Dickens’ “Christian Carol” 1
The Christmas Carol as Christian Truth
Session One: “Why are We Reading Dickens in a Bible Class?”
Introduction to Christian Literary Analysis and to Charles
Dickens
Word to Live By: Finally, brethren, whatsoever things
are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things
are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are
lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be
any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things
Philippians 4:8 (KJV) .
Session Truth: God is faithful to Sanctify Christians in
their understanding of what they read and view. Also,
God’s Truth shines in the inspired words of great authors.
Scripture: The people that walked in darkness have seen
a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of
death, upon them hath the light shined. Isaiah 9:2 (KJV)
Introduction: One of the first questions which comes up when a work like Charles
Dickens’ A Christmas Carol comes up as a possible subject for a Sunday School class is
why are we studying this? Isn’t it enough to learn about the Bible and what it says
without cluttering our minds with other stuff? In fact, a complaint that I have heard often
has run like this, the pastor got off on social or political stuff, so we moved on. When I
go to church I want to study the Bible. That’s all that anyone needs.
Well on one hand there can be no doubt that scripture holds in our lives a unique position
as the word of God. However, to separate it somehow from the day to day experiences
which are addressed in our lives and which turn up in our various art forms is an artificial
one and one I might add the original authors of the scriptures did not see at all.
Do We Believers Look for Truth in the Same Way in All Scripture? No, We Don’t
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The Catholic Church chose which books to include in the Bible in the Synod's of
Hippo (393 AD) and confirmed it at Carthage (397 AD). Thus scholars with
God’s help chose which books would be in the canon.
Sometimes what was chosen has bothered even great Christians. Martin Luther
said. . .
o “The St. James' Epistle is really an epistle of straw ... for it has nothing of
the nature of the Gospel about it."
o About the Book of Revelation, Luther said: "I miss more than one thing in
this book, and this makes me hold it to be neither apostolic nor prophetic. .
Session One
Dickens’ “Christian Carol” 2
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. . and can nohow detect that the Holy Spirit produced it . . . there are
many far better books for us to keep."
o CS Lewis had real problems with the Psalms specifically the parts in
which the authors curse their enemies: "The hatred is there---festering,
gloating, undisguised---and also we should be wicked if we in any way
condoned or approved it, or (worse still) used it to justify similar passions
in ourselves. . .These prayers of the psalmists "are indeed devilish" (C. S.
Lewis).
It is important to note that neither critic stopped reading the scriptures, even the
ones they didn’t like. This separates them from heretics.
Still it is clear that not all scripture is turned to as containing the same kind of
truth. Some passages are taken literarily, some are taken figuratively and some
are even looked on as allegorical.
Thus we are in a tradition which acknowledges that the level of truth in scripture
varies from book to book within the Bible.
All are God’s Word but they are so in different ways.
How Do We Christians Discern the Way to Understanding Scripture?
 By Reading the scripture as a whole.
 Prayer, talking to God.
 Having Bible study with others
If God’s word contains levels of truth what about the “best that has been thought or
said”? What about material that is Not Scripture but is True?
Literature is “the lie that tells the truth.”
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C. S. Lewis. . .allowed for the "inspiration" of later extra-biblical material. He
once wrote (in a May 7, 1959 letter) to Clyde Kilby: "If every good and perfect
gift comes from the Father of lights, then all true and edifying writings, whether
in Scripture or not, must be in some sense inspired."
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With describing the writing of Pilgrim’s Progress, Bunyan said: "It came," and
Lewis remarks: "It came. I doubt if we shall ever know more of the process
called ‘inspiration’ than those two monosyllables tell us." Clearly in Lewis’ and
in Bunyon’s mind there was a sense of divine revelation in the creation of this
fictional text.
How Do We Christians Discern the Way to Understanding The Truth found in
Literature?
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By Reading scripture as a whole.
Prayer, talking to God.
Having Bible study with others
Session One
Dickens’ “Christian Carol” 3
Dickens’ Christianity in his A Christmas Carol.
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It should be noted that a Christ-less Christmas was unthinkable to Dickens. Even
though he was criticized even in his own time for not being overt about his faith.
In a letter described in the introduction to his The Life of Our Lord, as "perhaps
the last words written by Dickens" he describes his own tendency to incorporate
but not preach his beliefs in his writings in a time when many used their faith as a
way to political and economic advantage:
“I have always striven in my writings to express veneration for the life and
lessons of Our Savior, because I feel it. . . But I have never made proclamation of
this from the housetops” (Life of Our Lord 4).
Are there Christian References in A Christmas Carol? Some thought not:
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The most famous example is Ruskin's comment to a friend that Dickens'
Christmas was nothing more than "mistletoe and pudding--neither resurrection
from the dead, nor rising of new stars, not teaching of wise men, nor shepherds."
(Qt. in Davis 59).
However what an examination of the text reveals is Ruskin’s own inability to see
beyond the literal. He fails to recognize the Christian Pattern of Salvation. Of
course he also fails to se the clear scriptural references Dickens does include:
Actual Textual References to Christ Within the Carol:
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[Fred] "I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come
round--apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything
belonging to it can be apart from that--as a good time; a kind, forgiving time. . . "
(Dickens 4).
[Marley] "Why did I walk through the crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes
turned down and never raised them to that blessed Star which led Wise Men to a
poor abode? Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted
me?" (Dickens 79)
[Marley] "Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere,
whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of
usefulness" (Dickens 14).
[Narrator] "He resolved to lie awake until the hour was past; and, considering that
he could no more go to sleep than go to heaven, this was perhaps the wisest
resolution in his power" (Dickens 14).
[Bob] "He [Tiny Tim] told me coming home that he hoped the people saw him in
the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to
remember upon Christmas Day, who made beggars walk and blind men see" (38).
