A Message of Hope: Reflections on My Brief Conversation with John Rhys-Davies

Talking with the Narrator of 'Scrooge: A Christmas Carol' about hope, western civilization, and Christianity's influence on the world and the arts.

It’s not every day that you get to sit down with one of your on-screen heroes.

A few weeks ago, I had the enormous pleasure of having a brief (albeit, virtual) sit-down with actor John Rhys-Davies. Though you likely know him best as either Gimli from The Lord of the Rings or Sallah from Raiders of the Lost Ark — or, if you ask my wife and sisters, as Chris Pine’s uncle Viscount Mabrey from The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement — Rhys-Davies is now the Narrator of a brand-new narrative podcast, Scrooge: A Christmas Carol.

And boy, does he have the perfect vocal range to present this timeless tale.

In my life and career, I’ve had the opportunity to speak with over a dozen different entertainment professionals. Writers, directors, producers, actors. But few of them have been equally as kind, thoughtful, and cerebral as John Rhys-Davies. It didn’t hurt that he won me over from the very beginning.

Having read and watched a handful of interviews with him in preparation, I assumed he would be very pleasant. Even better, I received a compliment that will stick with me for the rest of my life.

“That’s a fine beard you’ve got there,” he said the moment he saw my face in full. “A goodly, Dwarvish growth!”

I noted how the beard showed up only after the birth of my first kid, a fact that seemed to delight him. He was curious about how that would happen medically, though neither of us had any answers.

But what I was especially interested in was his reasoning for tackling yet another adaptation of A Christmas Carol. He had previously played a part in The Flintstones Christmas Carol, an animated feature released back in the ‘90s. Given that there’s no shortage of Dickens adaptations, I was curious as to why he was interested in participating in this one.

One might argue that we are oversaturated with Ebenezer Scrooge and his three Christmas ghosts every holiday season. Yet, we never quite get sick of him. Every season, we revisit the master grouch, and each time we’re left in awe at the masterful story of redemption presented to us.

John Rhys-Davies agrees. At first he called the tale a “sure-fire winner,” before explaining why he was drawn to narrate this latest revisitation.

Dickens was a master storyteller. This comes at a very difficult…time of his life… It’s a story about change and redemption. And it was one of the crucial things that changed his life and his fortune. He was, he had writer’s block, I believe. He had suffered great personal loss in his marriage, and… Frankly, he was in despair. And inventing this story — with its promise of hope and redemption and change — changed him, changed his fortune, changed his life.

He’s right, of course. Dickens first published A Christmas Carol as a novella over 180 years ago on December 19, 1843. Already well-established as an author, having previously sold Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby, he wrote the tale after his family began to struggle financially following the birth of his fifth child. He was in dire need of some hope.

Rhys-Davies reminds us that the message of A Christmas Carol is one of hope. That’s really the crux of the whole thing. It’s why so many are drawn to it every year. Scrooge’s journey is spiritual, eternal, and necessary as a means to enact change within his own life and heart. Consequently, it also has the power to enact the same in the lives of those around him.

It’s a powerful tale, one that sticks with a person throughout a lifetime. It’s also where our conversation took an interesting turn.

The message I would personally push is the message of hope. But it also is concomitant… What on earth justifies our hope? Our hope should be that we are the heirs and inheritors of the people who hoped and made wonderful changes that came before us. We are the heirs of the greatest civilization the planet has ever known, and it is a Judeo-Christian civilization we have inherited.

As Rhys-Davies continued, it became apparent that he is a man proud of our western culture, and the influence the Christian faith has had on it. He made note of how, without early Christianity, “there would be no classical canon of music.” Without early Christianity, there would be no “right to the individual conscience” or religious liberty, as we know it today. Without Christianity, there would be no “abolition of slavery.”

Elaborating with his trademark Shakespearean flare, Rhys-Davies highlighted how even secular composers such as Leonard Bernstein and Karl Jenkins — who contributed greatly to the world of music — owe a great debt to the western tradition first established by the Christian church.

But he didn’t stop there.

There is hope in abundance if you look around. There are still great things to be done. And what we need today is [to] emphasize and have confidence in our great western tradition of civilization, because it is the greatest glory of mankind.

No, Rhys-Davies doesn’t advocate for ignoring or dismissing other cultures and civilizations. He made that clear. Even Christianity, for all its efforts in building the modern western canon, still originates from the Ancient Near East (a very different part of the world, even today). But he does consider our culture to have a “position of moral certainty,” one that allows us to all live together and be free to explore all that the universe has to offer.

It’s here that Rhys-Davies quoted the English poet (and Jesuit priest) Gerard Manley Hopkins. Specifically his 1877 poem, “Hurrahing in Harvest,” though only the last four lines...

These things, these things were here and but the beholder
Wanting; which two when they once meet,
The heart rears wings bold and bolder
And hurls for him, O half hurls earth for him off under his feet.

