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, God and Charles Dickens: Recovering the Christian Voice of a Classic Author, please click here: https://link.amazon/B0f4Y24cV

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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Can people really change? Ebenezer Scrooge appears to do exactly that. In a single Christmas Eve, the miser at the beginning of A Christmas Carol confronts his past, sees his present clearly, faces the future his choices are creating, and awakens on Christmas morning determined to live differently. Yet one extraordinary night raises another question: How do we know the change lasted?

In the first full episode of The Ebenezer Project, David Anderson introduces the central questions that will guide the podcast. What causes genuine transformation? What makes change endure after the emotional moment has passed? And how does a changed life begin affecting a family, a business, a community, and eventually a legacy?

David also explains why Ebenezer Scrooge provides such a powerful framework for exploring personal change. The experience that awakens us may happen suddenly, while the evidence of transformation is written through the choices that follow. From Dickens and A Christmas Carol to leadership, relationships, community impact, mortality, and redemption, The Ebenezer Project begins with the question at the center of it all: Can a person truly become someone different?

Pick up a copy of David's book, The Funeral of Ebenezer Scrooge, today: https://scroogeandcratchit.com/

The Ebenezer Project Homepage: ebenezerproject.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scroogeandcratchit/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scroogeandcratchit

For more on David Anderson

Author Speaker Page: https://davidmanderson.com/

David Anderson's Linktree Profile

What makes change happen? And more importantly, what makes it last?

Inspired by Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol and David Anderson's book The Funeral of Ebenezer Scrooge, The Ebenezer Project explores transformation, redemption, legacy, and the ripple effect of one changed life.

Join David as he speaks with scholars, artists, leaders, and people who have experienced profound turning points, all centered around one question:

What happens when change is real, lasting, and powerful enough to change the lives around us?