It’s nearly Christmas, and Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” is once again on television in all of its movie manifestations – from Alistair Sim to the Muppets’ version, and everything in between. It tells the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, “a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching covetous old sinner,” to quote Dickens’ description of the man.

Through a series of flashbacks and warnings brought to Scrooge by the three spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet To Come, we learn how his youthful ambition became so poisoned by greed that he felt no compassion for his fellow man, no generosity for his employee, Bob Cratchit, and no love for anything but his money and the drive for acquiring more. In the end, Scrooge is alternately cajoled and terrified into seeing the light, and his night with the spirits renders him a changed man, full of love, compassion and generosity.

But it could have gone the other way. At any moment, the “humbug” cynicism of his track record could have overwhelmed all the good intentions of his enlightenment – leaving him twice as greedy, twice as embittered as before.

Indeed, this is what seems to be happening to the Powers That Be in America today. Through the years of the Industrial Revolution, the captains of industry felt no hesitation in exploiting migrant labor, poor children and anyone else who could serve the wealth machine that made the Carnegies, Vanderbilts, Rockefellers and other robber barons the Scrooges of America.

But then things began to change for the better. From a combination of events that included social legislation initiated by Franklin D. Roosevelt, the growth of labor unions and the education benefits of the G.I. Bill after World War II, a middle class was born in this country that quickly became the envy of the world. Suddenly, anyone with energy and focus could get an education, a good job and a home of their own. Affordable health insurance was widely available, and a broad-based, growing economy spread wealth throughout the land.

But Scrooge was about to revert again. Dwight D. Eisenhower warned in his departure speech from the presidency that the “military-industrial complex” was on the move, and many believe the Kennedy assassination was a result. It was a declaration to say that nothing and no one could stand in the way of a war in Vietnam that would make Scrooge even richer.

Today, Scrooge has fully reverted to his former self – a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner. The war for oil in the Middle East is destroying our economy, along with the exportation of manufacturing jobs and the importation of illegal aliens to take even the jobs of America’s poor. And the American Middle Class, the hope of the world, is quickly becoming a thing of the past. Once again, the rich grow richer on the backs of the poor. People’s jobs, homes and dreams are flying away, while the prices of gas, heating, health care and food are spiraling out of sight. And Scrooge is raking it in.

How did this happen? How did the hope for a world of fairness, of shared opportunity, revert to the exploitations of the past?

I believe it has a lot to do with the decline of religious faith among the people generally, and among the wealthy in particular. What was it, after all, that brought Dickens’ Scrooge to his knees? It was not the sight of his lost happiness in the company of the jovial Fezziwig, nor even the loss of Belle, his one true love. It certainly was not the sight of the ghastly children, Want and Ignorance, who lurked beneath the robe of the Spirit of Christmas Present.

No, what brought Scrooge to repentance and renewal was the vision of his own gravestone, and the reckoning that was to come. Scrooge’s first encounter of the night had been with the ghost of his late partner, Marley, who now dragged the heavy chains he’d forged in life through a hell of eternal remorse. It is the vision of our own mortality that proves the futility of greed, and brings us finally to our knees.

Meanwhile, the specters of Want and Ignorance spread and grow across our land. To quote Dickens: “They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meager, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with the freshest tints, a stale and shriveled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing.

“‘Spirit! Are they yours?’ Scrooge could say no more.

“‘They are Man’s,’ said the Spirit, looking down upon them. ‘And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.'”

Though Dickens doesn’t say it straight out, the Spirit of Christmas that can save us from this doom is an infant who rested that very first Christmas in a manger in Bethlehem. Recognize this, and you recognize the source of compassion, the source of mercy and love that can change the world. It can even change the heart of Scrooge.

Lee Witting is a chaplain at Eastern Maine Medical Center and pastor of the Union Street Brick Church in Bangor. He may be reached at leewitting@midmaine.com. Voices is a weekly commentary by Maine people who explore issues affecting spirituality and religious life.