For Rhys-Davies, western society and culture — which includes Scrooge: A Christmas Carol’s delightful source material — can open an entire universe of possibilities. It’s in this frame of mind that he returned to the concept of hope.

This is a time when we need hope. Look around you. It is—We have everything to be hopeful for. Now, we need to work at it. We need to work at it. Like Gimli, [Ebenezer Scrooge] has to overcome his xenophobia, his aggression, his hostility, his spitefulness, his meanness. But, in the end, you can love thy neighbor. But sometimes it takes an awful lot of hard work.

He’s certainly right about that.

“Loving thy neighbor” is considered by Jesus to be the second greatest commandment for a reason. We are told to first love God with all that we have (heart, soul, mind, strength), but part of how we do that is by loving our neighbors as ourselves. It’s a concept foreign to Scrooge at the beginning of the story, and as natural as breathing by the tale’s end.

But there was something that Rhys-Davies said near the beginning of our conversation that stuck with me. “Our hope should be that we are the heirs and inheritors of the people who hoped and made wonderful changes that came before us,” he posited.

But is this truly what our hope should be placed in?

Of course, we ought to give credit to those who fought tooth-and-nail to build a better world. Preserving our culture — our heritage, as Rhys-Davies so aptly put it — is important. And we cannot ignore that the Christian religion itself played a significant part in first establishing that better world.

But Rhys-Davies’ latest podcast endeavor has an even clearer answer to where our hope ought to be placed in.

For as much good as Christianity has done for the world, a sentiment with which the thespian would agree, people and cultures are imperfect by nature. At some point, our hope in them will be dashed, and our faith in mankind broken. This is where Scrooge is at the start of the tale.

It’s also precisely why the very Christians that John Rhys-Davies speaks of, including both Dickens and Hopkins, placed their faith and hope in Jesus Christ. In his novel, Little Dorrit, Dickens himself writes these powerful words spoken by the titular character…

Be guided, only by the healer of the sick, the raiser of the dead, the friend of all who were afflicted and forlorn, the patient Master who shed tears of compassion for our infirmities. We cannot but be right if we put all the rest away, and do everything in remembrance of Him. There is no vengeance and no infliction of suffering in His life, I am sure. There can be no confusion in following Him, and seeking for no other footsteps, I am certain!

Likewise, Hopkins’ “Hurrahing in Harvest” has been interpreted as a celebration of finding Christ within all of nature’s beauty. Those electric final lines may refer to the longing of the soul as it’s enraptured back to it’s Maker, reuniting with the One it’s been left wanting. Yet, in the beautiful simplicity of the mundane, all power and desire still ultimately lie in the Creator himself.

This is the message of hope that Scrooge: A Christmas Carol ultimately brings.

Whether you’re reading the biblical narrative or Dickens’ novella, it’s clear that redemption is not something that can occur solely within oneself. Neither can pure hope be found in temporal structures or imperfect institutions. Rather, these truths come from the One who holds all things together.

Sticking firmly to the original Dickens tale, the Hope Media Group and Compassion International have managed to put together a powerful audio drama that highlights the spiritual journey of a man who would otherwise go unredeemed. Ebenezer Scrooge (voiced here by Rhys-Davies’ Lord of the Rings co-star Sean Astin) is as dastardly as ever, but it’s these very sorts who need to discover what it means first to love, and also to be loved by their neighbor, the most.

As for John Rhys-Davies’ thoughts on the podcast, here’s what he had to say in a further statement:

It was a delight to be a part of the retelling of this timeless story in the Scrooge: A Christmas Carol podcast. A brilliant script and a wonderful cast makes for a great show and I anticipate that many more families will enjoy it this Christmas season.

If that doesn’t get you excited for Scrooge: A Christmas Carol, then I’m not sure what else will. As Rhys-Davies noted at the very end of our sit-down, “Every time we do one good thing, we change the world in a little way.”

This is the same notion that Scrooge implements to his own life after the melting of his warped heart, and it inspires us every holiday season. If Scrooge: A Christmas Carol can encourage even a single person to change their life, then it will be well-worth the venture.

You can watch the new trailer for this four-part podcast series — which dropped on Apple Podcasts and Spotify today — below.

Scrooge: A Christmas Carol Podcast, produced by Hope Media Group, is the retelling of the timeless Charles Dickens’ classic, A CHRISTMAS CAROL, destined to become a holiday tradition for individuals and families alike. This award-winning, star-studded audio drama will inspire and entertain while illustrating God’s profound ability to transform even the hardest of hearts through forgiveness and redemption. This beloved story, reimagined through the creative genius of screenwriter Paul Cuschieri and producer Mark Ramsey, is sure to become a sharable holiday delight for generations to come.

You can listen to Scrooge: A Christmas Carol directly online here

If you’re interested in listening to my full conversation with John Rhys-Davies, check out the very first Further Up & Further In podcast below.