A Christian’s Carol

Note: As is immediately obvious, this post is a little late because I took the Christmas weekend off. Weekly posts will resume in the new year.

“This person,” Krow explained, gesturing to the visitor, “I…I think he might be armed and planning something wicked.”
“Whatever gave you that idea?”
“Well, look at him! Do you see anyone else here dressed like him?”
“No,” the spirit replied. “Indeed, I do not, and more’s the pity. This person has come seeking.”

A Christian’s Carol

A Christian’s Carol, you may deduce, is a modern retelling of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. It’s written by the author of The Door Within Trilogy, one of my favorite series, so I decided to give it a read this Christmas season. At first I was skeptical, but in the end, the book didn’t disappoint.

Plot

There’s no point in discussing the plot much, since it is familiar to everyone, so I’ll keep this section brief.

You know this story well; Ebenezer Krow is a stingy old man who despises Christmas. He’s visited by three ghosts who point out his error, and he changes his ways. All the essential story beats are there—even some of the phrases of the original are included, though somewhat modified.

I thought Batson did a good job of keeping the original intact while throwing in some twists and making it work with his theme.

Characters

Again, you know these well. Their personalities and stories remain, though their names are changed. Ebenezer Krow, Robert Craggit, Marley Chastain, and others.

On of the biggest changes in character is that of Fred’s. In this retelling, he is a homosexual. I was very skeptical of the book after this, and I’m still not totally sure that it was a necessary choice. But, if you keep reading, it fits into the theme and all comes together in the end.

Theme & Spiritual Application

This is where the book differs the most. Just by reading the title, you might expect the book to be essentially the same as Dickens’ with the exception of Ebenezer’s salvation at the end. While this does seem to be the case—though the author is rather vague—the book goes deeper than that.

You don’t see this until the end, but the book is really about how we treat those who believe differently than us. Krow is a churchman of high regard, and has taken to piercing, as it were, others with the sword of truth, showing little mercy or grace. He has distanced himself from his nephew for his anti-Biblical life and will remind him of his sin every chance he gets. The Ghost of Christmas Past puts it this way:

“Every single person in this room has secret hurt and yes, secret sin that is just as despicable, or more despicable, than the sins you can see. Your sins are just a subtly different shade of scarlet. Hurt does not heal hurt. Wounds do not heals wounds. Only love heals.”

A Christian’s Carol

Ebenezer learns that, while the people he disassociates with are indeed sinning, that doesn’t give him an excuse to treat them poorly. As Ebenezer sees, Jesus dined with sinners. Their depraved state hardly means they should be discarded as unworthy of Christ’s love. If that were the case, we would all be lost.

There is one aspect of the theme’s fulfillment that I don’t support. Ebenezer ends up at a bar with a bunch of unsavory characters, having a Christmas celebration with them. While I agree with the theme, I don’t think we should descend into the deeds of the sinner to show God’s grace.

Overall

A Christian’s Carol is perhaps the best example of thematic content in a book that I’ve read in a while. In some ways it varies quite a lot from the original, but it also remains largely the same. I enjoyed finding all the lines from A Christmas Carol that were kept with slight revisions.

I’ll recommend this book to older readers; younger readers wouldn’t understand all that is happening.

If you want to buy the book, you can buy it on Kindle here.

In the end, despite my disagreement with part of the theme, A Christian’s Carol turned out to be an enjoyable and thought-provoking read.