"Muppet Christmas Carol" Is My Religion

Christmas dinner scene from "The Muppet Christmas Carol." Scrooge and a bunch of muppets are having dinner together. Image source.

[content note: spoilers for "The Muppet Christmas Carol" (1992 movie) and I guess the original story by Charles Dickens]

So I introduced my son to "The Muppet Christmas Carol". And, wow, so happy to watch that movie again! I love that movie.

At the end of the movie, after Scrooge has a change of heart and is going around being generous and celebrating Christmas with everyone, I had a lot of feelings. Like, trying to describe it, I'm like "I feel religious" but obviously "religious" has a lot of different meanings so let me try to explain it more.

Basically, what I want to say is: I'm a Christian, and this is what I think Christianity is about. Being a Christian is very important to my identity, so when I see a portrayal of the most essential core parts of it, it's really emotional for me. I love it. 

And, obviously, I have to put some caveats here- this is about what Christianity means to me, it's about what I think the main point is, but of course other people will have completely different opinions about that. Which is fine. This is just about my own feelings about religion.

And also, obviously, these concepts (being generous, caring about others, etc) don't have to be related to Christianity at all. For me they are related, but obviously anyone can have those values, regardless of their religious beliefs or lack thereof. I don't even think Christianity is like, uniquely connected to these virtuous concepts, or anything like that. I think anyone can take any major religion/ philosophy/ belief system and use it to do good or evil. To find inspiration in your beliefs to fight for a better world, or to find excuses for why you get to make the rules to control everyone else.

And, also, I can imagine that some Christians would criticize "The Muppet Christmas Carol" for not being Jesus-y enough. There are a few mentions of Christianity in the movie, but they're really just cultural indicators rather than being important to the plot. (For example, it's mentioned that Kermit the frog went to church on Christmas Eve.) I used to be evangelical, so I know there must be evangelicals out there saying "this movie is BAD because it's about CHRISTMAS but it doesn't talk about how JESUS is the ENTIRE MEANING of Christmas" blah blah blah. I thought about that criticism, as I watched the movie, as I was overwhelmed by how extremely Christian the ending felt to me.

And... oh man, I feel like I can't even say what I want to say without adding more and more caveats, because what I mean by "Christian" isn't ... like... what it's typically used to mean. Typically it means "explicitly about Jesus" or "claiming that we're right and everyone else is wrong". But what I mean here is... this is what Christianity is really about, to me. (Sometimes on this blog I use the phrase "the kingdom of heaven is like..." to describe this sort of thing.)

You can see I'm still kind of floundering here with the words. So... well, in summary, "The Muppet Christmas Carol" is my religion, and we'll leave it at that.

Other things that are also my religion:

• anything written by Martin Luther King Jr.
• "The New Colossus" ("Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free...")
• the song "Praying" by Kesha
• the scene in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" where Ego reveals that he caused the cancer that killed Starlord's mother, and Starlord takes out his blaster and repeatedly shoots Ego, no questions asked
• Micah 6:8
  "He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
      And what does the Lord require of you?
  To act justly and to love mercy
      and to walk humbly with your God."
• Bree Newsome climbing the flagpole to remove the Confederate flag, while quoting 1 Samuel 17:45, Psalm 27:1, and Psalm 23
• the scene in "Spiderman: Homecoming" where Tony Stark steps out of his Ironman suit, totally surprising Spiderman because he thought Tony was operating it remotely and didn't care enough to even be there

Readers: Do you have any examples of things that are "your religion" (whatever that means)?

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Related:

"You Weren't There, the Night Jesus Found Me" 

Worship Songs Round-Up

It Was Beautiful When Star-Lord Rejected the Gospel 

"The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special" is About Being an Immigrant