The biblical imagery for Christmas links peace on Earth and justice to singing angels, shepherds, Persian astrologers, and a brilliant star. Those images were meaningful to pre-modern agricultural societies. Charles Dickens was the first to translate that message to apply to modern industrial cultures through the transformation of the financier Ebeneezer Scrooge.

Dickens described a rich miser’s three-part vision on Christmas Eve that was a secular version of Paul’s conversion on the Damascus Road. According to Acts 9:4-6, Paul was overwhelmed by a heavenly light, fell to the ground, and heard Jesus speak. Paul asked him to identify himself. The voice replied and then gave a command to act, which Paul immediately obeyed.

Jacob Marley identified himself and the punishment he was enduring because of the way he lived—a punishment that Scrooge had already exceeded unless he repented. Scrooge was not convinced, as he exclaimed that Marley was “always a good man of business.” Marley’s reply summed up the Christian message for the industrial age.

“Business!” cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”

An entire night of haunting visions was required to convert Scrooge to living by that message.

Turning to Christmas 2024, we see a host of billionaire Scrooges bubbling over with plans to enhance their idea of good business at the expense of random, heartless suffering of those in the middle and lower ends of society. Vivek Ramaswamy, a pharmaceutical billionaire, has suggested, for example, that the Social Security rolls could easily be reduced by randomly eliminating people based on even or odd Social Security numbers and without due process. Elon Musk is seeking to increase his federal contracts and shut down federal investigations of national security and other legal violations. For good measure, he demanded a government shutdown right at Christmas that intimidated Republicans in Congress and undermined a bipartisan agreement. Meanwhile, the CEOs of all the “tech giants” and major corporations are heading to Mar-a-Lago to bow and scrape to make more money at public expense.

Scrooge had a single employee. The host of Trump cronies control the welfare of many thousands of people, who mean less to them than the increasing value of their companies and their own personal wealth. Scrooge was a simplification of the system-wide pursuit of  monopolies and oligarchy that happens wherever unfettered capitalism prevails. Is a Christmas conversion experience possible for so many Scrooges who are now celebrating public approval of their attacks on the common welfare?

Far more likely is the conversion of the deluded 50% who gave power to the chief national terrorist and his Scrooge supporters. Most Americans were converted from supporting Scrooge policies when a depression in the 1920s and 1930s occurred because of corruption and lack of accountability by millionaires and banks. But voters returned them to power after 2000 and brought on the same problems in 2007 and 2008, yet the suffering was not deep enough to prevent returning them to power in Congress in 2010. Even the unnecessary death of half a million people in 2019-20 was not enough to warn the public against delusions of prosperity and competence under the rule of Scrooges.

This time the crisis could come toward the beginning of a presidential term, as with Herbert Hoover, rather than at the end of terms as with George W. Bush and Donald Trump. It would appear that at least three or more years of horrific collapse might be necessary to lead supporters of the Scrooges to decide that the business of government should have been (in the words of Marley) the common welfare, charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence.

Christmas of 2024 is a time of prayers for peace and justice in the world at a time when international conflicts are highly volatile and American leaders are more concerned about their own wealth and power. There is always room for hope that some of the Scrooges will have Marley insights that lead to conversion—that even evangelical Christians will rediscover Jesus’s message that the best way to show dedication to God is by loving neighbors as ourselves.

Let us pray that a new and deeper world depression or another world war caused by Scrooge indifference will not be necessary before the American people and leaders in Congress put aside delusions and stand up for charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, and the common welfare.

Let us pray, as Jesus did in a model prayer, that our leaders will do God’s will by meeting the daily needs of humanity, forgiving and seeking forgiveness, and avoiding the temptations of a self-serving quest of personal wealth and power—and that future voters will empower only people who demonstrate those values.

About the Author

  Edward G. Simmons is a Vanderbilt Ph.D. who teaches history at Georgia Gwinnett College. He is a Bible scholar, Unitarian Christian, and veteran Sunday School teacher in Presbyterian Churches. He is the author of Talking Back to the Bible and two chapters in The Spiritual Danger of Donald Trump: 30 Christian Evangelicals on Justice, Truth, and Moral Integrity edited by Ronald J. Sider. His latest book is Values, Truth, and Spiritual Danger: Progressive Christianity in the Age of Trump. Dr. Simmons is an energetic speaker for education, religious, and civic groups of all ages. He may be contacted at the following email address: egsimmons6@gmail.com.