Neil,
I very much appreciated your comments, especially the leeriness of linking Christianity with the West. Lest we be deceived…Jesus was not a Westerner. And, as some would suggest; if you want to discuss the beliefs of American forefathers look less to the gospels and more to masonry (not sure how I feel about this, but still there is a lot of room for debate about America’s "Christian roots")
I think it's interesting how easy it is to demonize people groups. I remember demonizing Christians, and now being one of them, I am really learning to rethink my tendencies to write-off people groups. I think writing people off is often a product of objectifying a group and buying into the misinformation from not wading through the complexity of cultures. I think my fear is that we, as Christians, can either be too permissible with belief systems directly opposing our own--you know--as a way of "undoing" the wrongs done by Christians throughout the ages. When we do this, we fail to acknowledge that Christianity cannot simply tolerate views which blatantly harm others or oppose the gospel--the love of tolerance serves postmodernism not God. Or, on the flip side, I think we can also become so into defeating worldviews or religious power groups, that the people groups become just that GROUPS, not beautiful yet debased made-in-the-image-of-a-God-that-counts-all-the-hairs-on-their-head individuals (whether Muslim, Buddhist, Atheist God made them in love). Once you winnow people down to just a group, the objectifying kind of “they are the bad guys, and we are the righteous good guys” attitude seems to follow. So destructive! To this I say, Please Jesus…we are muddy with sin and need your help to love others! As always I appreciate your thoughts.
A sister in Jesus,
Heidi

As they approach Mordor, and just prior to entering Shelob's labyrinth, Sam, Frodo, and Gollum come into contact with soldiers from Gondor ( I believe Faramir is one). Some other men, from around the area had joined the evil side and had teamed up with the orcs in their fight against the men of Gondor. Sam makes a comment that he has never (or at least not for a long while) seen men fight men before and he describes it as terrible and frightening. This is from "The Two Towers".

Your right, most of the fighting that takes place in this trilogy is between orcs (satanic, not possible for them to be redeemed) and good forces. When there is an example of men fighting men, it is portrayed as being terrible indeed.

I couldn't have said it better, Sister Heidi. Some lovely words, "beautiful yet debased made-in-the-image-of-a-God-that-counts-all-the-hairs-on-their-head individuals."