Was Charles Dickens a true Christian… or just a moral storyteller who used Christian themes?
He wrote A Christmas Carol, created unforgettable characters shaped by redemption and charity, and even wrote The Life of Our Lord for his own children so they would know Jesus. He claimed the New Testament as his guide and called Jesus “Our Saviour.”
But Dickens also rejected much of organized religion, criticized the church harshly, and focused far more on ethics and social reform than on doctrine or the cross.
In this episode of Christian or Not, Mark and Troy dig into the real faith of one of literature’s greatest writers. We examine:
His Anglican upbringing
The Life of Our Lord and what it reveals about his view of Jesus
How Christian themes run through his novels
The tensions between his personal beliefs and orthodox Christianity
Was Charles Dickens a genuine Christian… or a cultural Christian who loved the teachings of Jesus without fully embracing the faith?
Listen and decide for yourself.
00:00 --> 00:03 [SPEAKER_00]: Christian or not is a production of Revive Studios.
00:06 --> 00:10 [SPEAKER_01]: And some ways he has one of the most profound Christmas stories.
00:10 --> 00:14 [SPEAKER_01]: I've ever heard, of course, a Christmas Carol is by definition.
00:14 --> 00:16 [SPEAKER_01]: One of the, I mean, Jesus Christ's birth.
00:16 --> 00:18 [SPEAKER_01]: But a great Christmas Christmas story ever told.
00:18 --> 00:23 [SPEAKER_01]: And it's obviously the truth, but Christmas Carol is also considered one of the big legends of Christmas.
00:24 --> 00:35 [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, he also is considered one of the greatest novelists in British history and British history has a few great novelists, yes, Lewis, JR are Tolkien, John Bunyan, John Milton.
00:35 --> 00:36 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's got it.
00:36 --> 00:43 [SPEAKER_01]: There's pretty big group of Christians and writers associated from that country, but Dickens is considered one of the best.
00:43 --> 01:09 [SPEAKER_01]: his books especially pushed British society to reevaluate how they were dealing with the poor and people who were struggling and everyone has heard of you know all of her twists, please search and I have some more or tiny Tim's you know God bless us everyone and we all know the first line of a tale of two cities it was the best of times it was the worst of times many of us maybe don't know what happens after that but we do know the beginning and uh
01:13 --> 01:21 [SPEAKER_01]: In the age of the industrial revolution, here reminded people that the price of success was costing too much for the people at the bottom.
01:21 --> 01:32 [SPEAKER_01]: The people who were suffering, the orphans who were being forced to work at the work houses, the children who were being pushed into the factories, the poor people who were dying on average around the age of 17.
01:32 --> 01:40 [SPEAKER_01]: His stories captured the imaginations and the hearts of the public and were able to get help to people who were needing a light shined on them.
01:41 --> 01:46 [SPEAKER_01]: On the outside, Dickens definitely claims to be a Christian, too many who knew him.
01:46 --> 01:50 [SPEAKER_01]: They would say he had a very sincere and deep religious affections.
01:51 --> 01:57 [SPEAKER_01]: But just like the Industrial Revolution came at a cost and there was a hidden dark side of suffering.
01:57 --> 02:01 [SPEAKER_01]: We also have to ask a question, was there a secret life to Charles Dickens?
02:01 --> 02:05 [SPEAKER_01]: Was he as Christian on the inside as he claimed to be on the outside?
02:17 --> 02:30 [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to a new episode of Chris Sherner today we're talking about Charles Dickens and at least at the time we're recording this we're close to Christmas so it feels suitable like talking about Dickens.
02:30 --> 02:34 [SPEAKER_01]: Probably won't come out during Christmas time so that's you know.
02:34 --> 02:38 [SPEAKER_00]: And I got to take some of the credit or non-heavy.
02:38 --> 02:40 [SPEAKER_00]: I got to take the fall for that one.
02:40 --> 02:42 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm the one that has to edit all these things.
02:42 --> 02:47 [SPEAKER_00]: And at this point, I'm definitely not ready to edit episode seven of Chris, you're not yet.
02:47 --> 02:47 [SPEAKER_00]: We'll do there.
02:47 --> 02:50 [SPEAKER_00]: But Troy, tell us a little bit what we're all about here.
02:50 --> 02:51 [SPEAKER_00]: Chris, you're still not.
02:51 --> 02:56 [SPEAKER_01]: We are all about trying to decide whether these people who live throughout history were yes, Christian or not.
02:57 --> 03:03 [SPEAKER_01]: And of course, this claimer, if you're listening to this, but we're watching for the first time and you're going, ah, but oh, God knows the hearts we totally agree.
03:03 --> 03:12 [SPEAKER_01]: We do not disagree that the Lord knows the hearts of man, no one can know except for the Lord, whether the belief is truly rooted in the heart or whether it's on the outside.
03:13 --> 03:21 [SPEAKER_01]: But God did test a call us to test the fruits of those around us to look into the works as we see, you know, James says, faith without works as
03:25 --> 03:37 [SPEAKER_01]: impacted the world and just ask the question from our perspective, can we tell if they were Christian or not, doing the best of our abilities, we'll walk through their life, tell their story, and then the end we will kind of give our opinion.
03:37 --> 03:42 [SPEAKER_01]: If you disagree with us, and you think, hey, I think you missed something or you're totally wrong or here's why.
03:43 --> 03:44 [SPEAKER_01]: Leave a comment, tell us a lot of stuff.
03:44 --> 03:58 [SPEAKER_01]: We want to have episodes where we read your comments and hear the disagreements or agreements so that everyone can have, we have our opinion, and you can have your opinion that everyone can have their site because ultimately no one knows about God, but we can do our best to try to learn more and get to the heart of it.
03:58 --> 03:59 [SPEAKER_01]: In the reason we think this show is important.
04:00 --> 04:28 [SPEAKER_01]: is because I out of our studio here we've made lots of podcasts about Christian preachers and Christian martyrs and Christian missionaries, but there are so many people who impacted the world historically speaking that weren't necessarily in a church physician and I think it's important to know whether they were living out their faith or not because most of the people who are listening are probably also not in a pastoral position but you're living out your faith and I think we can be both encouraged by those who did that well and also be convicted by maybe those who did them.
04:29 --> 04:55 [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, absolutely, and like you said, we love to have comments, and also because we were not like closing the book on something like giving our file verdict and that's it like we actually, you know, if you have info that we don't have we love to be learning here, I think that's really what this is about learning things okay, what does it look like if you are famous writer or if you are aspiring to become a famous writer like, you know, is there things you can learn from trust they can send this case.
04:55 --> 05:05 [SPEAKER_01]: I would love for people when they, when they talk about this, when the subject of his race comes up, if people, you know, they, they say, oh, you know, who, a Christian or not didn't let the set on Charles Dickens, here's a good conversation starter.
05:06 --> 05:10 [SPEAKER_01]: We don't want to be, we did it, so we have the answer, there's no more discussion to be had.
05:10 --> 05:17 [SPEAKER_01]: It would be the amazing thing would be if people go, you know, what I haven't actually thought that much about his faith, and they start tackling through his works and try to discern it themselves.
05:17 --> 05:38 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I think that's actually a fair thing there right there because we did Isaac Newton in one of our first episodes and he is being quoted all around the world being like, hey, this guy, you know, he was a Christian and the scientist, how can it be and well, I mean, I'm not going to I'm going to spoil it a little bit if you listen to the episode, there is some very concerning theology right there so
05:39 --> 05:51 [SPEAKER_00]: It actually, you know, like with anything, it's good to really, you know, look into things before you just start randomly throwing around quotes and thinking in a certain way about people without even really knowing the full story.
05:52 --> 05:54 [SPEAKER_00]: And again, we're not claiming here to know the full story.
05:55 --> 06:02 [SPEAKER_00]: We do our research, but yeah, we we love for you to to chime in and to let us know as well.
06:02 --> 06:02 [SPEAKER_00]: So I
06:08 --> 06:10 [SPEAKER_01]: I, of course he read all his major novels.
06:10 --> 06:12 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, just apart from the obvious ones.
06:13 --> 06:13 [SPEAKER_00]: And no.
06:13 --> 06:16 [SPEAKER_01]: So I mean, it's some of the short stories and so did you read all of them?
06:16 --> 06:18 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'm going to be honest here.
06:19 --> 06:22 [SPEAKER_00]: I have read all of her twist.
06:22 --> 06:23 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
06:23 --> 06:23 [SPEAKER_00]: I have.
06:24 --> 06:35 [SPEAKER_00]: seen one of I think one of the more recent versions of a Christmas car and not the most recent one was that the old the puppets I'm sorry, muppets.
06:35 --> 06:36 [SPEAKER_00]: No, I'm sorry.
06:36 --> 06:40 [SPEAKER_00]: No, I didn't see the one with the muppets and I don't think I think it wasn't actually an animated one.
06:40 --> 06:42 [SPEAKER_00]: I think Or it wasn't animated one?
06:44 --> 06:45 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't really know anymore.
06:45 --> 06:49 [SPEAKER_01]: And in other Scrooge McDucks, which is the one that met those to me as a kid.
06:49 --> 06:53 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I was all the errands that we would often wake up before our parents when I'm Christmas.
06:53 --> 06:57 [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm home and to like watch TV, tell me wake up to open presents every year.
06:57 --> 07:00 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know why, but some channel was always playing the Scrooge McDuck Christmas.
07:00 --> 07:03 [SPEAKER_01]: Carol is so I've watched that we probably eight times.
07:03 --> 07:04 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's only fair.
07:04 --> 07:05 [SPEAKER_00]: Like it's where he got his name, right?
07:05 --> 07:06 [SPEAKER_00]: Like where you got the name Scrooge from.
07:06 --> 07:09 [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, I mean, I've seen it once.
07:09 --> 07:10 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
07:13 --> 07:24 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not from a place where we talk about ghosts a lot and where it's like a big deal so even having it like the most famous Christmas story is about a guy getting visited by ghosts I don't know I don't think it connects with that culture
07:40 --> 07:54 [SPEAKER_01]: that I ran across some sermons by Charles Spurge and thus sermons, a just an article of his and the sword and the trial, is a famous preacher in England at the same time period, overlapping with Charles Dickens, and he was like, it's Christmas Eve, this is coming out, and I wanted to have some fun with some ghost stories.
07:54 --> 07:56 [SPEAKER_01]: You know how it is on Christmas Eve, everyone loves ghost stories.
07:56 --> 08:03 [SPEAKER_01]: And then I think of the song where it's like, you'll be aging campfires and tales of the glorious and ghost stories, or whatever that's had, as you actually treasure.
08:03 --> 08:11 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think there must have been a time period where a lot of people were telling ghost stories on Christmas Eve that I just don't think is maybe happening anymore.
08:11 --> 08:24 [SPEAKER_01]: And I would be curious when did Halloween just stuck all the ghost stories out of Christmas Eve did people just kind of go out and go this really is a make sense for Christmas like as some point it seems like ghost stories and Christmas for associated with each other and they don't seem to be anymore.
08:25 --> 08:32 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, and there is a new one to make sure as well, because when we're talking about ghost stories at Christmas Carol, we're not talking like horror ghost shoes.
08:32 --> 08:37 [SPEAKER_00]: We're talking like within moral message and you know, there's stuff to be learned and change your note.
08:37 --> 08:40 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's very alive around because you're under on track kind of ghost stories.
08:40 --> 08:49 [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe, um, yeah, we should look into this or maybe someone in the comments or he knows, and that has a great insight on this about why they love the ghost story so much.
08:49 --> 08:54 [SPEAKER_00]: But, uh, yeah, um, let's continue if they can, before you start telling our own ghost stories.
08:54 --> 08:57 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you didn't know we only heard the, well, it got some good about, no, okay.
08:57 --> 09:01 [SPEAKER_01]: born in 1812 in England, Charles Dickens.
