The alert evangelicals at the ChildCare Action Project cite “The Two Towers” for no fewer than 17 “offenses to God,” including “gaiaism” (walking, talking trees — oh dear), “mockery of the Transformation” (Gandalf’s second coming is a bit close to, well, the Second Coming) and “miraculous reverse aging” (presumably the spontaneous makeover Theoden undergoes once Saruman’s possession is thrown off).

“Why, if you so loved and cherished the armed guard,” Captain Banning continued, “did you arrange for transfer?” “I never, sir! ... But he shanghaied me out of the armed guard pronto.”

Though he prayed for a moose, just one moose,all game seemed to have deserted the land, and nightfall found the exhausted man crawling into camp, lighthanded, heavyhearted.

Be careful how you deny a dead-wrong story that has yet to be published.