Transcript The Christmas Carol as Christian Truth

The Christmas Carol
as Christian Truth
How Christian is Charles Dickens?
Session Two: November 30, 2014
The Word to Live By
19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good
fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know
them. 21 Not every one that saith unto
me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the
kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the
will of my Father which is in heaven.
Mathew 7:19-21 (KJV)
Session Truth:
 Charles Dickens would certainly have
defined himself as a Christian
As noted last week, his text makes it
clear that a Christ-less Christmas was
the furthest from his mind.
His life contains mixed symbols.
His work is otherwise.
An imperfect vessel:
 However his imperfections' as a man are, in
fact, a mute point since truth is truth, even
when told by an unbeliever.
 And the truth is that Dickens has prepared a
work which shows both a Christ-like concern
for the poor as well as the Christ-empowered
pattern required for a true change of heart.
Scripture:
48 And [Jesus] said unto them, Whosoever
shall receive this child in my name receiveth
me: and whosoever shall receive me receiveth
him that sent me: for he that is least among you
all, the same shall be great. 49 And John
answered and said, Master, we saw one casting
out devils in thy name; and we forbad him,
because he followeth not with us. 50 And Jesus
said unto him, Forbid him not: for he that is
not against us is for us.
.
Luke 9: 48-50 (KJV)
Chapter Overview:
 The Question of Dickens’ Christianity
 His deep relationships with Christmas.
 The Christian Inspiration of Dickens’ A
Christmas Carol
 A Christ-less Christmas was unthinkable to
Dickens--Jesus’ found throughout the text.
 Dickens wrote his “little carol” in less than
seven weeks.
 Not so exaggerated, but gloriously probable.
Was Charles Dickens
A Christian?
The famous Russian novelist Fyodr
Dostoevsky spoke of Dickens as a “great
Christian.”
Not a Simple Question to Answer:
 One, we scholars know that he was far from
perfect. Late in his life Dickens’ marriage
floundered.
 This is common enough, but he placed the blame
for the breakup publicly, in the magazine or
which he was the editor, entirely upon her.
 Even among his closest friends, the opinion was
held that he behaved badly towards Elizabeth
who in spite of this remained respectful of him
and later of his memory throughout their
separate lives.
 On the other hand, claims that
Dickens had an affair with the
young (the age of his daughter)
actress Ellen Lawless Ternan, is
more the product of a sexualized
modern mindset than a Victorian
one.
 Also one terrible event should not
define an individual’s faith not for
King David and not for Charles
Dickens
 Second, he was a Unitarian, which for many
conservative believers means a belief system
without any overt claims of Christ’s divinity.
(A Unitarian friend of mine in graduate
school once responded to my enquiry of what
Unitarians believed with “Well, we actually
don’t have that much that is demanded of us
to believe, but we still like to get together for
pot luck suppers!”
 However, his friend and his first biographer,
John Foster, maintains that he was drawn to
the movement because of its active interest in
the poor and that he, in fact, remained
orthodox in his belief throughout his life.
 It is true that especially in the Victorian
period there were many Unitarians who
remained orthodox and in fact evangelical in
their Christian beliefs
 As for evangelicals, especially Methodists,
Dickens had formed
a very low opinion of
them early in his life
for their tendency to
allow anyone who
claimed to spirit to be a minister.
 Meanwhile Dickens did not trust the
high church tendencies within the
very formal elements of the Church of
England.
 His friend Foster while maintaining
“the safety” of Dickens' belief, rather
ambiguously refers to it as being
characterized by a "depth of sentiment
rather than clearness of faith" (ii, 147).
 Third He did not speak of his faith overtly in
public.
 In a time when faith was often used as a way
to raise oneself up socially, Dickens refused
to make public pronouncements about his
belief system.
 In fact not long before he died he was queried
by a clergyman about the ideas of
Christianity within his novels. In response he
wrote: “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” (Qtd. in the Forward to Life of
Our Lord 4).
 Yet in spite of these questions
Dickens seems to have held to the
last a reliance upon faith When
Dickens bade farewell to his sixteenyear-old son Plorn, who was off to
Australia, he wrote:
 "I put a New Testament among your
books, for the very same reasons, and
with the very same hopes that made me
write an easy account of it for you,
when you were a little child...." (Qtd in
Johnson, ii: 1100).