09:01 --> 09:07 [SPEAKER_01]: He only led to be 58, and I don't normally like normally I tell you what he guys at the end, but I feel like it just kind of helps give you an idea.
09:07 --> 09:09 [SPEAKER_01]: It's not a long life, look at the guy.
09:09 --> 09:14 [SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of that just has to do with the fact that he lives at the height of the Industrial Revolution.
09:14 --> 09:16 [SPEAKER_01]: And this is the height of the British Empire.
09:16 --> 09:20 [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's unfair to say the late 1800s Victorian era that's them at their best.
09:20 --> 09:21 [SPEAKER_01]: And since
09:26 --> 09:28 [SPEAKER_01]: And then he's always, when people, I don't know if you're this way.
09:29 --> 09:37 [SPEAKER_01]: When I hear the words in Dester Revolution, I think a lot of people just like their brains turn off as they remember the history teacher droning on about the cotton gin or something like that.
09:37 --> 09:41 [SPEAKER_01]: But I just, I always think it's fascinating to imagine a world where people like everyone was farming.
09:42 --> 09:52 [SPEAKER_01]: And then suddenly there are trains, suddenly there are cities, suddenly there's electricity, suddenly there's like, suddenly there's these giant smoke stacks creating things that used to take a year to make, now we're taking a day or two.
09:53 --> 09:55 [SPEAKER_01]: a completely different world.
09:55 --> 09:57 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think it felt like the possibilities were endless.
09:57 --> 09:59 [SPEAKER_01]: Like we look at the industrial revolution.
10:00 --> 10:01 [SPEAKER_01]: We see the smoke sacks.
10:01 --> 10:05 [SPEAKER_01]: And we got all look at that polluted dirty city where there's no lying fresh air.
10:05 --> 10:08 [SPEAKER_01]: But the people didn't move to the cities for no lighting fresh air.
10:08 --> 10:11 [SPEAKER_01]: They looked at those cities as look at the progress in man.
10:11 --> 10:12 [SPEAKER_01]: Look at where we're headed.
10:12 --> 10:13 [SPEAKER_01]: The possibilities are endless.
10:13 --> 10:14 [SPEAKER_01]: I've been on a farm.
10:14 --> 10:15 [SPEAKER_01]: My parents
10:17 --> 10:26 [SPEAKER_01]: If I get in the city and make it, we might become rich someday, and I might have a very different story to tell than what my, my, my, to last-tint generations of failure would have known.
10:27 --> 10:34 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that that pool is still happening like we see urbanization still ongoing on where it's something years later.
10:35 --> 10:45 [SPEAKER_00]: So, I mean, we can't really pretend that we're above it right now in civilization and the way it's going right now, just the other day, it comes to me really living in Indonesia.
10:45 --> 10:53 [SPEAKER_00]: I think it was in the news that the Decarta area is now officially the most populated area in the world, like the overtook Tokyo, I think.
10:54 --> 10:54 [SPEAKER_01]: It did it.
10:54 --> 11:13 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they finally did it and they had 42 million people so I will actually say something if you're coming from like America or maybe Europe and you go there You're gonna say wow feels like for 2 million people, but Like having lived in China and having visited India actually like Jakarta doesn't feel
11:15 --> 11:40 [SPEAKER_01]: to me as crowded and big as some of those cities did there and I'm saying that it's not I've been saying like they it didn't feel that way to me yeah I don't know I think maybe it's it's spread out a lot yeah that's I don't he only done it with a Joe spreading out and not being quite as crampact as and I think that's a good thing so as me it's built in my hat like to cut a good job you don't feel you're you're still very crowded but you don't feel as crowded as some of the big cities up
11:40 --> 11:42 [SPEAKER_00]: That is true, but you say in Jakarta, good job.
11:42 --> 11:45 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I got to get ahead of the people in the comments here.
11:45 --> 11:46 [SPEAKER_00]: That city is in trouble.
11:46 --> 11:49 [SPEAKER_00]: Like it's, look it up, it has pollution.
11:49 --> 11:50 [SPEAKER_00]: It's sinking into the ocean.
11:51 --> 11:52 [SPEAKER_00]: They're moving to Castleville.
11:52 --> 11:53 [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, we'll be listening.
11:54 --> 11:55 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so Jakarta and not doing great.
11:56 --> 12:01 [SPEAKER_00]: If Dickens would have lived in Jakarta, he would have probably written some books about it because that was his thing.
12:01 --> 12:10 [SPEAKER_00]: He wrote 15 books and he died halfway through his 161, which was going to be a murder mystery, which will forever remain a mystery.
12:10 --> 12:11 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm pretty proud of it.
12:11 --> 12:12 [SPEAKER_00]: That was a good line.
12:12 --> 12:12 [SPEAKER_00]: That's Troy's line.
12:12 --> 12:13 [SPEAKER_00]: So I took care of it.
12:13 --> 12:16 [SPEAKER_01]: I took your line normally, but I was really proud of that one.
12:16 --> 12:19 [SPEAKER_01]: When I heard it was a kid, it'll be forever a mystery.
12:19 --> 12:19 [SPEAKER_01]: It's a lie.
12:19 --> 12:20 [SPEAKER_01]: It's a lie.
12:22 --> 12:26 [SPEAKER_00]: And maybe someone somewhere in a car on their way to work just chuckle as well.
12:26 --> 12:32 [SPEAKER_00]: But he wasn't always destined for a life of writing and writing books and all these things.
12:32 --> 12:37 [SPEAKER_00]: His family was a middle-class family and his father was in debt.
12:37 --> 12:40 [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know what it is with people that we have on Christian or not.
12:41 --> 12:46 [SPEAKER_00]: But I feel this is this must be the third or fourth guy that has a debt that is in debt kind of a jerk.
12:47 --> 12:49 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, we know that Rockefeller's dad wasn't that boat.
12:52 --> 12:54 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to say Newton's father also wasn't a great guy.
12:55 --> 12:55 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
12:56 --> 12:58 [SPEAKER_00]: I want to say, I want to say, Francis Drake's father.
12:58 --> 13:17 [SPEAKER_00]: I think Francis Drake's father actually, he, I think if I remember correctly, he was either a sort of lay pastor being driven away by Catholic persecution, or he was actually suspected of robbing us something or someone and had to flee the police.
13:17 --> 13:19 [SPEAKER_01]: So that was Raphael, I don't rock the other head to flee the police.
13:20 --> 13:21 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm pretty sure.
13:21 --> 13:23 [SPEAKER_00]: So this, the dirt, we're just suddenly discovering
13:27 --> 13:31 [SPEAKER_01]: Not in Charlemagne said no was like wasn't he pep in the short.
13:31 --> 13:31 [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, he was bad.
13:32 --> 13:35 [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's really not as great as his green pot.
13:35 --> 13:36 [SPEAKER_01]: That was the hammer.
13:36 --> 13:37 [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, it was true.
13:38 --> 13:48 [SPEAKER_00]: And actually now that we're talking about it, we're really derailing here in that episode, you know, for our viewers and listeners that have been with us, I corrected you and I was looking through the footage as it was editing it.
13:48 --> 13:50 [SPEAKER_00]: and I corrected to wrongly.
13:50 --> 13:57 [SPEAKER_00]: You said his grandfather, I said, oh no, it was his grandfather, oh do you say father, oh no, and you know, and you actually like a apologize.
13:58 --> 13:59 [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I'm sorry, I'm so out of it today.
14:00 --> 14:02 [SPEAKER_00]: You weren't, I'm sorry, it was my bad.
14:03 --> 14:04 [SPEAKER_00]: I took you out of it.
14:04 --> 14:06 [SPEAKER_00]: So it didn't hear me, it happens.
14:06 --> 14:09 [SPEAKER_00]: We set the record straight here and then we can talk.
14:11 --> 14:17 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I mean, this was my chance in talking about, you know, bad dad's and prison and that I felt like this was it is very tired.
14:17 --> 14:21 [SPEAKER_01]: No, it's my other way to the server, but we don't or and we were, but we he's not reading this office script.
14:21 --> 14:21 [SPEAKER_01]: Turn it.
14:21 --> 14:24 [SPEAKER_01]: No, this is that's a apologize now for that.
14:24 --> 14:25 [SPEAKER_01]: Tiger appears.
14:25 --> 14:26 [SPEAKER_00]: Sorry.
14:26 --> 14:29 [SPEAKER_00]: We actually have the script to keep us on track so far.
14:30 --> 14:32 [SPEAKER_00]: Not working, but Troy's going to take us back in right now.
14:33 --> 14:39 [SPEAKER_01]: So he's that kind of took it into what spent too much money didn't live within his means and they get into debt.
14:39 --> 14:41 [SPEAKER_01]: Pretty bad debt debt.
14:41 --> 14:41 [SPEAKER_01]: He can't pay.
14:41 --> 14:44 [SPEAKER_01]: They kind of debt that makes you land and better as a person.
14:44 --> 14:47 [SPEAKER_01]: And there's a way around this.
14:47 --> 14:55 [SPEAKER_01]: In your formal education is start working in the factories, which back then it was now uncommon for people as young as eight to be working and even five.
14:56 --> 15:08 [SPEAKER_01]: In fact, they appreciated the little hands that the children had because they could go into the machines and pull parts out when they broke, of course, if those machines turned on or crushed their hands, well, it was just a young child.
15:08 --> 15:09 [SPEAKER_01]: They didn't take it that seriously.
15:10 --> 15:14 [SPEAKER_01]: Life in value of humans was not very high back then.
15:15 --> 15:17 [SPEAKER_01]: And so, which 12 year old was actually getting to the game kind of late.
15:17 --> 15:19 [SPEAKER_01]: I remember, I think it was David Livingston.
15:19 --> 15:22 [SPEAKER_01]: He started working in one of these factories at the age of 10.
15:22 --> 15:24 [SPEAKER_01]: And it would work 12 hours a day.
15:24 --> 15:25 [SPEAKER_01]: And then go to school at night.
15:25 --> 15:26 [SPEAKER_01]: It was crazy.
15:27 --> 15:28 [SPEAKER_01]: And Dickens only does it for you.
15:28 --> 15:30 [SPEAKER_01]: He needed that for like 10 years to pay his way through medical school.
15:31 --> 15:48 [SPEAKER_01]: starting at like 10 years old Dickens does it for one year and he works at a factory first he gets moved to a family with a long-time friend in the quote it doesn't sound like the best living conditions he lived with quote a reduced impoverished old lady long-known to our family so when you're moving in with the impoverished old lady not the best place to be
15:49 --> 15:52 [SPEAKER_01]: And then the factory, he put the labels on the back of shoes.
15:52 --> 15:55 [SPEAKER_01]: It was, I mean, a little trouble understanding because I don't understand.
15:55 --> 16:00 [SPEAKER_01]: It kept saying he put labels on potting, but I just think that back then some part, it was also a shoe factory.
16:01 --> 16:06 [SPEAKER_01]: So I don't think he was doing like, when I think it would work potting, I think it would put plants on a pot, but I think this must have been like some part of the shoe.
16:06 --> 16:07 [SPEAKER_01]: that you put the label on.
16:08 --> 16:10 [SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, you basically you paint a bunch of glue on.
16:10 --> 16:16 [SPEAKER_01]: You wait for it and then you put the label on it and you do that for 10 hours a day with two other boys doing the exact same job.
16:17 --> 16:21 [SPEAKER_01]: He said the jobs that typically was just humiliating like he felt worthless.
16:21 --> 16:30 [SPEAKER_01]: they were rough on him, make sure you reach your quota, he's supposed to be in school, learning his learning stuff that will get him a better education, but a study is going there.
16:30 --> 16:37 [SPEAKER_01]: You only got an hour, I think, for dinner or lunch drop today, and you got one, I think it was 130-minute tea break in the entire day.
