I have done a lot of reading on Tolkien, including "The Letters of J.R.R. Tokien," which provided a lot of insight into the man by his own hand.

Tolkien called himself a Roman Catholic- and a devout one, too. Which is strange because what I got was that he believed in salvation by grace alone.

I read "Letters" a year ago, so this information may be a bit rusty, but in one of his letters, he writes that the Reformation wasn't really about salvation by grace through faith- because this was obviously true doctine which all real Christians believed. i.e. it was a non-issue because it was so patent. He says it was really a frontal attack on the Eucharist- which was Tolkien's big trump card. I'll get to this soon.

While his Chrurch history may not have been the best, Tolkien was profoundly aware of, and grieved by, the corruption in the Roman Catholic church. However, he felt a loyalty to it, because though it may have been a sick body, he felt it was still the body. One of his major reasons for this was the fact that the Roman Catholic church was the only church to faithfully administer the Eucharist. Tolkien was a good Roman Catholic in this respect, if in no other: he vigourously believed all that the Church taught about the Eucharist- pertaining to salvation, as a continual source of strength for the Christian, etc.

Were it not for this sorry reason, I'm sure Tolkien would have, or at least could have been, a good Protestant, for the rest of his theology, as far as I can percieve, was pretty bang-on.

(Latin phrase goes here.)