O what a goodly outside falsehood hath!

George C. Scott as Shylock, Bob Lerner, 1962

  Mark you this, Bassanio,

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose!
An evil soul producing holy witness
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the heart.
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!

-- William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act 1, Scene 3 

Human sacrifice was an abomination to God in the Law of Moses, but Christians insist Moses' God himself gave his own son's life as a ransom for many

 

And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. -- Genesis 22:10

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. 

Thou shalt not do so unto the LORD thy God: for every abomination to the LORD, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods.

-- Deuteronomy 12:30f. 

When thou art come into the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations.  There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee. 

-- Deuteronomy 18: 9ff.

And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant:  Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.

-- Matthew 20:27f.

And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. 

-- Mark 10:44f.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  

-- John 3:16

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. 

-- Galatians 2:20

And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour. 

-- Ephesians 5:2

But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; 

-- Hebrews 10:12

He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son. And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

-- I John 5:10f.

God abhorred human sacrifice by the children of Israel but somehow planned the sacrifice of his own son?

 They did not destroy the peoples, as the LORD commanded them, but they mingled with the nations and learned to do as they did. They served their idols, which became a snare to them. They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons; they poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan; and the land was polluted with blood. Thus they became unclean by their acts, and played the harlot in their doings. Then the anger of the LORD was kindled against his people, and he abhorred his heritage; 

-- Psalm 106:34ff.

I desire mercy not sacrifice

But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

-- Matthew 9:13

But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless.

-- Matthew 12:7

For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.

-- Hosea 6:6

Put By More Than Money

So advises the ghost of Christmas present to Scrooge, as played by George C. Scott in one of the many productions I have seen of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. The line is not in the original, but captures the spirit of it pretty well. The idea seems oddly out of place these days, seeing that many people haven't put by nearly enough money to survive what has turned out to be a protracted period of unemployment, crushing debt, dispossession and economic stagnation.

We watch a number of these productions in our home in the days leading up to Christmas every year, and in 2009 Disney produced another which was notably the occasion for some materialist nonsense by one Peter Foster (which can still be accessed in full here):

Would the world have been better without Scrooge? Did he force people to do business with him? Was Bob Cratchit not free to find better employment elsewhere? And if no such employment was available, was that Scrooge’s fault? Scrooge’s “conversion” is also problematic. Once Marley’s spectre has shown Scrooge what the afterlife looks like for the uncharitable, is there any need for the three Christmas ghosts? Scrooge has been “scared good” the old Christian way. With fear of eternal damnation.

The author is at pains in the essay to help the reader achieve, dare we say it, a more charitable view of capitalism than these productions usually afford, the 2009 Disney production starring Jim Carrey in sympathy with and perfectly timed for, it would seem, that odd thing, the wealth re-distributionist 44th president. Foster points out, quite rightly, how there has been a strong tendency in all quarters and evident for a long time, to encourage us to bite the invisible hand that feeds our society. And in this Mr. Foster surely is correct.

But if this tendency often expresses itself in caricatures of the reality in films, it is to miss the point entirely to conclude that Scrooge was simply "scared good." If Mr. Foster had taken the time to re-familiarize himself with Dickens' story, it is not evident from that remark. The ghosts were not superfluous because Dickens was anything but a proponent of some stern form of Christian fundamentalism any more than he was of the revolution of the proletariat. 

On the contrary, we should consider that the ghosts sent to Scrooge revealed to him many important truths which speak to the mysteries and wonders of life beyond the superficialities of mere production and consumption with which both Marxism and now capitalism concern themselves in a world flattened by the dismal science of economics. And it is this flat view of life which animates Mr. Foster no less than it does his anti-business bogeymen.

At least the economists of the past paid back-handed compliments to the more real, multi-dimensional world we all used to inhabit, where "markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent" and "in the long run, we're all dead." As Dickens reminds us in the beginning of his story, at Christmas we open our shut-up hearts freely and think of people as "fellow-passengers to the grave," into which no new 3D film technology from Disney will scarcely be able to take us.

No, Dickens is more a proponent of the methods of Socrates than of some wild-eyed hellfire and damnation preacher. Scrooge lives the unexamined life, which to Socrates is a life not worth living. Wedded to a Christian conception of reality in which the grace of God trumps all, it is Divine Providence which sends the spirits who help awaken Scrooge to life's examination and explanation, showing him the meaning behind the "shadows of the things that have been, that are, and are yet to come."

A thoughtful, educated person would instantly be reminded of the shadows constantly beheld by the cave-dwellers in Plato's allegory in Book X of The Republic, whom the philosopher comes down from the mountain to release, fixed in their seats facing the darkness, unable to see behind themselves. He comes to loosen their chains, which stand for Ignorance, that they may turn and see the objects on which the Light shines, creating the shadows their eyes mistook for the true things.

These Socratic ghosts show Scrooge that he once thought his own life had been truly worth living; 
that he was actually happy once, open to the world and other-directed;
that love was real and precious;
that people could mean it when they repented of their mistakes;
that they could change for the better;
that each life has the potential to mean something positive to every one around it;
that people exist who are quite happy without money;
that if individuals mattered to God they should matter to him;
that we must pay homage to ordered liberty, be thankful and toast the founder of our feast, whatever else others may think of him;
that choosing justice for its own sake is as indispensable for the conduct of his own business as for the conduct of the business of life.

"Mankind was my business!" shrieked the ghost of Marley.

And it is ours.