16:37 --> 16:42 [SPEAKER_01]: For a 10-year-old kid, or a 12-year-old kid, that's pretty rough.
16:43 --> 16:45 [SPEAKER_01]: And I mean, 10-year-olds too were there as well.
16:46 --> 16:51 [SPEAKER_01]: What made it even worse was after a time his grandma, his dad's mom,
16:51 --> 16:54 [SPEAKER_01]: dies, and she passes an inheritance on the herd dad or to his dad.
16:55 --> 16:57 [SPEAKER_01]: His dad is able to pay off his debts.
16:58 --> 16:59 [SPEAKER_01]: And this should be okay.
16:59 --> 17:04 [SPEAKER_01]: No, he gets out of the factory, but his mom liked having them work at the factory.
17:05 --> 17:09 [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, she said, basically, I don't see why we'd let them come out of it.
17:09 --> 17:19 [SPEAKER_01]: So in the state of factory, a bit longer, even though his dad was already out of the debtor's prison, eventually he did get out of the factory, uh, but he was definitely their longer than he had to me.
17:19 --> 17:21 [SPEAKER_01]: And his mom was definitely inclined to keep him there.
17:22 --> 17:25 [SPEAKER_01]: And this lets the quote from him, I never afterwards forgot.
17:25 --> 17:27 [SPEAKER_01]: I never will forget.
17:27 --> 17:32 [SPEAKER_01]: I never can forget that my mother was warm about me being said back to the factory.
17:33 --> 17:41 [SPEAKER_01]: So, I, you know what, I got to be honest, if this factory sounds awful and if I had kids, you think the first thing you want to do is get them out of there.
17:42 --> 17:45 [SPEAKER_01]: The fact that the mom was like, well, maybe this is good for Charlie.
17:46 --> 17:49 [SPEAKER_00]: That's true, there is always, and we've had this more on the episode.
17:50 --> 17:54 [SPEAKER_00]: There was always the argument to make for like, you know, there is, you know, it was the times.
17:54 --> 17:58 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, it wasn't, we can be like bashing on the model for me.
17:58 --> 18:02 [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, she was the only one to center 12 year old kid to the factory.
18:02 --> 18:05 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, every kid is age was probably working in the factory.
18:05 --> 18:11 [SPEAKER_01]: There are a lot of angry kid about the elite kids, the kids that were getting us warmly educated, which is where he felt like he belonged.
18:11 --> 18:13 [SPEAKER_01]: But I do agree, it was more acceptable.
18:16 --> 18:19 [SPEAKER_01]: I think people, but a lot, yes, rightly so.
18:20 --> 18:27 [SPEAKER_01]: I hope so at least, eventually he gets out of the factory work and he begins a career and it's a little bit difficult.
18:27 --> 18:32 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not trying to ignore his how he broke into the world of writing.
18:32 --> 18:34 [SPEAKER_01]: It's more than it was just difficult to track.
18:35 --> 18:44 [SPEAKER_01]: There's this era of time and maybe you understand it better than I do where it just feels like social light kind of people just do a whole bunch of things all that once at the same time.
18:44 --> 19:01 [SPEAKER_01]: So like the rich aristocratic kind of people and they're not easy on their scale, but it's like they kind of vibe with all that I'm ready to play I'm going to go do this thing over here I'm going to go like run a man or now I'm going to go run a museum now I'm going to write a book it just feels like they do rain and things for a while so they figure out kind of what they're doing.
19:01 --> 19:04 [SPEAKER_01]: and Dickens seems to have that happen to him.
19:04 --> 19:05 [SPEAKER_01]: Where he's like, I'm a journalist.
19:05 --> 19:07 [SPEAKER_01]: Actually, I'm working on a play.
19:07 --> 19:08 [SPEAKER_01]: Actually, I'm going to be a lecturer.
19:08 --> 19:09 [SPEAKER_01]: No, I'm a writer now.
19:10 --> 19:11 [SPEAKER_01]: And he just kind of bounced all over the place for a time.
19:12 --> 19:13 [SPEAKER_01]: Kind of getting his feet under him.
19:13 --> 19:14 [SPEAKER_01]: It may need us normal.
19:14 --> 19:17 [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you remember a time when you went from job to job.
19:17 --> 19:21 [SPEAKER_01]: But I feel like when we go from job to job, it's like, I work for this employer and then I work for this employer.
19:21 --> 19:28 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I made coffees of Starbucks and then I delivered pizzas and then maybe I worked in the mail or something, you know, but it's kind of like beginner jobs.
19:28 --> 19:31 [SPEAKER_01]: These are like what I would consider the end of your profession jobs.
19:31 --> 19:36 [SPEAKER_01]: Like writer, socialite, lecture, play maker, and those are the things he's like, he's feet wet with.
19:37 --> 19:54 [SPEAKER_00]: yeah well i i mean different times obviously i think there's a lot of uh struggling writers out there and you know struggling podcast makers you know that the mother and some mother and poets they want those christian podcasting is the money they care that's why there's so many billionaires in this industry right reds
19:54 --> 19:55 [SPEAKER_00]: That's why we're in here.
19:55 --> 19:56 [SPEAKER_00]: That's what we're doing here.
19:56 --> 19:58 [SPEAKER_01]: We're here for the money.
19:58 --> 19:58 [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
19:58 --> 20:04 [SPEAKER_00]: That's why we're doing a very niche history church, Christian, whatever podcast.
20:04 --> 20:06 [SPEAKER_01]: We just didn't have enough news, just with church history.
20:06 --> 20:09 [SPEAKER_01]: We had to go even narrow or history, but are they Christian?
20:10 --> 20:11 [SPEAKER_01]: Really, just narrow that down.
20:11 --> 20:13 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, but I don't know about Dickens.
20:13 --> 20:15 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think what you're just touching on.
20:15 --> 20:22 [SPEAKER_00]: I also feel like, I mean, so this was a time before like mainstream media available to everyone.
20:23 --> 20:28 [SPEAKER_00]: So I feel like if you broke through or if you knew the right people, yeah, you could basically do whatever you want.
20:28 --> 20:33 [SPEAKER_00]: You could be in deep and writing plays and writing is writing writing all these things because I mean,
20:34 --> 20:38 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you're probably one of the few guys that they really know or that's doing this.
20:38 --> 20:43 [SPEAKER_00]: And if you're just prolific enough, if you put out enough stuff and that, that's what they can seem to be doing.
20:43 --> 20:54 [SPEAKER_00]: And he actually sort of, yeah, how they say to introduce this idea of serialized novels, which is actually a great idea for him because, you know, you write a couple of chapters.
20:54 --> 20:57 [SPEAKER_00]: You bring them out, you're excited, and then you keep going.
20:57 --> 21:02 [SPEAKER_00]: So that's how he really got into the business of writing his,
21:03 --> 21:18 [SPEAKER_01]: It's books as well like they all came out in bits and pieces like we do like modern comic books You know where they'll tell like little pieces of stories that all line up But instead of being a comic it's like the actual book how you would it just kind of fascinating to think that some of these very famous books
21:18 --> 21:26 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, when I think of a writer, I think of a guy sitting like in a, you know, an office, a study, perfecting his book over the course of two years that he sends it to the publisher, right?
21:26 --> 21:30 [SPEAKER_01]: That's how so many of the famous books today and probably in the past were written.
21:30 --> 21:38 [SPEAKER_01]: But out there, in this area, Dickens is not the only one who does this serial format, where he's releasing the book piece by piece and people love it, so they can't wait for the next part of it.
21:39 --> 21:41 [SPEAKER_00]: which I gotta say actually, we should break that pack.
21:42 --> 21:45 [SPEAKER_01]: Because kind of cool, we kind of cool is, I guess it's not different than a TV show.
21:45 --> 21:49 [SPEAKER_01]: Like we're all watching it together to find out what happens and we all get excited and talk about it.
21:49 --> 21:52 [SPEAKER_01]: It just not as many TV shows that do that today.
21:52 --> 21:59 [SPEAKER_01]: We're all watching it, but in the day it was a time 20 years ago, where everyone was watching lost or the office or whatever, and I would talk about it at the cooler.
21:59 --> 22:01 [SPEAKER_01]: And that's kind of what I imagine Dickens is.
22:02 --> 22:12 [SPEAKER_00]: That is true, but there's also the downside of it like, you know, you bring a couple of chapters out and you have your story map tab that the people hate it and they're clamoring for different things or you kill off their favorite character.
22:12 --> 22:15 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, it's a risk and I mean, I'm not going to lie here.
22:15 --> 22:24 [SPEAKER_00]: I feel we're taking risks like we've like let's record eight episodes and roll them out and then say, you know, maybe people ask their episode one are like, this is trash.
22:25 --> 22:29 [SPEAKER_00]: Like it was going to, but no, no, our millions of fans that episode
22:31 --> 22:38 [SPEAKER_01]: I guess if they did this like it though, you could edit it as it goes out like you can kind of make changes That is true.
22:38 --> 22:39 [SPEAKER_01]: So you have a little more up to it.
22:39 --> 22:39 [SPEAKER_01]: All right.
22:39 --> 22:46 [SPEAKER_00]: We're off track as or just saying is it's okay if I edit you I completely if the people don't like this point if I'm still on here one of you don't rock
22:47 --> 22:57 [SPEAKER_01]: I, one of those early religious works, and this is just, it's important because it was one of those earliest written works here, and it's also a religious and nature, is titled Sunday under three heads.
22:58 --> 23:05 [SPEAKER_01]: Look into your churches, diminished, other so-called side, quote, look into your churches, diminished congregations and scanty attendance,
23:05 --> 23:18 [SPEAKER_01]: people have grown so in an obstinate and are becoming disgusted with the faith, which condemns in the such a day as this once and every seven, they display their feeling by saying away from church, turn to the streets on the Sunday and mark the rigid colloon that rains over everything around.
23:19 --> 23:19 [SPEAKER_00]: For Apple.
23:20 --> 23:22 [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't think he was a big fan of.
23:22 --> 23:24 [SPEAKER_00]: He, the church is in those days.
23:24 --> 23:27 [SPEAKER_01]: Once it, and it will say it's not, you may say, okay, so he's not a very Christian guy.
23:27 --> 23:28 [SPEAKER_01]: Note he's a huge
23:32 --> 23:36 [SPEAKER_01]: organized, religion, he definitely has a problem with the church.
23:37 --> 23:41 [SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know what church was like in the Anglican church in 18th or 1840s.
23:41 --> 23:47 [SPEAKER_01]: I would imagine he's being a little bit harsh on the church, but then also, you know, maybe he's right, maybe they were a little gloomy, maybe
23:47 --> 24:14 [SPEAKER_01]: there's a reason his point is like people are going to say the reasoning so strict on this particular thing is because there was a wall getting ready to get past it was basically going to make it illegal to go out to the parks and have fun on Sundays because everyone wants everyone was choosing Sunday to go out and have fun picnic park do do recreational activities ride bikes because bikes have been invented at this point for about 20 years they were going into those how's the things um and nobody was wanting to go to church on Sunday anymore and
24:17 --> 24:18 [SPEAKER_01]: 10 to 12 hours a day.
24:18 --> 24:21 [SPEAKER_01]: Your one chance for fresh air was on Sunday.
24:21 --> 24:21 [SPEAKER_01]: Now, I don't do that.
24:21 --> 24:22 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's okay to just get the Lord's day.
24:22 --> 24:24 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just thinking I could understand.
24:24 --> 24:32 [SPEAKER_01]: If I'm breathing as smoke and fumes for 12 hours, six days a week, I could see the temptation to go for a picnic on Sunday.
24:33 --> 24:35 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so that actually kind of backs the question.
24:36 --> 24:39 [SPEAKER_00]: And because you already feel this episode might be a little bit different.
24:39 --> 24:42 [SPEAKER_00]: Because we're not going to go into all the books.
