thought from my first lecture (well, not my lecture, cuz sadly i'm not paid to talk about tolkien, but the lecture i listened to)

My darling Tolkien believed in the power of myth. He believed that all myths ultimately point toward the Truth, and thus could be useful in bringing someone to the One True GOD. While he may have been unsuccessful in his dream of creating a mythology for England, certain facets of it stuck with his writing.
The professor of the class I'm listening to, Corey Olsen, stated that that is one reason why, by right, The Lord of the Rings, should not be popular. We live in a time when people don't want to believe in myth. They don't think it desirable or necessary. And yet...deep down...they crave it. While ultimately Tolkien was unsuccessful in his attempts at a mythology for his country, "...he succeeded in doing something far greater than what he was trying to do. He didn't write a mythology for England; what I think Tolkien does in his works is he establishes a mythology for the modern world. A mythology for a world that's tried to forget mythology, but which can't entirely drive the need for mythology out of its mind and out of its heart." And that is why it is popular.