{"id":997,"date":"2020-02-18T12:56:15","date_gmt":"2020-02-18T17:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?p=997"},"modified":"2020-02-18T12:57:26","modified_gmt":"2020-02-18T17:57:26","slug":"lord-of-the-rings-star-defends-faith-says-the-world-owes-christianity-the-greatest-debt-of-thanks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2020\/02\/lord-of-the-rings-star-defends-faith-says-the-world-owes-christianity-the-greatest-debt-of-thanks.html","title":{"rendered":"Lord of the Rings Star Defends Faith, Says the World Owes Christianity \u2018The Greatest Debt of Thanks\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mceTemp\"><\/div>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1006\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1006\" style=\"width: 700px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1006\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2020\/02\/John_Rhys-Davies_byVetulani2.jpg\" alt=\"John Rhys-Davies \" width=\"700\" height=\"450\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1006\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Franciszek Vetulani\/WikiCommons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Actor John Rhys-Davies who starred in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy is speaking out in defense of the Christian faith.<\/p>\n<p>The Welsh actor who played \u201cGimli\u201d in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy says the world owes Christianity a great debt of thanks for \u201cmaking the world a better place.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He also urges people to view Christianity as a force of good in the world.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI count myself a rationalist and a skeptic, and I find myself constantly defending Christians and Christianity,\u201d Rhys-Davies told The Christian Post during a red carpet appearance at the 28<sup>th<\/sup> annual Movieguide Awards.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe seem to forget that Christian civilization has made the world a better place than it ever was.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rhys-Davies said that the abolition of slavery was one of the great glories of the Christian faith. He also referenced the championing of the \u201cright of free speech\u201d and \u201cthe right of the individual conscience.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese evolved in first and second century Roman Christendom, where the individual Christian said, \u2018I have a right to believe, what I believe and not what the Emperor tells me.\u2019 From that our whole idea of democracy and the equality that we have has developed,\u201d the actor expressed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe owe Christianity the greatest debt of thanks that a generation can ever have and to slight it and to dismiss it as being irrelevant is the detritus of rather ill read minds, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The actor has appeared in a number of faith roles. His voice was featured as an Evangelist in the animated film \u201cPilgrims Progress.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He will also star in the upcoming faith-based film \u201cI Am Patrick\u201d which is set to release on St. Patrick\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Actor John Rhys-Davies who starred in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy is speaking out in defense of the Christian faith. The Welsh actor who played \u201cGimli\u201d in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy says the world owes Christianity a great debt of thanks for \u201cmaking the world a better place.\u201d He also&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":565,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[10,565,568,571,559,562],"class_list":["post-997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-news","tag-christian-news","tag-christianity","tag-defending-faith","tag-john-rhys-davies","tag-lord-of-the-rings","tag-lord-of-the-rings-actor"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Lord of the Rings Star Defends Faith, Says the World Owes Christianity \u2018The Greatest Debt of Thanks\u2019<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2020\/02\/lord-of-the-rings-star-defends-faith-says-the-world-owes-christianity-the-greatest-debt-of-thanks.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lord of the Rings Star Defends Faith, Says the World Owes Christianity \u2018The Greatest Debt of Thanks\u2019\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Actor John Rhys-Davies who starred in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy is speaking out in defense of the Christian faith. The Welsh actor who played \u201cGimli\u201d in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy says the world owes Christianity a great debt of thanks for \u201cmaking the world a better place.\u201d He also&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2020\/02\/lord-of-the-rings-star-defends-faith-says-the-world-owes-christianity-the-greatest-debt-of-thanks.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Christ News Today\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-02-18T17:56:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-02-18T17:57:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2020\/02\/John_Rhys-Davies_byVetulani2.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"700\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"450\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Lesli White\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Lord of the Rings Star Defends Faith, Says the World Owes Christianity \u2018The Greatest Debt of Thanks\u2019","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2020\/02\/lord-of-the-rings-star-defends-faith-says-the-world-owes-christianity-the-greatest-debt-of-thanks.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Lord of the Rings Star Defends Faith, Says the World Owes Christianity \u2018The Greatest Debt of Thanks\u2019","og_description":"Actor John Rhys-Davies who starred in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy is speaking out in defense of the Christian faith. The Welsh actor who played \u201cGimli\u201d in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy says the world owes Christianity a great debt of thanks for \u201cmaking the world a better place.\u201d He also&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2020\/02\/lord-of-the-rings-star-defends-faith-says-the-world-owes-christianity-the-greatest-debt-of-thanks.html","og_site_name":"Christ News Today","article_published_time":"2020-02-18T17:56:15+00:00","article_modified_time":"2020-02-18T17:57:26+00:00","og_image":[{"width":700,"height":450,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2020\/02\/John_Rhys-Davies_byVetulani2.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Lesli 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