24:42 --> 24:46 [SPEAKER_00]: And we're going to go into like in-depth literary analysis of all the books he he wrote.
24:47 --> 24:49 [SPEAKER_00]: We want to actually look at his Christianity.
24:49 --> 24:54 [SPEAKER_00]: And this for once is a person that wrote a lot of things about his theology.
24:54 --> 24:55 [SPEAKER_00]: Really?
24:55 --> 24:57 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, he believed what he believed was right.
24:57 --> 24:59 [SPEAKER_00]: And there's a lot of it in the books, actually.
25:00 --> 25:05 [SPEAKER_00]: So, the people that have actually read his books can probably speak into his a lot better than we do.
25:05 --> 25:11 [SPEAKER_00]: But so there will be a little bit more of that already early on in the episode.
25:11 --> 25:16 [SPEAKER_00]: Some of his Christian views in the way he approaches things.
25:16 --> 25:20 [SPEAKER_01]: With Charles Dickens, unlike some of the other people we've covered.
25:20 --> 25:25 [SPEAKER_01]: You can tell almost the entire story of loads are in skip a lot of the Christianity aspect.
25:25 --> 25:27 [SPEAKER_00]: Although his music didn't have a lot to do.
25:28 --> 25:34 [SPEAKER_01]: Sir Francis Drake, for the most part, was he traveled around, he wasn't preaching to the you know, as he pirated the Spanish.
25:35 --> 25:37 [SPEAKER_01]: And so you could all just tell like, here's his life.
25:37 --> 25:38 [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, and here's the Christian part of his life.
25:38 --> 25:39 [SPEAKER_01]: How do they meet?
25:39 --> 25:48 [SPEAKER_01]: But in Dickens' books, like he's talking and writing so much about Christianity, that how could you talk about his life and who he's becoming without mentioned it?
25:48 --> 25:52 [SPEAKER_01]: That's the born to that look that he is mentioning Christianity
25:55 --> 26:00 [SPEAKER_01]: and they actually seem pretty positive on the surface.
26:01 --> 26:05 [SPEAKER_01]: If you're looking at it from a surface level, he looks pretty good.
26:05 --> 26:17 [SPEAKER_01]: Now with us said in the mid-1830s, as his career is getting kind of going, he is considering a desk considered himself unitarian for a while, and Mark Fyre call you looked into that one more than I did.
26:18 --> 26:37 [SPEAKER_00]: I did a little bit, but it touches on a lot of the other things as well, they're coming up later, but just to sort of do a really quick, like what's unitary enism, it basically says Jesus is a great moral teacher and we got to follow his teachings, but he is not God.
26:37 --> 26:42 [SPEAKER_00]: I got to say I was looking into this and I didn't have the time to really look into it in that as I could.
26:42 --> 26:57 [SPEAKER_00]: So I don't know really where it goes branches off or or connect to like erinism, which we talked about with Isaac Newton of course, or he also says like Jesus is not God, but I don't know how that really works out, but it's going to show up really clearly in his works.
26:58 --> 27:12 [SPEAKER_00]: that for Charles Dickens, like the moral example that Jesus is giving, so taken care of the poor and taken care of the sick people, and that is really like the core of his Christianity.
27:12 --> 27:13 [SPEAKER_00]: That's what he's all about.
27:13 --> 27:14 [SPEAKER_00]: That's what he feels that
27:15 --> 27:19 [SPEAKER_00]: Being a Christian is actually what it's all about.
27:19 --> 27:21 [SPEAKER_00]: So you can go to church.
27:21 --> 27:22 [SPEAKER_00]: You can sing the hymns.
27:22 --> 27:32 [SPEAKER_00]: You can listen to the pastor, but if you're not helping for people, if you're not going out, doing the right things that Jesus is teaching, then you're not actually a Christian.
27:32 --> 27:32 [SPEAKER_00]: And that's
27:33 --> 27:56 [SPEAKER_00]: that's I think leaning really far towards unitarianism where they also say like hey Jesus is this great moral teacher but not necessarily God so that's why he was considered a unitarian it it shifts a little bit throughout the story like towards the end people are not sure anymore fully there's going to be a lot of quotes later and some stuff that we just want to list off and that's in if you're already if you're going well easy
27:59 --> 28:02 [SPEAKER_01]: But in 1847, he returns to the English in church.
28:03 --> 28:09 [SPEAKER_01]: So he starts going to English in services and will spend the rest of his life as far as I can tell, going to the English in church for them out.
28:09 --> 28:14 [SPEAKER_01]: So if you were running off because you're like, OK, you're in a Terry, I don't need to list the rest of some sort of Charles Dickens, it's not saved.
28:15 --> 28:18 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, he does go back to English and church with Church of England.
28:18 --> 28:22 [SPEAKER_01]: I think in the 1800s, we would consider it still a pretty Christian church there.
28:23 --> 28:26 [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, J.C. Ryle is preaching during this time.
28:26 --> 28:28 [SPEAKER_01]: So, you can't completely write them out.
28:28 --> 28:30 [SPEAKER_01]: Some of them were now we're now we're kind of bad.
28:30 --> 28:34 [SPEAKER_01]: How much did he kind of grow up and realize how these inner terrians are lost?
28:35 --> 28:38 [SPEAKER_01]: Or was it the Church was just closer by, you know, we'll look into that some more, but
28:42 --> 28:45 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, but his most famous word, LaCrisis Carol.
28:46 --> 28:56 [SPEAKER_01]: actually I think in a lot of ways I was reading the Christian history institute and I got to say they did a really good in-depth article on his books but the very end they made a mistake.
28:56 --> 29:13 [SPEAKER_01]: I'll talk about the mistake with you in a minute because I was like I looked at that I was like wow you really undersold an important part of Dickens's story and whether or not his fate is meaningful but when tainted the part where they talked about the and the way like Christian history has to use them for a lot of research and stuff so they're great if you run into their work you can usually rely on it.
29:14 --> 29:17 [SPEAKER_01]: But what again, the Christmas Carol, they made the point I thought was really interesting.
29:17 --> 29:20 [SPEAKER_01]: They said, you know, everyone knows or hopefully you know the story of the Christmas Carol.
29:20 --> 29:23 [SPEAKER_01]: They just have to make some excruciate.
29:23 --> 29:25 [SPEAKER_01]: The excruciate here is not the duck.
29:25 --> 29:27 [SPEAKER_01]: But the excruciate here is a mean guy, jerk.
29:28 --> 29:39 [SPEAKER_01]: At one point he says, you know, if they're going to die, they should go and die and depopulate lower the population, very malthusian, very anti-human, very terrible worldview.
29:39 --> 29:49 [SPEAKER_01]: And they said, you know, midway through the, one of the best lines he's easy to miss is when tidy Tim he is he meets his family and tiny Tim's his core cripple kit struggling around it.
29:50 --> 29:52 [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't look good for him in Scrooge, you know, talks to the ghost.
29:52 --> 29:55 [SPEAKER_01]: He goes, oh my goodness, you know, it's how you timp in the die.
29:55 --> 30:00 [SPEAKER_01]: And the ghost says to him, well, hey, if he's going to die, you should go ahead and hurry up and do it in one less person, the feel.
30:00 --> 30:04 [SPEAKER_01]: So it's like either some, clearly some value of humanity that he's throwing him back in the faces of the rich.
30:04 --> 30:19 [SPEAKER_01]: And if you were a rich person, reading Robert Malta's work, reading some of these early Charles Darwin ideas and the very early sprinkling of eugenics, you begin the stone in your face by Dickens of being kind of convicted, hopefully in realizing, oh my gosh, I'm a jerk, I am Scrooge.
30:20 --> 30:22 [SPEAKER_01]: But what happens to Scrooge?
30:22 --> 30:25 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, he sees ghost to pass, ghost to present, ghost to future.
30:25 --> 30:26 [SPEAKER_01]: He sees is going to die.
30:26 --> 30:28 [SPEAKER_01]: He sees the mess of his life that he's made.
30:29 --> 30:33 [SPEAKER_01]: And that's kind of the end, and he has a heartwarming, you know, I'm going to change.
30:33 --> 30:37 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to be a good person because back he starts giving people Christmas off.
30:37 --> 30:39 [SPEAKER_01]: He feeds people.
30:39 --> 30:40 [SPEAKER_01]: He brings the money.
30:40 --> 30:41 [SPEAKER_01]: He's to change, man.
30:42 --> 30:43 [SPEAKER_01]: But he doesn't.
30:44 --> 30:45 [SPEAKER_00]: there's no Christ.
30:46 --> 30:49 [SPEAKER_00]: There's no conversion of his heart.
30:49 --> 30:52 [SPEAKER_01]: Although he changes on the outside he becomes nice or person.
30:53 --> 30:54 [SPEAKER_01]: He's obviously a much better man.
30:54 --> 30:58 [SPEAKER_01]: He'd want to know the why the end of the book version of him not the beginning book version of him.
30:58 --> 30:59 [SPEAKER_01]: But he's not.
31:00 --> 31:01 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean he likes Christmas now.
31:02 --> 31:06 [SPEAKER_01]: But he doesn't seem to have much of a relationship with Jesus Christ as a Christmas.
31:07 --> 31:12 [SPEAKER_01]: He never that part of Christmas throughout the entire Christmas Carol never seems to reach him.
31:13 --> 31:16 [SPEAKER_00]: That is a great point, something I never realized.
31:16 --> 31:18 [SPEAKER_00]: The one time I watched this movie, I thought that.
31:19 --> 31:30 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but that's, and I think this is gonna be a theme a little bit like, when I was reading up on him on his Christianity, that is a recurring thing.
31:31 --> 31:41 [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like, but where is the really the importance of Christ and him coming to earth and him dying for us since taking our sins upon himself on the cross?
31:41 --> 31:56 [SPEAKER_00]: That part I really like I try to look in like, what does he say, what where is it because he even wrote like his own sort of like kids version like his own kids version up the Gospels Winnie the better I believe it's in 1847 or 1848 so as he was returning to the English in church
31:56 --> 31:58 [SPEAKER_01]: This is when he gives his children this book.
31:58 --> 32:01 [SPEAKER_01]: So it was very important that I'm sorry to be there out there.
32:01 --> 32:02 [SPEAKER_00]: No, no, that's good.
32:03 --> 32:07 [SPEAKER_00]: I think I mean, we're a little bit, I would say, zigzagging through this story.
32:08 --> 32:21 [SPEAKER_00]: Let's continue a little bit more into his life because there is some bits there and you already teased it a little bit in your intro like there is some dark sites as well to the story of Charles Dickinson.
32:21 --> 32:24 [SPEAKER_01]: As you know, the Dickinson story, you probably know what we've kind of been dancing
32:26 --> 32:28 [SPEAKER_01]: which is his marriage.
32:29 --> 32:34 [SPEAKER_01]: So he marries Catherine Dickens, and they will be married for 22 years.
32:34 --> 32:36 [SPEAKER_01]: And in the beginning, it is very nice.
32:37 --> 32:41 [SPEAKER_01]: He had found some quotes, they said that we're in his letters to his wife.
32:41 --> 32:47 [SPEAKER_01]: My dearest life was written early letters to Catherine this work.
32:48 --> 32:50 [SPEAKER_01]: He's not a pet name, I would give my wife.
32:50 --> 32:52 [SPEAKER_01]: My dearest darling pig.
32:52 --> 32:53 [SPEAKER_00]: wouldn't get away with it.
32:53 --> 32:56 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think my wife would be like, oh, so sweet.
32:56 --> 32:58 [SPEAKER_01]: He caught me a pig.
32:58 --> 33:01 [SPEAKER_01]: I think she would be very upset if she bound out.
33:01 --> 33:01 [SPEAKER_01]: I was calling her a pig.
33:02 --> 33:04 [SPEAKER_00]: Then different times, apparently.
33:04 --> 33:07 [SPEAKER_01]: Did my apparently that then sweet darling pig was completely acceptable?
