We begin 2026 with a question: What if the most decisive battles in our time aren’t fought with ballots or bombs—but with the imagination?Watch the full conversation on YouTube

Russell Moore talks with historian and author Joseph Loconte about The War for Middle-earth, his book on how World War I and World War II forged the friendship, faith, and fiction of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Together they explore why The Lord of the Rings and Narnia weren’t escapist detours from reality, but a deliberate counter-assault on cynicism, propaganda, and the will to power—written by men who had seen the trenches up close and knew exactly what modern darkness looks like.

Loconte and Moore talk about why World War I has slipped from our cultural memory, what protected Tolkien from the disillusionment that swallowed so many of his peers, and why both writers keep insisting that deeds done in the dark are “not wholly in vain.” They also discuss Lewis’s warning about the “cataract of nonsense” in modern media, and why genuine friendship is almost never built by chasing “community”—but by pursuing a shared mission so compelling you find yourself fighting alongside someone.

Loconte shares the origin story of the Lewis–Tolkien friendship, why grace—not grit—is the hinge point in both Middle-earth and Narnia, and where to start if you’ve never read either author: The Screwtape Letters for Lewis, and Tolkien’s short, haunting “Leaf by Niggle.”

Resources mentioned in this episode:

By J.R.R. Tolkien

The Lord of the Rings

The Hobbit

Leaf by Niggle

The Fall of Gondolin

“Beren and Lúthien” (legendarium story)

By C.S. Lewis

The Screwtape Letters

The Chronicles of NarniaOut of the Silent Planet

That Hideous Strength

The Space Trilogy

The Four Loves

Spirits in Bondage (early poetry collection)

“Learning in Wartime” (sermon/essay)

By Joseph Loconte

The War for Middle-earth

A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War

Other Literary & Historical Works Referenced

All Quiet on the Western Front — Erich Maria Remarque

Paradise Lost — John Milton

The Odyssey — Homer

The Aeneid — Virgil

The Divine Comedy — Dante

Plato’s Cave (from The Republic) — Plato

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