I've been working my way through
The Battle for Middle-earth" by Rutledge.
His approach in my view is terrific,* starting at The
Hobbit and walking right through all LoTR in order, pointing out things he feels lead to his 'take' on
Tolkien's work.
With a sub-title of "
Tolkien's Divine Design in The Lord of the Rings", one can pretty easily surmise what his high-level perspective is for the book.
I can say I feel he takes things well beyond anything Tolkien really purposed, yet the work has some intrigue from several angles.
Mostly I'm appreciating Rutledge's significant inclusion of the Scripture references Tolkien would have been well familiar with, Rutledge feels have crept into the work, unaware or otherwise - and quotes by Tolkien from Letters. And he makes some few statements I'll be referring to in some of my own work(s).
Conclusion: this is a book for those with sufficient stamina to tolerate a work with much to consider, and much to offer in terms of a deep comparison of TH and LoTR to Scripture - while keeping in mind everyone has an 'opinion' and that opinion comes from the particular 'universe' they have chosen to define for themselves, and apply to any given situation.. (And for some people, those 'universes' are far from static, and seem to be applied 'situationally'.)