33:09 --> 33:09 [SPEAKER_01]: My dude.
33:09 --> 33:10 [SPEAKER_01]: So these are very sweet notes.
33:10 --> 33:12 [SPEAKER_01]: He seemed to have a genuine love.
33:13 --> 33:18 [SPEAKER_01]: but something went wrong and there is a moment where things break down.
33:19 --> 33:21 [SPEAKER_01]: And at one day, let's just put it from Catherine's perspective.
33:22 --> 33:25 [SPEAKER_01]: One day, Catherine opens a package.
33:25 --> 33:28 [SPEAKER_01]: From her husband, she reads a note.
33:28 --> 33:30 [SPEAKER_01]: It's very heartfelt, very loving note.
33:31 --> 33:32 [SPEAKER_01]: And the attached is a golden bracelet.
33:33 --> 33:37 [SPEAKER_01]: But at the top of the note says Ellen, because it's not her.
33:38 --> 33:40 [SPEAKER_01]: It's a package that Charles is having delivered.
33:41 --> 33:51 [SPEAKER_01]: to a girl that he knows and to make it even more scandalous, she's 18 and he's 45.
33:52 --> 33:54 [SPEAKER_01]: So there's a 27-year age gap between these two.
33:54 --> 33:59 [SPEAKER_01]: This is what leads to the sad collapse of
33:59 --> 34:01 [SPEAKER_01]: him and his wife being married.
34:01 --> 34:03 [SPEAKER_01]: Of course, understandably, of course.
34:04 --> 34:06 [SPEAKER_01]: And Ellen becomes his new girl.
34:06 --> 34:08 [SPEAKER_01]: And they never really make it official.
34:08 --> 34:11 [SPEAKER_01]: It seems they have trouble be able to live it out officially because they aren't Victorian England.
34:11 --> 34:13 [SPEAKER_01]: They have to keep it on the hush hush.
34:13 --> 34:17 [SPEAKER_01]: But for the next 13 years or so, it's pretty clear that he's taking care of Ellen.
34:17 --> 34:21 [SPEAKER_01]: He will buy houses for her to stay.
34:21 --> 34:22 [SPEAKER_01]: She will travel with him.
34:22 --> 34:23 [SPEAKER_01]: It's very obvious.
34:24 --> 34:31 [SPEAKER_01]: That's his girlfriend, but because him and Catherine can't really officially divorce in Victorian England, he can't officially have this girl with him.
34:32 --> 34:33 [SPEAKER_01]: Very scandalous.
34:33 --> 34:38 [SPEAKER_01]: You could call that gossip or whatever, but it is what it is and it's pretty bad.
34:38 --> 34:40 [SPEAKER_00]: I feel this one, like, there is sources.
34:40 --> 34:49 [SPEAKER_01]: They're like, yeah, it was all, you know, we can just wait for Bill said where they tried to be all like, he just spent a month on an island with her as friends.
34:50 --> 34:59 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, you know by now our faithful listeners will know Troy will take any chance to say something about we're Wilson to teach you about the great man that he was.
35:03 --> 35:21 [SPEAKER_01]: Um, the thing is too though, and I just discovered this is more recent discovery as they released some letters and if I looked at the research correctly, I think I was able to, they were saying that not only the Dickens do like go through this basically and divorce with his wife, but that he tried to have her commit it.
35:21 --> 35:42 [SPEAKER_01]: like he tried to take the hiss and like make her look like a crazy person to get her committed to an asianic island so it would not embarrass him as much that he left her like everyone would be more understanding if he leaves the crazy wife and goes and marries new girl and so that was his goal but the problem uh not the problem uh she's not
35:43 --> 35:43 [SPEAKER_01]: crazy.
35:43 --> 35:47 [SPEAKER_01]: She was for another, by the way, I don't know that that would be make it acceptable anyway.
35:47 --> 35:47 [SPEAKER_01]: I would like to put it on.
35:47 --> 35:53 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think, you know, it's for better or worse unless she has some mental problems in that case, toaster aside.
35:53 --> 35:56 [SPEAKER_01]: But again, that she wasn't.
35:56 --> 35:59 [SPEAKER_01]: So imagine you're the woman who saw the package.
35:59 --> 36:01 [SPEAKER_01]: You saw your husband cheating on you.
36:01 --> 36:02 [SPEAKER_01]: He divorces you.
36:02 --> 36:03 [SPEAKER_01]: It's terrible.
36:03 --> 36:04 [SPEAKER_01]: He's with the new girl.
36:04 --> 36:05 [SPEAKER_01]: The new girl's 18.
36:06 --> 36:13 [SPEAKER_01]: and then he's like working actively to get you committed to it as saying the silent you would actually probably think you're going a little bit crazy how messed up this.
36:13 --> 36:29 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean let's let's just be honest like sources aside like it's this is not looking good for Charles like no even even if it's if it wouldn't be true then then there's the case of okay but then why separate from your wife?
36:29 --> 36:30 [SPEAKER_00]: Why try to have your wife
36:33 --> 36:42 [SPEAKER_00]: I think it is fair to say, there is overwhelming evidence that he was having a fair with this younger lady called Ellen Turnon.
36:42 --> 36:43 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, he met her at a play.
36:43 --> 36:45 [SPEAKER_01]: He had written, he had written.
36:45 --> 36:55 [SPEAKER_01]: It was helping produce a play and he liked the look of her and basically gave her a starring role and then gave her mother and sister starring roles like you the whole family something and kind of use that is is it.
36:56 --> 36:57 [SPEAKER_00]: It's the age-old texic.
36:57 --> 37:00 [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like like I feel I've seen movies or stories or gestures.
37:00 --> 37:04 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know Hollywood well, but I'm pretty sure if we have any Hollywood listeners that are going.
37:04 --> 37:05 [SPEAKER_01]: I think I've seen that before.
37:05 --> 37:06 [SPEAKER_01]: Like it's not a good thing to do.
37:06 --> 37:13 [SPEAKER_01]: And yet, that's the move he played with Ellen, which made, which I don't know if this is, I want to say that that makes Ellen not the first.
37:13 --> 37:17 [SPEAKER_01]: It just to me, it looks like he was very much looking for an opportunity to capitalize.
37:17 --> 37:17 [SPEAKER_01]: Now,
37:17 --> 37:22 [SPEAKER_01]: Dickens, if you could have any saving briefs at all that he does, only as a defense.
37:22 --> 37:26 [SPEAKER_01]: But his argument was he had written letters and told people like my marriage is already over.
37:26 --> 37:29 [SPEAKER_01]: Like we've already been deteriorating for years.
37:29 --> 37:32 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just kind of putting like, I'm just not going to pretend something that's not anymore.
37:33 --> 37:38 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know that that's true, and I don't think that that would make it okay even if it were.
37:38 --> 37:44 [SPEAKER_01]: But in from if he had a defense, his defense would be, I don't think I'm marrying a cathartine anymore.
37:44 --> 37:47 [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like we've been falling apart for a long time, so I'm just leaving.
37:47 --> 37:48 [SPEAKER_01]: This is what it looks like.
37:48 --> 37:50 [SPEAKER_01]: But then you don't get the commander doing insane asylum.
37:50 --> 37:54 [SPEAKER_01]: And I don't mean biblically a Christian gets to the say, like, we're pretty much over.
37:54 --> 37:55 [SPEAKER_01]: So let me go cheat on you.
37:55 --> 37:56 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know what I'm saying?
37:56 --> 38:00 [SPEAKER_01]: And the fact that you kept it a secret, again, that was Dickens's defense.
38:00 --> 38:01 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think it holds to anyone.
38:01 --> 38:06 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, and I'm pretty sure that Jesus said some things about marriage in the sermen on the mountain are very shortly after that.
38:07 --> 38:08 [SPEAKER_01]: It was over there.
38:08 --> 38:13 [SPEAKER_01]: Something to the effect of like the vourser when your tired of her is committed to it and say a silence.
38:13 --> 38:13 [SPEAKER_01]: It's okay.
38:14 --> 38:16 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm, you know, it just doesn't tell the top of my head, no.
38:16 --> 38:16 [SPEAKER_00]: No, okay.
38:16 --> 38:17 [SPEAKER_00]: How does it for you?
38:17 --> 38:18 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
38:18 --> 38:23 [SPEAKER_00]: No, I should, I would pull it up to have the exact wording, but it's no absolutely not in there.
38:23 --> 38:24 [SPEAKER_00]: And, and.
38:24 --> 38:29 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I know also for a list as divorce is a complicated thing.
38:29 --> 38:51 [SPEAKER_00]: My parents divorced, and it is a complicated thing, but when I was a sort of training very seriously, when we were in my now wife, we've been very now for a long time, very heavily, and when we're thinking about marriage, she actually asked me like, hey,
38:52 --> 39:07 [SPEAKER_00]: but how do you feel about because you're parents the forest and you're like statistics it's a oh if you're from you know the forest parents there's a higher chance it happens to yourself and for me it was no because I saw what then wrong like and I actually saw like these things of like
39:08 --> 39:27 [SPEAKER_00]: a breakdown in communication and so this argument that Dickens is making, that's the point I want to make here, like I hate that argument, like okay so you're seeing your marriage is you know broken down well work on it, like you should have started working on it 10 years ago if it's like after 22 years yeah it's been a mess for 10 years so I might as well walk out
39:27 --> 39:36 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, hookup with this 18 year old like that's just there's just never an excuse for it and and yeah, I mean, Jesus is clear on this as well.
39:36 --> 39:39 [SPEAKER_00]: And I know that life is very complicated.
39:39 --> 39:54 [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm not not going to take any more stance than this, but I always feel like if you if there's ever a time to work on it, the time is now and if you're already like 10 years like, yeah, okay, well, then there's still time like there's always time to work and that's how I feel.
39:55 --> 40:13 [SPEAKER_00]: So this argument and Dickens like he got a bit of a bad mark for me on this one and and it comes up more like he actually gets into a train accident and then they have to like sort of cover up that he was traveling with her so it's it's like a public known secret at this point like and and
40:14 --> 40:16 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, he must have known.
40:16 --> 40:17 [SPEAKER_00]: He must have known.
40:17 --> 40:18 [SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't right.
40:18 --> 40:21 [SPEAKER_00]: And he must have... Why keep it a secret?
40:21 --> 40:21 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
40:21 --> 40:21 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
40:21 --> 40:22 [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it was the time.
40:23 --> 40:30 [SPEAKER_00]: But if he was such a church girl or if he was reading his gospels, he must have felt deep down that something was up.
40:30 --> 40:54 [SPEAKER_01]: What it was funny to me is one of his big, they almost all of these guys that are in this era that talk about Christianity They're kind of on this like perspective of Christianity and also just or thing we hear it all the time now right all the Christians are such hypocrites And then they turn around and what do they go and do they do the thing they do the exact same thing they're accusing Christians up, but it's okay, but they do it's different when it's for that what was different what I had to divorce
40:54 --> 41:11 [SPEAKER_01]: Um, I think you're you are oftentimes exactly that the people who cry out the Christians are hypocrites a lot of times They are exactly what they're claiming the Christians are to they're not living moral and up saving lives that are so Revolutionary actually there's a atheist from the 1800s.
41:11 --> 41:12 [SPEAKER_01]: I can't remember his name.
41:12 --> 41:18 [SPEAKER_01]: I do apologize But he went around speaking in England, so you had to like get another contemporary of Dickens's
41:18 --> 41:22 [SPEAKER_01]: And his whole argument was basically, we don't need Christianity to be moral.
41:22 --> 41:24 [SPEAKER_01]: We're just as good without Christianity.
41:24 --> 41:28 [SPEAKER_01]: And he went and met with not the atheist society of Britain because that didn't really exist.
41:28 --> 41:31 [SPEAKER_01]: In the 1800s, but he went and met with the closest to that as he could.
