Home - Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Hearing the Gospel through Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” Second Edition
Author: Reverend Cheryl Anne Kincaid
Date Of Publication: Jul 2011
Isbn13: 978-1-4438-2957-1
Isbn: 1-4438-2957-9
Most people don’t realize Charles Dickens has a biblical foundation. Each of the spirits that appear in A Christmas Carol directly correlates with an Advent lesson that is found in the Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer. Perhaps that is what attracts Christians to the story of A Christmas Carol. Every Advent Christians revisit this old Victorian moral story with its images of snow covered English cobblestone streets, the sentimentally portrayed ragged poor, and its familiar story line doesn’t seem to grow tiresome through the years. We revisit this story because it echoes with the ancient lessons of Advent.

Hearing the Gospel Through Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” is a Christian devotional that uses A Christmas Carol as a tool to teach the ancient Advent lessons of Hope, Faith, Peace, Love and Joy. Each week’s devotion begins with a section from A Christmas Carol which dramatizes the Advent Lesson and is followed with a scriptural Advent lesson from the Church of England’s Book of Prayer. The word Ebenezer is defined in scripture as “The Lord is my help” (1 Samuel 7:1–2). As we travel through Ebenezer’s redemptive healing journey, the devotional invites the participants to examine how Christ is born in their past, present and future. As a Christian pastor, I am grieved that the modern evangelical church has diminished the Advent season to a single Christmas Eve service or Christmas Sunday service. As a community, we no longer spend time preparing our hearts for the season of “Christ coming.”

This devotional is for Christians to use as private and family devotions to prepare themselves for the Advent season.

Reverend Cheryl A. Kincaid is an ordained minister with the Presbyterian Church, USA. She studied Marriage and Family Therapy at Bethel Seminary and later completed her Master's of Divinity at San Francisco Theological Seminary. Ordained in 2003, she is currently the pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Clifton in New Jersey, USA.

"Pastor Cheryl Kincaid is the author of the book, Hearing The Gospel Through Charles Dickens "A Christmas Carol," in which she delves into the Christianity of Charles Dickens, and the beautiful way the Good News is presented within the pages of his beloved classic novel. Her research and the insights gained are both intriguing and enlightening, and—while to hear about all of them, one would need to read her book. "

—Aimee Herd, Breaking Christian News

“Cheryl Kincaid has produced a fascinating and insightful reading of the lessons of Advent through the lens of one of the most beloved of Christmas stories, Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. Preachers and teachers will find here a treasure trove of ideas for teaching and preaching, and every reader will be inspired to reflect on the great redemptive themes of Christmas embedded in Dickens' classic story.”

—Dr. Mark Strauss, Professor of New Testament, Bethel Seminary, San Diego; Author of The Davidic Messiah in Luke-Acts; Distorting Scripture? The Challenge of Bible Translation and Gender Accuracy; “Luke” in the Illustrated Bible Background Commentary; The Essential Bible Companion; and Four Portraits, One Jesus: An Introduction to Jesus and the Gospels

Price Uk Gbp: 34.99
Price Us Usd: 52.99

Sample pdf (including Table of Contents)

We recommend

Language and Literature
Middle-earth and Beyond: Essays on the World of J. R. R. Tolkien

History
Arctic Discourses

Education
The Supportive School: Wellbeing and the Young Adolescent

Interesting reviews

From Navigating Music and Sound Education

“We rarely have the opportunity and time to engage with the practicalities of music teaching through the lens of evidence-based practice. This book provides us with a wonderful exception that is accessible to beginning and established teachers. It contains a wide range of stimulating and thought-provoking material that draws on real-world experiences and events, which are contextualised, informed and structured by theory. This is a powerful combination that we can visit again and again for insight and inspiration. Congratulations to all involved, particularly the editors for shaping such a valuable contribution!”
—Professor Graham F. Welch, University of London; President, International Society of Music Education

“Navigating music and sound education draws together a range of issues increasingly acknowledged to be at the basis of reflective and effective music learning and teaching: social settings, cultural dimensions, gender, indigeneity, varying cognitive approaches, inter-disciplinary connections, technology, types of learning, and creativity. It opens up areas of pedagogy that go beyond classroom methodology to acknowledge student individuality and encourage music learning and teaching grounded in the reality of students’ musical and social lives. It will be invaluable for those training to become educators and for teachers already in the field.”
—Associate Professor Peter Dunbar-Hall, University of Sydney

“This book brings an important contribution to music teacher education as it challenges the readers to rethink their paradigms of music education. It highlights the importance of preparing a reflective teacher, autonomous, creative and conscious of the multifaceted and multicultural locus in which they will work. The book also draws on the importance for music teachers to consider the context in which they work, and establish a dialog between local musical traditions, informal music practices and global trends of music teaching and learning. Most importantly, all chapters are in one way or another derived from research carried out on specific areas, thus stressing the importance of the research informed practice in music education.”
—Professor Liane Hentschke, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil; International Society of Music Education Immediate Past President

Many readers will appreciate Steve Dillon and Kathy Hirche’s description of the future of education in their work with dynamic technological contexts.

Navigating Music and Sound Education is a wonderful guide and resource for pre-service music teachers, for teachers in the field, and for teacher educators.

It offers a range of fresh perspectives on the state of music education as it is and as it might be. Kari K Veblen

Navigating Music and Sound Education is an ambitious project which features current research from 20 individuals whose professional identities run the gamut from musician to songwriter to student to educator to music therapist to ethnomusicologist. The book’s scope is perhaps the most exciting aspect of Navigating Music and Sound Education.
Kari K Veblen
University of Western Ontario
British Journal of Music Education
October 2011