The Life of Our Lord
 This Life of Our Lord was a family secret
into the twentieth century because Dickens
forbade its publication by his children. His
grandchildren also followed his wishes and it
was not until his great grandchildren came
along that it was published in the 1930s. This
clearly would have been a major best seller,
but Dickens did not want profit from this
project.
In spite of this vagueness of orthodoxy there
is no debate among scholars that Christian
principles and Christian images of at the
center of Dickens’ attitudes towards the
poor and towards the reclamation of
individuals.
 Steven Marcus, the famous Dickens scholar,
says forthrightly that of course Dickens was a
Christian.”
 The English writer George Orwell said of
Charles Dickens: “he ‘believed’ undoubtedly.
Dickens’ involvement with
Christmas
 His view of life was later to be described or
dismissed as "Christmas philosophy," and he
himself spoke of "Carol philosophy" as the
basis of a projected work.
 “The Carol” immediately entered the general
consciousness; Thackeray, in a review, called
it "a national benefit, and to every man and
woman who reads it a personal kindness."
 His "philosophy," never very elaborated,
involved more than wanting the Christmas
spirit to prevail throughout the year, but his
great attachment to Christmas (in his family
life as well as his writings) is indeed significant
and has contributed to his popularity.
 "Dickens dead?" exclaimed a London
costermonger's girl in 1870. "Then will Father
Christmas die too?"--a tribute both to his
association with Christmas and to the
mythological status of the man as well as of his
work
Dickens’ Christianity in the “Carol
Philosophy” of A Christmas Carol.
 As mentioned 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.
 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).
Actual textual references to
Christ. . .
 [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 62).
 [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 79).
 [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 84).
 [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" (121).
 [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 136).
 [Peter reading scripture] "And He took a child, and
set him in the midst of them. . ." (Dickens ) (Matt
KJV).
 [Narrator] "He [the redeemed Scrooge] went to
church.
But How Christian is the Carol?
 The matches Christ’s own mission on earth:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because
he hath anointed me to preach the gospel
to the poor; he hath sent me to head the
broken hearted, to preach deliverance to
the captive, and recovering of sight to the
blind, to set at liberty them that are
bruised. ((Luke 4:18 KJV)
 Jesus’ ministry was two fold: to bring help
to the poor and to bring salvation to the
individual and so does Dickens’ Christmas
Carol.
The Poor
 Dickens from the very start said that this
work was going to be “a sledgehammer” in
favor of the poor man’s child.
 He had recently been encouraged to visit
ragged schools which he found deplorable
and it is interesting that his concern about
those finds its expressions that poverty would
actually block an individual from being able
to pursue a relationship with God.
 The Christmas Carol was his sledgehammer
for the poor. Remember this line from the
Ghost of Christmas Present:
 “It may be that in the sight of Heaven you are
more worthless and less worthy to live than
MILLIONS like this poor man’s child.”
The Reclamation of the
individual.
 “Why show me this if I am beyond
all hope?”
Scrooge speaking to the
Ghost of Christmas Yet to
Come.
The Pattern of Salvation—
Archetypal?
 C.S. Lewis wrote that. . .
 “There is, then, a particular kind of story
which has a value in itself--a value
independent of its embodiment in any literary
work.”
 An Experiment in Criticism
"Myths are the
Dreams of the Race
Dreams are the
Myths of the
Individual"
--------------------Sigmund Freud
(1856-1939)
Sigmund Freud
Freudian Thought
C.G. Jung
(1875-1961)
Jungian Thought
God’s Archetypal Revelation to all of Humanity
A Literal View of Belief Systems
The Exclusive Nature Endemic to Those Who Are Certain
The Pattern of Personal Salvation
 Scrooge passes through the universal pattern of true
repentance and salvation:







Starting in Death
Unable to Self Save
Supernatural -- Terrifying --Grace
The Power of Memory
The Affirmation of Experience
The Recognition of Consequence
The Acceptance of Grace
Are there Other Narratives which
follow this Pattern?
 Rime of the Ancient Mariner
 How the Grinch Stole Christmas
 Disney’s Beauty and the Beast
Most Important: What
about Your Own Story?
Finish this sentence: “A
leopard cannot change
its. . .”
In the natural order of things, this is the
truth—an altered life is a myth. For
Christians including Dickens however,
what seems to be an impossibility is, in
fact, a wonderful possibility.
Old Marely was as dead
as a doornail. . .
This must be distinctly
understood or nothing
wonderful can come of the
story I am about to relate.