Description

Tolkien’s beloved fantasy novels depict a little people, the hobbits, living in a little land, the Shire. Latter-day Saint culture shares many parallels with hobbit culture, including a love for food, community, genealogy, and safety.

Some hobbits never left the Shire and its simple beauty, comforts, and security. Others—such as Bilbo, Frodo, Samwise, Meriadoc, and Peregrin—journeyed into the wider world, confronting both darkness and light. While some of these characters never stopped being “in love with the Shire, with woods and fields and little rivers,” Frodo came to understand that, for him, “there is no going back,” that “[t]here are some things that time cannot mend,” and “[s]ome hurts … go too deep.”

For many Latter-day Saints, questions about leaving, staying, and belonging are deeply personal and often painful. In this age of information and the Internet, we all hear troubling whispers, similar to how at the end of the Third Age, “even the … most stay-at-home [hobbits] began to hear queer tales.” This presentation explores select parallels between hobbits and Latter-day Saints, and how Tolkien’s vision of hobbit fellowship can open space for grace and dignity for those who leave and those who stay in Mormonism.

Brett Booth is a practicing intellectual property attorney and former electrical engineer with a passion for fostering understanding and bridge building within the restoration tradition. He is interested in phenomenological readings of Latter-day Saint scripture and in exploring how legal and scientific principles relate to our doctrine, history, and practices.