell against the dark enchantment that lures men into stepping outside of traditional morality and towards the will to power?"

Lifting his gaze from the manuscript, Tolkien quipped, "You're aware of my disdain for metaphors, Jack! Yet, a counterspell. Yes, I rather fancy that. A counterspell not just against the corrupting influence of the will to power, but the entire evil enchantment of worldliness which has been laid upon us for nearly a hundred years."

The room broke out into conversation. The scene comes to an end.

Introducing The Inklings Option

For the past year, I have made references off and on to a project that I have called The Inklings Option. I’ve been very slow to write about it because it’s something that’s been taking form for quite a while now. Nonetheless, despite my slowness in writing about it, the idea has caught the attention of quite a few of my readers and I promised that in 2024 I would finally put pen to paper.

Starting today, that project will commence with this introduction to The Inklings Option. I plan to begin here and then release more essays on this throughout the year.

So, let’s begin at the beginning. What is The Inklings Option?

To put it up succinctly, The Inklings Option is an approach to navigating the challenges posed by a negative societal view of Christianity and the disenchantment of the Christian imagination. Drawing inspiration from The Inklings, a group of influential writers including Tolkien and Lewis, I suggest that in our modern, disenchanted age, The Inklings can serve as faithful expositors of the Great Tradition. I believe that they have lots to teach us — about mankind, virtue, society, the church, the heavens, and ultimately, about God.

Put another way, The Inklings Option is a counterspell. In The Weight of Glory, Lewis quipped, “You and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has been laid upon us for nearly a hundred years.” This is what The Inklings Option is. It’s a counterspell to the dark enchantment of modernity, emphasizing the power of beauty to reform and re-enchant a world that has turned negative towards Christianity.

Now, some of you may read that last description and ask, “Does beauty have the power to reform and re-enchant the world?”

I won’t spoil it for you because I plan on writing about it at full length, but I’m happy to tell you that I believe it does. The thing that I have learned from my many “conversations” with The Inklings over the past several years, is that beauty is no subjective thing. It is not merely in the eye of the beholder. Beauty lives, moves, and has its being in God, and thus has a morality to it — it is good and true because it exists in the God who is Goodness and Truth. Therefore, beauty, properly defined, does have the power to reform and re-enchant.

The Inklings themselves saw their collective works as powerful, beautiful weapons of reform. Lisa Coutras points out in her book Tolkien’s Theology of Beauty: Majesty, Splendor, and Transcendence in Middle-Earth that “Tolkien, in sympathy with his friends, believed in the power of beauty as a weapon against evil. . . Through the power of beauty, these young men believed they could reform their nation, leaving England purified of its loathsome insidious disease.”

Why The Inklings Option?

The next question is why The Inklings Option?

The language is undeniably a nod to

Rod Dreher

’s The Benedict Option, a work I found largely enjoyable. However, the connection goes beyond mere wordplay, as both The Benedict Option and The Inklings Option share a commonality — they are strategies aligned with the challenges posed by a Negative World.

For those not acquainted with the concept of a Negative World, the terminology stems from the work of

Aaron Renn

, whose insights I have found particularly valuable over the past few years. Renn proposes that our societal perspective on the Christian faith has undergone a significant transformation. Once regarded positively or even neutrally, it is now cast in a negative light.

In The Benedict Option, Dreher posits that we are living through the collapse of an empire, comparable to the collapse of Rome. Like Renn, Dreher proposes that this means that we no longer live in business-as-usual America, and so we have to develop creative, communal solutions to help us hold on to our faith and values in a world that is growing more hostile towards us. Dreher ultimately advocates turning to Saint Benedict, the sixth-century patriarch of Western Monasticism, as a guiding ideal for navigating these challenges.

Why The Inklings?

Here’s where The Benedict Option and The Inklings Option diverge.

I agree with Dreher that we are living through an empire's collapse and should be developing creative and communal solutions to help us hold onto our faith. But rather than looking to Saint Benedict as an ideal for us in these chaotic times, I look to the work of The Inklings instead.

The foremost reason is that they are nearer to us than Saint Benedict. When I read Benedict’s Rule a few years back, it felt as though I had entered a world very far away from me. The glimpses of that world also felt very foreign to me as a modern American. Experientially, it felt like there was a chasm between me and my world and Saint Benedict and his world, and realistically, it’s because there is. There is a culture gap.

This is why The Inklings Option is important to me. Years ago, I stepped into The Eagle and Child and encountered a group of warm and inviting modern medievalists who gently acquainted me with the lost lore of that ancient and foreign world in a way that resonated with me. I like to envision them, particularly Tolkien and Lewis, as faithful expositors of the Great Tradition for modern people like you and me. They can help us get back to this world that seems distant and foreign.

Deeper Country and Deeper Heavens

So, here’s what you can expect from me over the next year or so with this project. I plan on starting here on Earth and ascending into the seven heavens.

We’ll start here on the earth and I’ll set the stage by writing about how the Western world got to where it is today. I’ll write about The Inklings, who they were, what their contributions were, and then ultimately, how their contributions can reform and re-enchant humanity, virtue, and society. From there, we’ll bridge heaven and earth and look at the church as a Miniature Rivendell. From there, we’ll ascend into the seven heavens, and look at beauty and the God in whom beauty exists.

I hope you’ll join me! For those interested, this will be the last free essay that I share in regards to The Inklings Option. Everything else from here on out with this particular project will be found inside the wardrobe. For those who want more, come on into the deeper country below!