What did Charles Dickens really believe about Christianity, Jesus, and the Gospel? Although A Christmas Carol has become one of the most familiar stories in Western culture, its Christian foundations are frequently minimized or overlooked. In this episode of The Ebenezer Project, David Anderson sits down with Dickens scholar Dr. Gary Colledge to explore Charles Dickens's faith and the religious convictions that shaped his writing.

Dr. Colledge earned his Ph.D. in Biblical Studies and New Testament from the University of St Andrews in Scotland, where his doctoral research examined Jesus, Dickens, and Dickens's privately written Gospel narrative, The Life of Our Lord. He is the author of God and Charles Dickens: Recovering the Christian Voice of a Classic Author and Dickens, Christianity and The Life of Our Lord: Humble Veneration, Profound Conviction, and his scholarship on Dickens and Christianity has also appeared in Dickens Studies Annual. Gary brings the perspectives of an English teacher, biblical scholar, pastor, and longtime theology instructor to the conversation. His teaching career has included courses in theology, the Bible, New Testament studies, Jesus and the Gospels, literature, Christian life, and ethics.

David and Gary discuss how Gary became interested in Charles Dickens, why the question of Dickens's Christian faith continues to generate debate, and why some literary critics have resisted reading Dickens through the religious convictions expressed in his own writings. They also explore the way film and stage adaptations can diminish the Christian elements of A Christmas Carol, along with what Dickens may still have to say to the modern church.

The conversation eventually moves from scholarship to application. Dickens believed deeply in compassion for the poor, generosity, moral responsibility, and a Christianity expressed through the way people actually live. What might happen if we read Dickens devotionally as well as literarily? What can Ebenezer Scrooge's transformation teach us about becoming more generous, more attentive to others, and more willing to let faith reshape our lives?

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To get a copy of Gary Colledge's book, Dickens, Christianity and 'The Life of Our Lord': Humble Veneration, Profound Conviction (Continuum Literary Studies Book 189), please click here: https://link.amazon/B02Ts5L3O

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