OK, your criticisms deserve a thorough reply. And I admit this is a bit off the topic as well raised by Ever Beyond Reason... Namely, what are the antecedents for Morgoth/Sauron? Answer from me (for what it's worth!): Christian concepts of the evil one... But to what extent?....
Sit back with a comforting libation, fellow hobbits. This is LONG! And probably tedious for sensible folks like you. But here goes.
Let me try to explain my problems with Tolkien’s imagery, his mythology better than I obviously have so far.
First, as to the charge of holier-than-thou. . . I am now and for many decades (but not all my life) been a striving member of the Orthodox Church not because I am so special, but because I am not! I am here to be cured of my spiritual ailments. Just as one attends a college course to improve one’s knowledge and grasp of that knowledge and methods to that end, because life in the Orthodox Church is a course in learning the facts of Christianity and how to live by them. During a long term of inquiry and search I am sure that what it teaches in doctrine and life is full and correct, and the Western churches are not. I can give you plenty of evidence to back that up as what they have gotten wrong, why and how. Or I can refer you to those who can do it better than I. But enough on that for now.
Now, as to Morgoth/Sauron vs the Christian evil one. . . Let’s begin at the beginning. What is it about allegory that Tolkien finds wrong? Not allegory itself – as we know he uses it brilliantly in Leaf by Niggle. But because it is really focused on the primary reality to which an allegory refers, the story in the allegory loses its punch, its effectiveness. It is not involving. What is important and the central focus is not the images of the allegory, but what they refer to.
But my critique is not merely that the image of Morgoth/Sauron is inaccurate, but that it is weak. That image is of a worldly conqueror with armies occupying territory and a conqueror who uses terrorism and cruelty. Who creates ugliness and harsh conditions, “marring Arda”. But is this really sufficient? Even if we put their darkening of Middle-earth into the bargain, in other words cutting off the light of Valinor, destroying those bearers of that light, the Elves. We have very physical images of wrongness. But the Christian evil one is far more insidious. He seeks to destroy salvation itself. Now salvation can be imaged as light. . . in other words knowledge. But there is another dimension to it: and that is its change in the very nature of mankind, as both a community (I don’t like words like collectively) and as individuals. Here Tolkien in devising his image of a corrupting Ring that poisons the soul is much better than his image of Sauron as a world dominator. Yes, the evil demons want to dominate, but for a purpose. To separate us from our true destiny to be at one with the good holiness of God. Thus I think Tolkien improved his image of a central powerful destroying evil figure as he developed his story of The Lord of the Rings. As we know he did not start out with the One Ring as being this evil. That came to him gradually as he worked out who the hobbits in their sequel journey were dealing with: first an encounter with Gandalf, then tis became one with hBlack Riders, then Black Riders after a ring, then a Ring of “altogether evil”. I have a theory that CSL played a role in this progression of making the fairy tale of Bilbo into the epic hero story of Frodo and Sam. I also suspect Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung (long admired by CSL) played a crucial but implicit role in this process. The concept of a world dominating and corrupting Ring is not found in the sources, the Eddas, the Volsunga Saga, Beowulf, the Nibelungenlied, the Kalevala, etc. It is an original invention of Wagner. This theory is not yet part of the consensus on Tolkien, but it has been seconded to me by one scholar of the Inklings. There is quite extensive circumstantial evidence to this. But I digress.
So I do not think it is allegorizing Sauron or Morgoth to expect them to be evil in the way satan and his demons are evil. They already have conquered the world. They are referred to as the Prince of This World. They are up to much more than that.
What follows may seem to deserve a separate thread, but bear with me, I will tie it together before the finish.
I also have problems with the conception of the Elves as “immortal” – i.e., long lived so long as Arda exists. The Christian conception of mortality is inextricably bound up with human corruptibility, with the human race as a single entity, or vast family. The first humans fell away from God, the Source of life and well-being. Thus all creation fell into corruptibility and mortality because we are at the head of this creation. This is, by the way, very different from the Augustinian doctrine of Original Sin, or Inherited Guilt (to use a more precise term). Mortality is a blessing according to the Church Fathers, not a “curse” of an offended ego-centric god. It makes possible the cessation of a life of torment by the passion (the vices) and the transformation of the whole of human nature to its original destiny. It however is not a blessing because it necessitates the Incarnation, as Augustine claimed. The Fathers point out that would have happened whether man fell or not -- to enable the full transformation of human nature which can only happen through the union of human nature with the Divine nature.
The problem arises in that the Elves ARE fallen. . . the kinslaying, the obsession with the Silmarils, their numerous and sundry hostilities among themselves are falls – their communal fall being alienation from the Valar and Valinor. Yet there is no effect of this on their longevity. I simply think Tolkien, working within the Augustinian/Anselmian – RC/Prot – conception of Original Sin and mortality as a punishment by Divine justice, not as a curative therapy as the Fathers deem it – and the Incarnation as not inherently and primarily a transformation of human nature by union with the Divine nature – but as just some payment to Divine justice (Vicarious Substitionary Atonement/Satisfaction) – Tolkien did not understand this connection and so did not connect mortality as the natural (!) consequence of the fall into sin (into animosity, hostility to both God and fellow men/Elves). Thus he did not depict the central harm done to the Elves (and Men, and Dwarves) as being a campaign by Morgoth or Sauron to separate these peoples from the Valar, but merely to conquer and dominate them and their world.
This is thus a flaw in the nature of his mythology, his legendarium and how it is constructed. Not an issue of allegorizing. It makes his legendarium largely inapplicable (!) to the actual human condition. I suspect that is the core reason why he never really finished, perfected the Silmarillion. There is a root flaw in its conceptualization. It doesn’t work. Longevity cannot happen to a fallen race. While Tolkien steered clear of overt theological issues, this is too basic to the entire state of actual creation – human, animal, arboreal, mineral – to be not expressed in a profound legendarium dealing, as he himself said it did and sought to do, with mortality and immortality. The problems of the interdependence of evil and mortality are too obvious to be thus misconstrued.
This is not to say that, in The Lord of the Rings, he did solve one of the central long term problems of Western thinking (initiated by Augustine again): the issue of free will and Providence. Put simply, Providence structures the situations to which free will must respond, either rightly or wrongly. The famous dictum of Gandalf says exactly that. Yours is not to decide what time you live in, but only to decide what to do with the time that is given you. This central theme, THE central theme, of LotR is what makes it a great and watershed work in Western culture -- as I see it.
Had Tolkien written to the extent that the Elves too have to wrestle with mortality (don’t ask me how to present this, I am no mythologist) and that it was the consequence of their leaving Valinor and/or refusing the invitation to return, then he might have created a legendarium applicable to us. As it is it remains irrelevant in an essential aspect. A mere adventure yarn, perhaps.
But maybe I have it all wrong. . . You’ll all let me know, straightway, surely!! Have at me.