41:31 --> 41:49 [SPEAKER_01]: After meeting with them and coming back like a year later, he's like, actually, I think I'm a Christian because I'm realizing by the lives of my fellow like non believers that we are not moral without Christianity, something seems to be missing and as much as I hate to admit it, none of us are living lives at all that are good and it discontinues the world entire society will break down.
41:50 --> 41:55 [SPEAKER_01]: in one of the reasons was this whole marriage thing, like you could see that they didn't get a married, they were cheating on their stuff.
41:55 --> 41:59 [SPEAKER_01]: All that stuff, he just looked at that was like maybe Christianity has a point.
42:00 --> 42:05 [SPEAKER_01]: I just think of his story when I look at this Dick and this guy, he's like, oh, you guys are hypocrites, the institutional church is bad.
42:05 --> 42:12 [SPEAKER_01]: That's why we need to go meet Jesus, the new test of it where he is, and all that stuff, and that he turns around and does stuff like this.
42:13 --> 42:20 [SPEAKER_01]: And this is really bad because as we said, he wrote a book for his kids, the life is of the life and the our Lord Jesus, the name of the life of our Lord.
42:21 --> 42:21 [SPEAKER_01]: He was a kind of book.
42:21 --> 42:23 [SPEAKER_01]: He told people that I have a private book.
42:23 --> 42:27 [SPEAKER_01]: I wrote out the gospel story if we're a kid friendly version for my own children.
42:27 --> 42:31 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't even believe it was published until 50 years or so at that.
42:31 --> 42:32 [SPEAKER_00]: He died in 30th sort.
42:33 --> 42:35 [SPEAKER_01]: Way out there, way past his life.
42:36 --> 42:38 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think it was like it's daughter-in-law or something put it out there for the world.
42:38 --> 42:39 [SPEAKER_01]: There really is a great book.
42:39 --> 42:40 [SPEAKER_01]: Does children love to do it?
42:40 --> 42:41 [SPEAKER_01]: It was really good for God.
42:43 --> 42:46 [SPEAKER_01]: But all of that, I can't help if it was ruined.
42:46 --> 42:53 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, any witness you were trying to share with your children is obviously destroyed by their dad, Chey on their mom.
42:54 --> 42:59 [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, the damage that does is going to be far greater than your cute booklet.
43:00 --> 43:02 [SPEAKER_01]: I can be wrong, but that's that's a freesure, the perspective we have.
43:03 --> 43:04 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think so too.
43:04 --> 43:12 [SPEAKER_00]: And well, you're already spoiled it at the beginning, but we know where we know he passed away and he passed away.
43:12 --> 43:14 [SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, 18, sorry, you see, he's still alive.
43:14 --> 43:15 [SPEAKER_01]: You're saying 1870 he passed away.
43:15 --> 43:15 [UNKNOWN]: And
43:19 --> 43:29 [SPEAKER_00]: He left us with an interesting puzzle, I think, and I think a puzzle that we're going to try and with the pieces, the real mystery is this, the novel that was never finished mystery.
43:30 --> 43:33 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's, well, no, it's not, but we're going to talk about it.
43:33 --> 43:34 [SPEAKER_01]: Lord knows where to say it again.
43:36 --> 43:37 [SPEAKER_01]: All right, we're going to jump into it.
43:37 --> 43:39 [SPEAKER_01]: We've covered kind of this overall life.
43:39 --> 43:43 [SPEAKER_01]: We've talked about this books, but let's start getting into what we're his religious place.
43:43 --> 43:44 [SPEAKER_01]: And where did he land on Jesus?
43:45 --> 43:49 [SPEAKER_01]: With that said, we've kind of talked about this the whole way, but we do have some direct quotes and thoughts.
43:49 --> 43:50 [SPEAKER_01]: We want to dig a little bit more into.
43:57 --> 44:21 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so let's start with a quote by Dickens from the life of our Lord and and I have to read this one a couple times because I think and and that's gonna come up more like he's I he definitely read the Bible and I I do feel like from his point of view of many of his contemporaries will say like this guy is a Christian like if there ever was one this guy is living out these values he's a Christian
44:21 --> 44:24 [SPEAKER_00]: And I was reading it and I, well, I will not spoil it yet.
44:24 --> 44:27 [SPEAKER_00]: So maybe our listeners and viewers will hear it as well.
44:27 --> 44:29 [SPEAKER_00]: So this is a quote from the life of our Lord.
44:30 --> 44:36 [SPEAKER_00]: And remember, it is Christianity to do good always, even to those who do evil to us.
44:37 --> 44:40 [SPEAKER_00]: It is Christianity to love our neighbors as ourself and to do.
44:41 --> 44:43 [SPEAKER_00]: to all men as we would have then new to us.
44:43 --> 44:54 [SPEAKER_00]: It is Christianity to be gentle, merciful, and forgiving, and to keep those qualities quiet in our own hearts, and never make a boast of them, or of our prayers, or of our love of God.
44:54 --> 44:59 [SPEAKER_00]: But always to show that we love Him, by humbly trying to do right in everything.
44:59 --> 45:06 [SPEAKER_00]: If we do this and remember the life and lessons of our Lord Jesus Christ and try to act up to them, we make confidently hope.
45:07 --> 45:13 [SPEAKER_00]: that God will forgive us, our sins and mistakes, and enable us to live and die in peace, and of quote.
45:14 --> 45:26 [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't think there is anything wrong, maybe for one sentence that I'm a little bit like, yeah, I would, I would like different phrasing there.
45:26 --> 45:28 [SPEAKER_00]: It's like he's right, like for all these things.
45:28 --> 45:34 [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, it is our duty, or it is, we're being called to be good, even to those who are doing evil to us.
45:37 --> 45:41 [SPEAKER_00]: we are being called to be gentle merciful for giving and all these things.
45:41 --> 45:48 [SPEAKER_00]: But then he writes, and if we do this, we may confidently hope that God will forgive us our sins and mistakes.
45:49 --> 45:57 [SPEAKER_00]: And that to me feels kind of like, you know, a good work situation that I do not agree with, like, it's through grace and grace alone.
45:58 --> 46:01 [SPEAKER_00]: So that's where I'm starting with this quote.
46:01 --> 46:02 [SPEAKER_00]: I would love to hear what you're thinking on this
46:02 --> 46:06 [SPEAKER_01]: So the other part that I signed up, I definitely was in the agreement with you on that.
46:06 --> 46:12 [SPEAKER_01]: Like if we do this, then God, we can constantly, oh, God, hope that God will forgive us or sense.
46:12 --> 46:16 [SPEAKER_01]: And of course faith that works as dead, but the faith comes first.
46:16 --> 46:21 [SPEAKER_01]: And from the faith, we see that the Lord uses us, not I do good works.
46:22 --> 46:25 [SPEAKER_01]: And so that I can have confidence that God will give me a faith.
46:26 --> 46:31 [SPEAKER_01]: But the other thing I can help us in those two is yes, it is Christian to be gentle, to be merciful, to be forgiving.
46:33 --> 46:45 [SPEAKER_01]: But it is also Christian to be truthful and to be bold and to be, you know, fervent and to be passionate and to go out and share not.
46:45 --> 46:51 [SPEAKER_01]: I just feel so moralistic duty bound the way he views.
46:51 --> 47:04 [SPEAKER_01]: Jesus, and maybe I'm just, you know, tainted by the quote, because I did a little bit of research on this too, and one person basically was making the point online that, like, if you read through his book for his children, he has such a boring Jesus.
47:05 --> 47:09 [SPEAKER_01]: And the point, the person said it was basically, the Jesus of the Bible will flip tableholds.
47:09 --> 47:12 [SPEAKER_01]: The Jesus of the Bible will call the Pharisees and detunes.
47:12 --> 47:16 [SPEAKER_01]: The Jesus of the Bible will warn you, he's coming back and people won't be ready.
47:17 --> 47:30 [SPEAKER_01]: And that Jesus and Charles Dickens' book is always just ethomereal floating through with happy words of wisdom, doing everything in this kind of he lacks the humanity side of Jesus.
47:31 --> 47:33 [SPEAKER_01]: Jesus is fully God, but he was also fully human.
47:33 --> 47:41 [SPEAKER_01]: And Dickens is just almost like this, it doesn't, he lost that ability to be human in the version that he rewrote.
47:41 --> 47:50 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, and I think it comes through in some other quotes as well that that you see here also from the life of our Lord and and also we have to make a disclaimer here.
47:51 --> 47:52 [SPEAKER_00]: It is a children's work.
47:52 --> 47:53 [SPEAKER_00]: So it's written for kids.
47:53 --> 48:02 [SPEAKER_00]: So some of the wording we got to got to be able to you know see through like, hey, he's writing this to us to a few years later to analyze the theology.
48:02 --> 48:06 [SPEAKER_01]: And you know, if somebody was doing that to me and ripping it up, they might be able to find my flaws.
48:06 --> 48:08 [SPEAKER_01]: So I do want to go a little easy.
48:08 --> 48:11 [SPEAKER_01]: If it wasn't that it's a reflection of everything else he created.
48:12 --> 48:17 [SPEAKER_01]: Every single aspect of a theology reflects the same vision of Jesus always to say.
48:18 --> 48:36 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, and then I want to take out this one quote also, and it's about the crucifixion, so quote, and they took him out and nailed him to a cross of wood and left him there to die, but Jesus Christ, who came to save the world and to teach us how to love one another and to be happy and haven't.
48:36 --> 48:59 [SPEAKER_00]: Died upon the cross and there I feel again really this emphasis on sort of the moralistic teachings of Jesus Like he came to sort of show us like how to live our lives well and and I think what he's really missing Is this part where Jesus says himself like I have not come to change one word of the law and what the prophet spoke before me like
48:59 --> 49:04 [SPEAKER_00]: And to him, I think he had trials.
49:04 --> 49:12 [SPEAKER_00]: They can see had such a version of like organized religion and like strict theology that I don't think he was a big Old Testament guy.
49:12 --> 49:14 [SPEAKER_00]: See, like he's not big on that.
49:14 --> 49:15 [SPEAKER_00]: And he's here.
49:15 --> 49:19 [SPEAKER_00]: He makes Jesus all about like they had the Old Testament, but to Jews, they were messing it up.
49:19 --> 49:23 [SPEAKER_00]: And then Jesus came to sort of show them like, hey, this is how you actually live your life.
49:24 --> 49:27 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think that that's necessarily what Jesus came to do.
49:28 --> 49:36 [SPEAKER_01]: So in Jesus came to show us the way into fulfill the Old Testament, but not to nullify as in like all the Old Testament, everything there.
49:36 --> 49:37 [SPEAKER_01]: You need to read that part.
49:37 --> 49:45 [SPEAKER_01]: But he does treat it that way because when his children were older, he gained each of the new, a coffee of the New Testament and he said, quote, let me get the quote here for you.
49:46 --> 49:47 [SPEAKER_01]: I, uh, here it is.
49:47 --> 49:58 [SPEAKER_01]: I put a new testament among your books for the very same reasons and with the very same hopes that mainly writing the account I wrote a bit for you when you were a little child because it's the best book that has ever or will be known in the world.
49:58 --> 49:59 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, that sounds so good.
50:00 --> 50:05 [SPEAKER_01]: I do feel like a me and maybe negative on him, but I can't but as he's focusing on the new testament.
50:06 --> 50:12 [SPEAKER_01]: To me, I would give my children a loveful Bible and say this whole thing Genesis to Revelation.
50:12 --> 50:18 [SPEAKER_01]: Now to give him some credit, he does often quote both the old and new testament in his books.
50:18 --> 50:22 [SPEAKER_01]: And I believe somebody said that in his books, he has 60 different references to just the book of Genesis.
50:23 --> 50:25 [SPEAKER_01]: So it wasn't that he just completely wrote it out.
