Pushing Back on Pilgrim's Progress

The Long Shadow of a Christian Classic

I’m not a fan of Pilgrim’s Progress.

I know. It’s a Christian classic. The very late and extremely great J. I. Packer said that Christians should read John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress every year.

Nope. Sorry, Jim. I’m not doing that. Here’s why:

I realise that within my own tribe of conservative evangelicals that what I’m saying here is heresy. It’s almost on a par with denying penal substitutionary atonement. (I fully affirm this doctrine. Don’t panic, or send me copies of Pierced For Our Trangressions, thanks)

Many have been personally helped and encouraged by Pilgrim’s Progress. Great. Since its publication in 1678, it has been told and retold, illustrated and animated so that tens of millions have heard or read the story.

Moreover, hundreds of millions have been influenced by the story. It casts a long shadow over the part of the church that has grown from the non-conformist Puritan movement.

So here are two reasons why we should be careful when reading Pilgrim’s Progress. and drinking deeply from the well of Bunyan – or as he would probably put it, the Well of Mixed Blessings. It has two potentially serious side effects.

What’s Not To Like About Pilgrim’s Progress #1

Evangelical Christians have a hard time getting their heads around allegory. We like the simple stories of the gospels (which are more complicated the more you look at them). But we like the simple assertions of the epistles even more. In a Con Evo church, you’re never more than a few weeks away from a sermon series in Romans, Ephesians or Galatians.

How about a sermon series on Ezekiel? All of it. Not just the dry bones chapter.

What about Isaiah? Not just the Christmas plum pudding passages.

What about Jeremiah?

What about looking in detail at the allegorical imagery of the tabernacle and the temple? No?

I hear the objection already. “Er, I think you’ll find Christians can do allegory. Look at Pilgrim’s Progress. It is an allegory.”

NO. IT ISN’T.

As I wrote in The Gospel According to a Sitcom Writer,

Christian, burdened by his cares and worries, meets a character called Evangelist. He is literally helped out of the Slough of Despond by someone called Help and he literally goes through the Wicket Gate on his way to the Celestial City which sits on Mount Zion. This is not an allegory. Aslan is an allegory. Gandalf, Aragorn and Frodo are allegorical types of Christ – the prophet, the king and the suffering servant. Pilgrim’s Progress is not an allegory. It is, at best, theological fiction.

For me, the literalness of Pilgrim’s Progress renders it point­less. There is no subtext. We have a sense of what Obstinate, Pliable and Mr Worldly Wiseman are going to do the moment we meet them. The giant’s main problem is not a mystery since his name is Despair…

This success says more about Christians than the work itself. Historically, at least, many Christians, especially evan­gelicals like me, have found it easier and more comforting when things are literal and leave little to the imagination. But this is the mistake we see the disciples and Jesus’ enemies making in the Gospels again and again.

But the other day I discovered a whole other reason to dislike Pilgrim’s Progress.

What’s Not To Like About Pilgrim’s Progress #2

In the latest episode of Cooper and Cary Have Words, Barry Cooper and I were talking about the Ecumenical Movement. The episode is called That Would Be An Ecumenical Matter, a reference to an episode of Father Ted.

How can churches work together and have common purpose today, despite our differences? To what extent is that useful or a gospel imperative? Have a listen to the discussion or watch a slightly longer version on YouTube.

Those who are products of the low-church, non-conformist tradition are in perpetual danger of schism and separatism in the pursuit of doctrinal purity. Once you’ve split with the Church of Rome, what’s to stop you splitting again? And again? And again?

Eventually, if you’re not careful, you end up with the church of one person. This is not a healthy church. But this can be the part of the pursuit of personal purity. It is beguilingly attractive, not least because it doesn’t depend on anyone else.

Christian does WHAT?

Enter stage left, Christian from Pilgrim’s Progress.

What does he do when he is convinced of the gospel by Evangelist and places his burden at the cross? Join a church? Nope. There are none, apparently. Only false ones. So he leaves his wife and children.

What? Yup. That lifelong covenant bond made in the sight of God is essentially disregarded.

Christian also leaves his home town and heads off on his personal pilgrimage to the Celestial City. It’s all about his own personal quest for eternal life – and not being tricked, terrified or tempted away from the path of righteousness.

Am I being too literal about what the book is saying? Possibly. But we have to be honest here. Pilgrim’s Progress is a book that cares nothing for ecclesiology. For Bunyan’s hero, holiness is not something we pursue in church or even as a family. It’s something you do on your own. It’s all up to you.

This is the church of individualism, which is no church at all. Perhaps we need to drop Whisky Priest Father Jack into Pilgrim’s Progress and say to Christian in his pursuit of the holy life, ‘That would be an ecumenical matter’.

There are three different comic treatments and parodies of Pilgrim’s Progress in The Gospel According to a Sitcom Writer. Why not get a couple of signed copies for gifts at Christmas? And a copy of The Sacred Art of Joking for good measure?

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Four blokes called Pride, Arrogancy, Self-Conceit and Worldly Glory. (Always Late, Inconspicous and Wouldn’t Be Seen Dead in a Bunyan Book not pictured.)