A Christmas Carol, A Christian message
Channel: rozeboosje
Date: 14/11/2011

A look at Charles Dickens' famous story "A Christmas Carol", and the Christian message on which this story is based.

Please note:

The content in this video relates specifically to the story itself, and how I feel it is used as a vehicle to illustrate a particular interpretation of the Christian message.

The view of humans as "wretched sinners" seems to be a peculiarly Western Christian belief structure. If I understand correctly, Orthodox (Eastern) forms of Christianity hold a far less gloomy view of human nature, and then there are variants such as "Universal Salvationists" who take a more positive view of humanity, too.

Finally, and this is important, my comments about motivation for doing good relate specifically to the depiction of Scrooge in this story, and this does not imply that I think all Christians engage in charitable acts and work for the same reasons. While many Christians do charitable work because they themselves think that this is the "Christian" thing to do, I would say that *their* real reason is simply that as human beings they feel emotionally and empathically compelled to act, because they're decent human beings. You see, I think that humans are basically good, not bad ;-)