A Christian Carol is strange little adaption from 2017. After viewing a few times, it hasn’t fared any better in my perception from previous years. It is another adaptation where the lead character is female. It is poorly acted. In this day and age, an independent movie does not have to equal looking poorly or cheaply made.

Reworking Dickens

Carol is a manager in a large business. She is hard-edged and firm with a no-nonsense attitude to others in the company. This includes her pregnant sister, Grace, who happens to also work at the same company. She becomes angry when her sister and co-workers are having a Christmas celebration despite being “off the clock.” Carol is also upset about her sister’s pregnancy. Grace’s husband is a pastor and she is leaving work to raise her soon to be born child. None of this sits well with Carol.

Carol and Grace work for a company called Rev13 Industries. This an obvious reference to the Bible’s book Revelation, chapter 13. In the Bible, this is the appearance of two beasts out of the sea, insinuating the company Carol is fiercely loyal to is evil and demonic.

Carol begins receiving a barrage of message notices on her computer and reluctantly responds. She is informed that she has now signed into Training Module 3:16. Of course, this is a blatant reference to one of the most quoted Bible verses, John 3:16; this is the one that begins, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son…” This is the signal for Carol to begin her three biblical lessons with the obvious intention it will bring her to Jesus.

The visitor to teach the first lesson is the archangel Gabriel. He tells her not to be afraid and he will show her what was. In other words, he’s the equivalent of the Ghost of the Past. He shows her the Nativity story.

When it is over, she wakes at her desk still in front of her computer screen. She obviously believes it was a dream. For the next lesson, a strange looking rabbi appears to her to show her “the Christmas that is” (the Ghost of Christmas Present). This predominantly consists of visiting her pastor brother-in-law’s church. We also learn that Carol is estranged from her mother and family. Carol and her sister were children of a pastor for which Carol is bitter about because of the humble life-style.

Once more finding herself at her office computer, she meets St. Paul the Apostle who takes to see “the Christmas that is to come.” Carol is show how wonderfully happy people are by accepting the non-denominational beliefs of her brother-in-law’s church. Carol is then shown the Apocalypse and the “rapture” which she, of course, is left out of.

With Carol’s final waking in her office, it is still Christmas Eve (instead of the traditional Christmas morning). She’s happy it still Christmas Eve and that she hasn’t missed the “rapture.” Carol runs to her brother-in-law’s church to meet her family and join her mother singing “O Holy Night.” After this time, “Carol kept Christ in her heart all year long.”

Fixing What is Not Broken

This purports to be a modern Christmas Carol from “a Christian perspective.” It is actually a modern Christmas Carol that misses the mark. The problem is that A Christmas Carol already is from a Christian perspective. It’s heavily Christian. Its main themes are redemption, forgiveness, and charity. Admittedly, the majority of performances and adaptations of A Christmas Carol tread lightly with the spirit of Dickens’ personal Christianity; most adapters generally treat A Christmas Carol as pure secular fare (which it is not) as much as Christmas itself is treated. I generally do not let them stop me from my love for all the different versions of A Christmas Carol.

But the insinuation with this version is that the story of A Christmas Carol is lacking a Christian theme. A Christian Carol’s creators assume the source material’s lack of something that is already there. Personally, I would love to see a version done overtly emphasizing its intended Christian leanings, within the confines and spirit of its standard story’s framework. This version is really intended for a niche audience of the uniquely American born flavor of evangelical non-denominational belief that tries to corner the moniker of “Christian.”