50:29 --> 50:36 [SPEAKER_01]: But you can tell listen to this emphasis on the New Testament and it does seem to me like he thinks that the New Testament is better.
50:36 --> 50:47 [SPEAKER_01]: And of course, I mean, as a Christian, you probably go to church is not uncommon for the Old Testament to not be preached as often or to be ignored compared to the New Testament and we do put our hope in Jesus Christ that has come.
50:47 --> 50:50 [SPEAKER_01]: But God has written old to new Genesis to Revelation.
50:50 --> 50:54 [SPEAKER_01]: He is the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament and attack when they originally wrote it.
50:54 --> 50:55 [SPEAKER_01]: There was no testament there at all, right?
50:55 --> 50:57 [SPEAKER_01]: Like it was all just God's word.
50:58 --> 51:06 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think you can very clearly see Jesus throughout the Old Testament, and you can very clearly see the God of the Old Testament in the New Testament, because it's all written by the same one.
51:07 --> 51:14 [SPEAKER_01]: And but if you're looking for this more realistic, happy teaching Jesus that's kind of floating through doing nice things, he feels more present in the new.
51:15 --> 51:19 [SPEAKER_01]: And it's a lot harder to see him in the wilderness, or in the plagues on Egypt.
51:20 --> 51:24 [SPEAKER_01]: And so I think a lot of people who like the nice Jesus who's hugging
51:24 --> 51:29 [SPEAKER_01]: make it everybody feel good are going to drift towards the new test controller down on the old test.
51:29 --> 51:45 [SPEAKER_00]: It actually reminds me I think you send it to me once it was a little clip if I think some worship leaders from some church somewhere and I'm a worship leader here in the church that's why you send it to me like I think they were talking about the song praise and they were talking about like
51:45 --> 51:54 [SPEAKER_00]: violent lyrics in worship like it's so violent like it's like, you know, praise is the waters that my enemies drown in and they're like, but that's not what Jesus is about.
51:54 --> 52:02 [SPEAKER_00]: He's all about love and like have you read like the gospels have you read revelation like like there is Jesus chapter six and seven.
52:02 --> 52:04 [SPEAKER_01]: Some water that people drown in.
52:04 --> 52:08 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, and there's, yeah, so there is a very real part to it.
52:08 --> 52:11 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's just us struggling, maybe.
52:11 --> 52:16 [SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, I mean, I read Genesis, I read the Old Testament.
52:16 --> 52:25 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I struggle with those things in a sense that I don't like seeing people being killed, or I don't like those stories of the moral failings of people.
52:25 --> 52:26 [SPEAKER_00]: But it is the reality.
52:27 --> 52:29 [SPEAKER_00]: It is the reality that we see that through,
52:30 --> 52:43 [SPEAKER_00]: sin coming into the world through it and that, you know, humanity is in trouble and and we're not going to be able to save ourselves and I really cannot escape this feeling that Charles Dickens is leaning that way.
52:43 --> 52:51 [SPEAKER_00]: Like if we just, you know, understand Jesus well, if we just do what he does, that's going to like the moral transformation, that's what's going to
52:51 --> 52:52 [SPEAKER_00]: bring us salvation.
52:53 --> 52:56 [SPEAKER_00]: That's when God says, Hey, that's you're doing well.
52:56 --> 53:09 [SPEAKER_00]: Come on in and enough, not the part where it's just like, hey, it's grace and grace alone and we just have to accept that and we have to know repent from our sins and that kind of transformation.
53:09 --> 53:16 [SPEAKER_00]: That's not what we're seeing in his works and there's other hints I feel like again still we earlier touched
53:21 --> 53:30 [SPEAKER_00]: But he never mentions the Trinity like and you know, maybe someone can correct me on this, but this is what I found like just from like people sort of summing up the research.
53:30 --> 53:43 [SPEAKER_01]: It never mentioned here here, he mentioned the Holy Spirit that I can think of in all the readings I read that we might go in through he's mentions Jesus Christ a lot he mentions God, but I can't think of the Holy Spirit and he mentioned anywhere.
53:43 --> 53:58 [SPEAKER_00]: And while, like, if we read, like, you know, the letters from Paul, like the works of the Holy Spirit in our life, that's what actually, you know, through through us accepting or accepting, yeah, accepting the, sorry, I'm starting to mobile.
53:59 --> 54:06 [SPEAKER_00]: Through us accepting Jesus into our lives, we receive the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit, you know, brings that transformation in us.
54:07 --> 54:16 [SPEAKER_00]: So that we can, you know, do good things and like you said before and with James as well, like there's faith and works, but faith always comes before works.
54:16 --> 54:19 [SPEAKER_00]: Works will never cause faith.
54:20 --> 54:35 [SPEAKER_00]: but faith should cause works, and that's how I feel, not at least, and you know, and but I do think Dickens would have loved James, like I think the book of James is the one where he's like, but guys, there it is, like you know, you got to be doing things.
54:35 --> 54:42 [SPEAKER_01]: And he really, I think and James too, the rich and poor, to get Dickens some credit while we've been kind of hit them pretty hard on the theology.
54:42 --> 55:05 [SPEAKER_01]: If I can give them some credit in a time when the poor or being deeply mistreated, Dickens is pointing out that for a bunch of people who claim to be Christian, look at all these poor suffering people that you're leaving out to dry and his work did help move, you know, as I say, move the needle, change the overton window, open people's eyes to realize him, we haven't been taking care of the poor nearly as well as we need to be doing.
55:06 --> 55:10 [SPEAKER_01]: and they are just, you know, tiny Tims that need to die off their people to have lives they matter.
55:11 --> 55:28 [SPEAKER_01]: And you could even argue that maybe some of that social movement that has helped, you know, the reason we don't have child workers, maybe in the factories, and more partially is because of the work of Dickens and others, but we're pointing out this is a really bad thing for Christians who supposedly love God to allow to continue happening.
55:28 --> 55:32 [SPEAKER_01]: So if I give him some credit, he wasn't just saying we need to do it.
55:32 --> 55:33 [SPEAKER_01]: He was very sincere.
55:33 --> 55:38 [SPEAKER_01]: It was his life's mission and he did make the world in a sense a better place and then you could argue.
55:39 --> 55:43 [SPEAKER_01]: But did he do it for the same reasons out of a love of Christ and a love of God?
55:43 --> 55:49 [SPEAKER_01]: Or was it a love of morality and a kind of almost secular humanistic love of humanity?
55:49 --> 55:52 [SPEAKER_01]: Like was it being driven because he loved Jesus?
55:53 --> 55:55 [SPEAKER_01]: Or was it being driven by a love of your neighbor
55:59 --> 56:01 [SPEAKER_01]: It's very difficult for me to tell.
56:02 --> 56:14 [SPEAKER_01]: I will say, if we didn't have the divorce and the cheating on his wife, this would be like, you know, I would just kind of, I would view him, I would view him as kind of like, you know what, let's go ahead.
56:14 --> 56:17 [SPEAKER_01]: Do you wanna go ahead and slap the judgment down and give our final opinions?
56:17 --> 56:22 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we're going to have to write like we can dance around it and just keep keep saying the same things.
56:23 --> 56:27 [SPEAKER_00]: So we got to we got to do it, but I'm going to let you go first.
56:28 --> 56:28 [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
56:28 --> 56:30 [SPEAKER_01]: So no problem.
56:30 --> 56:31 [SPEAKER_01]: I will jump on this.
56:31 --> 56:31 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't mind.
56:32 --> 56:33 [SPEAKER_01]: Wait, I get it.
56:33 --> 56:41 [SPEAKER_01]: If I didn't have his divorce in his Cheyenne's wife, I would struggle to say he's not a Christian and I would say he's very moralistic.
56:41 --> 56:42 [SPEAKER_01]: He's very therapeutic.
56:43 --> 56:46 [SPEAKER_01]: But you know what, there are Christians that go to churches that kind of are that way.
56:46 --> 56:49 [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe he's just like, you're kind of shallow, you've passed your life.
56:49 --> 56:53 [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe like, hey, everybody, you know what's bad being mean?
56:54 --> 56:55 [SPEAKER_01]: Jesus was nice.
56:55 --> 56:57 [SPEAKER_01]: And like, that's not the best way to do it, but that they exist, right?
56:57 --> 57:00 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, okay, it's got how he comes across a little bit there.
57:00 --> 57:01 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's right.
57:01 --> 57:03 [SPEAKER_01]: Charles Dickens, shallow, you've passed her.
57:03 --> 57:03 [SPEAKER_01]: That's the one.
57:05 --> 57:25 [SPEAKER_01]: But the Chinius wife thing, the bell-latin, the switching from unitarianism, out of unitarianism, to Anglicanism, to writing this very fluffy book about Jesus to his kids, and really emphasize and just the new testament to the interning around Chinius wife, and never really seem to feel bad about any of this.
57:26 --> 57:29 [SPEAKER_01]: I held the feel like he's missing.
57:29 --> 57:34 [SPEAKER_01]: So the key piece that's missing is theology seemed to be the key piece that was missing in his life.
57:35 --> 57:38 [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm leaning on, I'm leaning on, I don't think he was saved.
57:39 --> 57:52 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm leaning on, I'm leaning on, I don't know, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don
57:56 --> 57:59 [SPEAKER_01]: At the time, Charles Dickens, who are going like, nah, I don't really think so.
57:59 --> 58:05 [SPEAKER_01]: I think he puts it out, he shows it to them in the public, but inside it's not real to him.
58:05 --> 58:10 [SPEAKER_01]: He might even go through the motions of praying at night in the day, but it's not who he really is.
58:11 --> 58:21 [SPEAKER_01]: And I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't have the heart, but I can't put from my perspective right here, kind of go, I feel like I'm leaning with that crowd, where I like to see some repentance for how you treated your wife and some
58:21 --> 58:31 [SPEAKER_01]: some acknowledgment of God that's more than just he makes you feel good and happy and you need to have a conversion moment.
58:31 --> 58:36 [SPEAKER_01]: But again, you're telling the whole Christmas crowd story, but the Christmas part is almost completely left out.
58:37 --> 58:40 [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like that's in some ways the great metaphor for his faith.
58:40 --> 58:46 [SPEAKER_01]: where you can see, he's telling the entire story, you're like, you're only saying that because it's the only story by him, you know?
58:47 --> 58:47 [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe.
58:48 --> 58:50 [SPEAKER_01]: So I'll start the one where it's the most talks.
58:50 --> 58:58 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the Christmas story is about the Jesus, it's about, it's supposed to be about that, but somehow it's, he's missing from the entire story.
58:58 --> 59:00 [SPEAKER_01]: And I can't, I feel like that's what we have with Charles Dickens.
59:00 --> 59:09 [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, I think it has all the outside, but the peace that you absolutely need the most, Jesus is God, and he saves repented sinners,
59:10 --> 59:13 [SPEAKER_01]: who actually repent seems to be the missing piece of equation.
59:14 --> 59:23 [SPEAKER_00]: Wow, I don't know if I can top that so, but yeah, no, as I'm listening to you and as we're going through and I'm sort of recapping any of my mind, this story of Charles Dickens, I think.
59:24 --> 59:25 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, what I'm seeing here,
59:27 --> 59:32 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think he was genuinely searching for a while at this.
59:32 --> 59:37 [SPEAKER_00]: I think he was genuinely like looking into like, okay, what, how do I form my faith?
59:37 --> 59:53 [SPEAKER_00]: I think a lot of how his faith got formed though was also like as a counter move to a church that was a little bit, you know, not doing what they were supposed to do because like we said before in his quote, like, I agree with what he's saying, like we have to love
59:56 --> 01:00:04 [SPEAKER_00]: And, and those are things that we should be doing and he was really reacting strongly to a church that was not doing it.