[Narrator] "After a while they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children
sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a
child himself" (Dickens 46).
Session One
Dickens’ “Christian Carol” 4
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[Peter reading scripture] "And He took a child, and set him in the midst of them. .
." (Dickens 59 ) (Mark 9:36 KJV).
[Narrator] "He [the redeemed Scrooge] went to church (Dickens 66).
What Dickens has done, however, it to take Christian truths and put them into everyman
Victorian cloths. Without the sanctified flowing robes of Christian clichés he is able as
C.S. Lewis said of himself to present Christian truth without arousing the standard nonbelievers’ defense mechanisms which usually come up when they hear a sermon coming.
It’s what Lewis described as "smuggling the gospel past watchful dragons."
So why is the message still not getting out clearly?
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Christians still like the overt literal presentation
Modern channels of the story lack the subtlety of Dickens’ original text and
therefore loose some of the truth.
There is a tendency among those who retell Dickens story to Escape Dickens’
Preaching through Exaggeration of the Carol qualities
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Tiny Tim is not the cherub so often portrayed in film and stage. How often have
you seen some dramatization when Tiny Tim says something sweet about
Scrooge at the Christmas dinner table and that like Luke Skywalker he somehow
believes there is still some good in the old man?
The fact is that he is far more a natural child than the dramatists give him credit
for. Here’s how the scene goes in the text:
'I'll drink his health for your sake and the Day's,' said Mrs Cratchit,'
not for his. Long life to him! A merry Christmas and a happy new year.
He'll be very merry and very happy, I have no doubt!'
The children drank the toast after her. It was the first of their
proceedings which had no heartiness. Tiny Tim drank it last of all, but he
didn't care twopence for it. Scrooge was the Ogre of the family. The
mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party, which was not
dispelled for full five minutes. (Dickens 41).
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Of course it is the line mentioned earlier when listing the scriptural references that
abound in A Christmas Carol that has helped created the angelic glow in
depictions of Tiny Tim. His father notes after church that. . .
“Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the
strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped
the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might
be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame
beggars walk, and blind men see” (Dickens 38).
Session One
Dickens’ “Christian Carol” 5
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As a “special needs” child Tim has had to deal with people looking at him all the
time, its part of the territory.
So, if they must look at him, Tim’s hope is not—as has so often been portrayed—
that he wants them to think of themselves and be grateful on Christmas day that
they are not afflicted like him. Now that’s sentimental mush!
Nor does he want them to concentrate on his condition.
Instead Tiny Tim says overtly that since it is Christmas day they should as they
notice his difficulties remember the great physician himself, Jesus and the joy of
his birth.
Another character whose nature has been exaggerated in dramatizations is Scrooge
himself:
He has been made an utter villain. For example how many versions have you seen
Scrooge do the following?
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Drive Fezziwig out of business.
Refuse to see Marley on his deathbed until after business hours,
Collect debts on Christmas Eve.
Be surely to every individual who walked into his office
Be physically violent to those who could not pay their debts.
Walk the streets of London in a stoop
Made the Cratchits do his laundry for extra income.
In the book he does none of this. He is a wretch, but not an outlaw:
Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge. a squeezing,
wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and
sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire;
secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster” (Dickens 2).
Here is in where his blame lies:
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He does not celebrate Christmas.
He speaks of the surplus population
He does not support charitable institutions.
Scrooge's heart is depicted as hard but not unusually hard.
In point of fact many Victorian Businessmen behaved like Scrooge:
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The industrial revolution had moved a lot of poor people away from the social
festivals typical of a rural English lifestyle.
Also a good number of puritans and other non-conformists (who were ironically
often also involved in business) disdained Christmas because it was a Catholic
holiday “Christ Mass.”
Session One
Dickens’ “Christian Carol” 6
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Thus not celebrating Christmas was not uncommon.
G.K. Chesterton observed that "If a little more success had crowned the Puritan
movement of the seventeenth century or the Utilitarian movement of the
nineteenth century the old holiday tradition would have become merely details of
the neglected past, a part of the history or even archeology. . .Perhaps the very
word carol would sound like the word 'villanelle'" (Qt. in Hearn 3).
The hideous comment about “surplus population.” Dickens did not come up with
that:
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The actual phrase may be Dickens but the idea was truly Victorian:
"Michael Slater notes in the 1971 Oxford paperback of A Christmas Carol the
influence of the great fear of overpopulation held by the English since the
publication of Thomas Malthus' essay on "The Principles of Population" (1803).
This economist made clear. . . when he wrote
'A man who is born into a world posses, if he cannot get substance from
his parents, on which he has a just demand, and if society do not want his
labour, has no claim of right of the smallest portion of food, and in fact,
has no business to be where he is. [In] Nature's mighty feast there is no
vacant cover for him. She tells him to be gone. . ." (Qt. in Hearn 65).
He Gives No Charitable Support:
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With this kind of thinking it is easy to see that Scrooge might also feel ill used
to be compelled to give up his hard earned money in taxes to support official
institutions for individuals which he feels will never become self-sufficient.
The Truth is that many of us have dismissed the call for financial aid feeling
that we did not want our cash to go to help those whose lifestyle choices made
them needy? We claim we want to aid only the deserving poor {I credit
Shaw's Pygmalion for this idea). But so often this ends up being only an
introduction to inaction. Furthermore how many of us have looked with
suspicion upon those organizations (such as welfare) set up by the
bureaucracy of the government to meet the challenges of human need?
So the journey we are about the take is not a journey of an extraordinarily evil man
but a common man, a man like Dickens himself. If we forget this then we loose the
truth that his guilt is our guilt, his needs are our needs, and his redemption is
possible for all who read the good news.
Session One