I've always enjoyed "A Christmas Carol". The Charles Dickens' classic has always been exciting to me because it combined ghost stories and Christmas. As a child, I never understood the whole redemption of Scrooge part of the story. Instead, I preferred the chills I got up my spine when the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come would appear.
The tale is one of the greatest stories ever told. It has been done as movies, operas, plays, and spoofed on nearly every television sitcom.
Some experts say Dickens wrote "A Christmas Carol" as a commentary on the English government and social situations of his time. He was speaking out against greed, child labor and other social ills.
It is a great story, but it is NOT a Christian tale. (Here's where I get all religious.)
If you took out Tiny Tim saying, "God bless us, everyone" you'd be hard-pressed to find any reference to God or any Christian themes. If you changed the named from "A Christmas Carol" to "A Holiday Tale", even the ACLU couldn't find a reason to keep this out of schools.
In "A Christmas Carol" we see the ghost of Jacob Marley wrapped up in heavy chains because of his misdeeds on Earth. He warns Scrooge he faces a worse fate if he doesn't change his ways. Scrooge heeds the warnings and becomes a changed man.
You could argue that redemption is a Christian theme, but Scrooge goes from damnation to salvation by his own deeds. The only way to accomplish that is through Jesus. No amount of good works will ever change your destiny if you do accept the work Christ did on the cross.
Doing good things is a command from God to all Christians but to say that will lead to salvation is just plain wrong.
I know the secular humanists, Universalists, Oprah Winfrey followers, and Earth worshipers are going to say I am intolerant, but I don't care. The truth is the truth.
I have read that Dickens was a Unitarian. If that is true, he probably didn't believe Jesus was God and was just a man so I can see where he would put his faith in man being able to redeem himself.
All the religious talk aside, "A Christmas Carol" is a terrific story and it may be considered a Christmas classic, it has little to do with Christianity.