01:00:05 --> 01:00:18 [SPEAKER_00]: But I think in reacting so strongly to like the organized church and to like structure theology and just that idea of like history and forming a theology and working from that he was so
01:00:20 --> 01:00:40 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, against that and so writing against those things that he sort of, he overshot, that's kind of how I feel in that like he, he, he focused so much on the moral part of it that he, I think he did lose like you said as well like he lost a key piece there where he just said like hey if we're just more like,
01:00:42 --> 01:01:10 [SPEAKER_00]: Let me put it this way if you look at faith and works like he would be very much on the works side where I feel as complicated as this sometimes is faith alone is enough to be saved and you can have Christians around that you're like you know why you're not doing something like if you really believe and there's always this discussion but if they truly believe you would see it anyway, but just thinking of like the
01:01:12 --> 01:01:18 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm thinking out loud here and I hope you bear with me thinking about the murder on the cross.
01:01:18 --> 01:01:20 [SPEAKER_00]: Like he is right there on the cross next to Jesus.
01:01:21 --> 01:01:23 [SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't have time to change his life morally.
01:01:23 --> 01:01:38 [SPEAKER_00]: Like he doesn't really have time to do something ethical and have that like hope of God saving him that that thickens his writing about like we make confidently hope that God will forgive us our sins and mistakes and we enable us to live and die in peace.
01:01:39 --> 01:01:52 [SPEAKER_00]: like that guy had no chance, but he did because it's Jesus right there next to me says, hey, because of what you're, you know, professing your faith right now, you will be with me in paradise still today.
01:01:52 --> 01:01:54 [SPEAKER_00]: And that's, I don't think Dickens would have.
01:01:55 --> 01:02:01 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I bet he's not in the life of our Lord because that doesn't fit with what he's thinking.
01:02:03 --> 01:02:06 [SPEAKER_00]: So, sorry to make a very long, rambling story short.
01:02:08 --> 01:02:09 [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's just where he goes wrong.
01:02:09 --> 01:02:10 [SPEAKER_00]: He's really on the work side.
01:02:11 --> 01:02:19 [SPEAKER_00]: He's really like, we just have to be moral and, yeah, with death, seeing his own life, it makes it hurt all the more.
01:02:19 --> 01:02:21 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, okay, if that is what you're doing
01:02:24 --> 01:02:39 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, for sure, but then again, like there is no account and maybe people can correct this, or there's no story, really, of him feeding a poor, of him going out to the hospitals and tending to the sick.
01:02:39 --> 01:02:41 [SPEAKER_00]: And that's also where I start.
01:02:41 --> 01:02:43 [SPEAKER_00]: Like if you're really,
01:02:44 --> 01:02:46 [SPEAKER_00]: doing this like you got to practice what you preach.
01:02:47 --> 01:02:48 [SPEAKER_00]: Let me get that I'm missing as well.
01:02:48 --> 01:03:01 [SPEAKER_01]: Let me give you a good example of a counter and in comparing anybody to this gentleman is a little rough on you, but at living at the same time, another Charles Spurgeon who was living in London, same city, same time period,
01:03:02 --> 01:03:13 [SPEAKER_01]: Um, but they found a book by beggars and at the top of the list of how to bet it was a how to beg book for beggars and London and the top of the list, you know, underneath a manual for how you should beg.
01:03:13 --> 01:03:16 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure it's safe things like be nice or I don't know whatever it wants to do.
01:03:16 --> 01:03:18 [SPEAKER_01]: Sit at this corner for another beggar comes by.
01:03:18 --> 01:03:19 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure it's full of rules that are at the very top.
01:03:19 --> 01:03:25 [SPEAKER_01]: It said, if you see Charles Spurgeon always asking for money, he will always give.
01:03:25 --> 01:03:35 [SPEAKER_01]: This is a Christian pastor over the biggest church in the entire British Empire, I believe, of the biggest Baptist Church of the Eastern Higher British Empire at the Hydo's power.
01:03:35 --> 01:03:38 [SPEAKER_01]: And in a beggar's handbook, he didn't know they wrote this.
01:03:38 --> 01:03:40 [SPEAKER_01]: It said, always go to Spurgeon.
01:03:40 --> 01:03:42 [SPEAKER_01]: He always gives money as to his generous.
01:03:43 --> 01:03:51 [SPEAKER_01]: That is a testimony to Spurgeon's love to the poor and him being the hands of feed of Jesus on the streets in London.
01:03:51 --> 01:03:52 [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't say Charles Dickus.
01:03:53 --> 01:04:08 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, this guy's a pastor, but he's giving to the poor, but doesn't say Dickens is the one who's hanging out in the, okay, maybe not fair, trustworth is one of the most famous preachers that ever lived, but I think kind of makes the point like when I was going through his life, I didn't see the charity work he was doing.
01:04:09 --> 01:04:11 [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't see the doors he was opening for the poor.
01:04:11 --> 01:04:13 [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't hear about the children he was adopting.
01:04:13 --> 01:04:19 [SPEAKER_01]: that Spurgeon opens an orphanage to take care of poor kids and lots of other people like George Mueller and stuff like that are doing that in England too.
01:04:19 --> 01:04:29 [SPEAKER_01]: Dickens is writing books, pointing out how bad it is, making money and living in a nice life writing plays and stuff, off the money he made, pointing out that poor people are having a hard time.
01:04:29 --> 01:04:31 [SPEAKER_01]: But where is his help?
01:04:31 --> 01:04:37 [SPEAKER_01]: Where is him applying the idea that we need to be the hands of feet of Jesus to others?
01:04:37 --> 01:04:41 [SPEAKER_01]: I did want to make sure because I said, oh, I don't think Christmas Carol hardly mentions God.
01:04:41 --> 01:04:43 [SPEAKER_01]: And then I thought to myself, what have I wrong about that?
01:04:43 --> 01:04:45 [SPEAKER_01]: It's I did a quick Google while you were sharing.
01:04:45 --> 01:04:50 [SPEAKER_01]: And yes, there is no reference to the Bible of salvation through Jesus Christ.
01:04:50 --> 01:04:53 [SPEAKER_01]: There's only one illusion to Dodd by Tiny Tim at the end of the novel.
01:04:53 --> 01:04:54 [SPEAKER_01]: Cordy, I want to read you here.
01:04:55 --> 01:05:13 [SPEAKER_01]: And then the self is basically just talking about how Jesus will help the lane and the beggars and the blind, etc, which is of course what would tidy to him would be saying, but it's so when I say that like Christmas Carol is a almost crisis, Christmas story, in a lot of ways, it is next to as crisis as you can get.
01:05:13 --> 01:05:18 [SPEAKER_01]: You can people may outlook or raise people to have their metaphors, but if you're just looking at it on paper,
01:05:19 --> 01:05:26 [SPEAKER_01]: He did definitely did not bring Jesus Christ salvationary work on the cross in redemption of sinners into that story.
01:05:27 --> 01:05:31 [SPEAKER_01]: And so you combine these issues all together and you have to look at the life of Charles Dickens.
01:05:31 --> 01:05:35 [SPEAKER_01]: And at least my perspective, if he is a Christian, he really lets us down.
01:05:36 --> 01:05:37 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think so too.
01:05:37 --> 01:05:40 [SPEAKER_00]: But I do think, well, we can definitely learn from this.
01:05:40 --> 01:05:49 [SPEAKER_00]: And we've said this before, like, even though it's a history show, it's actually a little bit more like almost a discipleship, theology show discussion as well.
01:05:49 --> 01:05:52 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, okay, but one of the things we're seeing or things we're missing.
01:05:52 --> 01:06:02 [SPEAKER_00]: So I think what we're really seeing here is like, first of all, like the redemptive work of Jesus on the cross that has to be your starting point, because otherwise you just
01:06:02 --> 01:06:17 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, you can be as mole as you want, but you see it in his own life like he really takes a wrong turn And there's a friendly nothing in his own heart, or in his own mind, convicting him to you know to make things right So we can definitely see that like
01:06:18 --> 01:06:43 [SPEAKER_00]: like yeah you just need Jesus in your life and you can and it's it's a common thing in these days as well there's a lot of people out there that are saying like hey Jesus he was a great moral teacher but that's not enough that that's just really not enough and you're missing actually the main points of Jesus' work on earth yes he gave some great great examples of how we should live.
01:06:44 --> 01:06:45 [SPEAKER_00]: and we should aspire to that.
01:06:45 --> 01:06:46 [SPEAKER_00]: Like we should want that.
01:06:47 --> 01:06:52 [SPEAKER_00]: But in the end, it's just about accepting him as our Lord and Savior.
01:06:52 --> 01:06:56 [SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, for for Dickens, I'm going to go with an unsure because
01:06:59 --> 01:07:05 [SPEAKER_00]: We just simply don't know for sure like there's no like clear theological thing or heresy even at work here.
01:07:05 --> 01:07:20 [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like so I'm going to go with like and if he's sadly saying sure estimate that I mean which he is at least in practice, but I also don't want to make that the standard because out of love to many people I think we.
01:07:21 --> 01:07:37 [SPEAKER_01]: I have lots of probably good Christian mother sisters in our life, maybe even you listening right now who don't spend nearly as much time in the Old Testament as you probably should I was at it when I was a seminary in the past a professor who said he went to entire year at a big southern Baptist seminary and he counted all the chapels that they did they chapel every week.
01:07:38 --> 01:07:51 [SPEAKER_01]: and they were like you counted all the ones that included the Old Testament versus the New Testament and at the end of the year out of like 40 something chapels, two were in the Old Testament, and one was in Psalms and then maybe what I think was just classic David and Goliath or something like that.
01:07:51 --> 01:08:00 [SPEAKER_01]: So it's so again, I don't want to make, you know, if we're just saying people prefer the New Testament, well that's the average Christian too, but still, it is, that is probably not.
01:08:01 --> 01:08:08 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so well, I think there you have it, so so my official verdict is a unsure leaning note.
01:08:09 --> 01:08:09 [SPEAKER_00]: Troy, where are you yet?
01:08:09 --> 01:08:10 [SPEAKER_01]: I was leaning though.
01:08:10 --> 01:08:18 [SPEAKER_01]: I would be more, I do feel like he has enough to make a case for very shallow faith, perhaps deeply confused shallow faith.
01:08:18 --> 01:08:21 [SPEAKER_01]: And I do have to get him, I get a little bit more rope here than the 1800s in England.
01:08:23 --> 01:08:24 [SPEAKER_01]: in the elite world.
01:08:24 --> 01:08:27 [SPEAKER_01]: It was not uncommon to have very messed up, confused, beliefs.
01:08:27 --> 01:08:33 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, this is the era of Charles Darwin, this is the era of a lot of liberal attacks on the Bible.
01:08:34 --> 01:08:41 [SPEAKER_01]: Of course, that might just make the case of why James, the book that we think that he would like so much would say not many rich, right?
01:08:41 --> 01:08:47 [SPEAKER_01]: The rich you have a harder time and, well, I think in Dickinson's case, the rich elites have a harder time.
01:08:47 --> 01:08:49 [SPEAKER_01]: So it's very hard for me to say
01:08:53 --> 01:09:21 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, well, that's it, Charles Dickens, you know, for us right before Christmas, so we might think of him a little bit as we celebrate Christmas in two weeks for you as you're listening this maybe yeah, we don't know what what sees that's going to be hopefully some were like January, February, maybe I'm sure you know what you'll bring it back around every Christmas you'll gather the children and it said to put it on a Christmas Carol you'll put on Charles Dickens Christian or not to talk about why Christmas Carol has some issues even though I do like the
01:09:21 --> 01:09:39 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, and that's, I mean, maybe to keep circling back, but there is definitely things to learn here for all of us that also really want to live a Christian life, there's things here to learn, things that we see that we should be doing, things that we definitely should not be doing.
01:09:40 --> 01:09:44 [SPEAKER_00]: But this is it, this is Chris Chernaut, this was Charles Dickens, my name is Mark, I am truly