Hearing the Gospel through Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol”

by Cheryl Anne Kincaid

Have you ever noticed that A Christmas Carol has biblical imagery?  Perhaps that is why Christians enjoy it so much.  We revisit this story because it echoes with the ancient lessons of Advent. Hearing the Gospel Through Charles Dickens s 'A Christmas Carol' is a Christian devotional that uses A Christmas Carol as a tool to teach the ancient Advent lessons of Hope, Faith, Peace, Love and Joy. Each week s devotion begins with a section from A Christmas Carol which dramatizes the Advent Lesson and is followed with a scriptural Advent lesson from the Church of England s Book of Prayer.  This devotional exams the theological, historical and sociological forces that motivated Charles Dickens to write  A Christmas Carol . Rev. Kincaid says that as a Christian pastor, she is grieved that the modern evangelical church has diminished the Advent season to a single Christmas Eve service or Christmas Sunday service. As a community,  the church no longer spend time preparing our hearts for the season of 'Christ coming' in human flesh.   Hearing the Gospel Through Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol has won the 2013 Illumination Award in Exegesis
The author does not recommend the 2010 edition because it was poorly edited, to enjoy the full experience of the book she recommends the later editions.  

158 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 2010