Transcript Slide 1

The Christmas Carol
as Christian Truth
Session One: November 23, 2014
Introduction to Christian Literary
Analysis and to Charles Dickens !
The Word to Live By
8 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.
God’s Truth shines in the
inspired words of great authors.
Scripture: Isaiah 9:2 (KJV)
2 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.
Chapter Overview
 Should Literature Be Studied in Sunday
School?
 How does one determine what is true?
 Can God use the secular artist?
Should Literature Be Studied in
Sunday School?
 There are many fellow believers who think
that the only book a Christian should study is
the Bible.
 A complaint raised by some is that teachers
sometimes get so engrossed on some social
issue, they neglect basic Biblical truths.
 Not going to happen in this class in that all
that is discussed will be based on scripture.
That being said do we treat all
scripture as presenting God’s
truth in the same way?
 There has been a lot of discussion about that.
Scriptural Debate
 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).
 Sometimes what was chosen has
bothered great Christians.
 Martin Luther said. . .
 “The St. James' Epistle is really an epistle
of straw ... for it has nothing of the nature
of the Gospel about it."
 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. . . . and can nohow
detect that the Holy Spirit produced it . . .
there are many far better books for us to
keep."
 CS Lewis had real problems with the
Psalms that 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.
How do moderns know that deeds do not the only
way to open the gates of Heaven and that the hatred
expressed in the psalms is not Christ-like?
By Reading the scripture as a whole.
Prayer, talking to God.
Having Bible study with others
Thus we are in a tradition which
acknowledges that the level of literal
truth in scripture varies from book to
book within the Bible.
All are God’s Word but they are so in
different ways.
If God’s word contains levels of truth
what about the “best that has been
thought or said”?
Where is God’s Truth in Non
Biblical Sources?
 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."
 With reference to the writing of
Pilgrim’s Progress, Bunyan
said: "It came," and Lewis
remarked:
 "It came. I doubt if we shall ever
know more of the process called
‘inspiration’ than those two
monosyllables tell us."
If the level of “truth” in the Bible
is in different shades and there
exists the possibility of truth in
extra biblical sources, how can we
tell?
 Reading Scripture to understand God’s heart
as a whole.
 Prayer, talking to God.
 Bible study with others
Dickens’ Christianity in his A
Christmas Carol.
 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:
 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 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).
 [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).
The Tendency of the World to Escape
Dickens’ Preaching through
Exaggeration of the Carol qualities
 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:
How does Tim toast?
'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).
 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).
 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?
 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).
 .
In the text This is what he does:
 He does not support charitable
institutions.
 He speaks of the surplus
population
 He does not celebrate Christmas.
 Scrooge's heart is depicted as hard
but not unusually hard
In point of fact many Victorian
Businessmen behaved like Scrooge:
 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.”
 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).
What about the (gasp) idea of the
surplus population?
 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 the following:
 '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).
 No Charitable Support: 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 selfsufficient.
 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
lose 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.