To Be A Pilgrim
The Church of England remembers someone else they locked up
Pilgrim’s Progress, published in two parts in 1678 and 1684, is one of the best-selling books in human history. In every Christian home in England for centuries after publication, you would expect to find it alongside a large, expensive family Bible, and a copy of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. It’s not just an English phenomenon. The work has also been translated into 200 languages. Its simplicity transcends cultures and speaks of the simple Christian struggle to persevere in the faith and reach the Celestial City. Even though I’m not a fan, having written about my reasons elsewhere, I am clearly in the minority. Christians all over the world have cited it as a great treasure, worthy of multiple readings.
I mention it because its author, John Bunyan, is remembered by the Church of England on 30th August. He would be puzzled by this. Perhaps, even alarmed. He considered the Established Church to be fatally compromised in many ways, full of liberal compromisers - or ‘latitudinarian’ priests – who went crawling back to the King after the ten golden years of the Commonwealth in the 1650s.
The Commonwealth, mostly under the Lord Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, had been a heady time of millennial anticipation. After such a filthy civil war, you could be forgiven for thinking that Christ might be returning any day. Sects like the Diggers and the Ranters feverishly issued radical pamphlets, arguing for their version of Christianity after King Charles I had been beheaded and bishops abolished. Congregations were left to their own devices, as long as those devices were not popish or Romish. The disagreements that had torn the nation apart during almost a decade of civil war could be bitterly fought out at much more local level.
To Be a Pilgrim
Bunyan would be amazed to hear that the hymn based on Pilgrim’s Progress, ‘He Who Would Valiant Be’, was not only still popular, but sung at the very heart of the establishment: a memorial service for Prince Philip in Westminster Abbey on 29th March 2022. He could probably live with the changing of the words ‘Hobgoblin, nor foul fiend can daunt his spirit’ to ‘Since, Lord, thou dost defend us with Thy Spirit’. Bunyan wouldn’t recognise the tune although he would have applauded the origins of the now-recognisable folk tune. Named Monk’s Gate, it is name after the village in West Sussex in which it was found. It is one of many preserved by Ralph Vaughan Williams for the English Hymnal.
Bunyan would have been appalled that Vaughan Wililams did not even consider himself a believer and yet was commissioned to compile the music for an alternative to Hymns Ancient and Modern for the Church of England. But then again, that would confirm everything he already thought about the Church of England, full of ‘latitudinarians’.
Censorship
Once one had patiently explained the concept of Facebook to Bunyan, he would not be surprised to find that a woman called Julie Sweeney had been sentenced to 15 months in prison for inflammatory comments posted online about recent riots. Bunyan was not himself imprisoned for his written works. Indeed, his incarceration in 1661 for 12 years allowed him to get some serious writing done. (As a writer faced with distractions, I can at least relate to that).
Bunyan’s crime was not what we would call ‘hate speech’. There was plenty of that around in the late 17thcentury – much of it directed against Catholics who were considered fair game. The printing presses were heavily regulated and only allowed to operate in London, Oxford and Cambridge so that they could be closely monitored. As it turned out, the law was enforced sporadically, but the effect was chilling.
This partly explains the allegorical nature of Pilgrim’s Progress, albeit thinly disguised. One might think it was written that way to appeal to the ploughman, the peasant or even children. That was one of the ancillary benefits of his simple tale. The reason for his choice of genre may be more to do with censorship. An eloquent rant about the oppressive rule of the restored King Charles II and his bishops over the Church of England might have brought about a knock on the door. But if you’re telling a story, even a simple one, it makes things a little harder to prosecute someone for wrongthink.
Stories that have a childlike simplicity are often more potent. CS Lewis, who knew plenty about Pilgrim’s Progress and children’s books, found Orwell’s Animal Farm far more effective than the more adult 1984. He said 1984 was:
to be merely a flawed, interesting book; but the Farm is a work of genius which may well outlive the particular and (let us hope) temporary conditions that provoked it… Wit and humour (absent from the longer work) are employed with devastating effect. The great sentence ‘All animals are equal but some are more equal than others’ bites deeper than the whole of 1984.1
Just Say No
Bunyan’s 12-year imprisonment was not for something he wrote, or even said. It was for something he refused to say. He would not give an assurance that he would not repeat the offence of holding a non-conformist (ie. Non-Anglican) service. This was under the Conventicle Act of 1593, introduced under Queen Elizabeth I. Once again, one of the heroes of this Almanac is notable for saying ‘No. I will not say the thing you require me to say.’ Bunyan was the embodiment of the dissenter.
In fact, apart from the gospel of Jesus Christ itself, this is Bunyan’s primary passion: the right of a man to follow his conscience and worship Christ freely with like-minded believers. It’s there at the end of the second verse of his hymn: “but he will have the right to be a pilgrim.”
This passion comes through in A Turbulent, Seditious and Factious People: John Bunyan and His Church, 1628-88 by Christopher Hill. I stumbled across this title in a second-hand bookshop in Lyme Regis a few months ago. Hill, from a family of devout Methodists, became an eminent historian, and a card-carrying Marxist. He was spied on by MI5 for years but nothing was ever proven.
Hill was clearly taken with Bunyan’s life and writings (which extend far beyond Pilgrim’s Progress) in which the humble working man is honoured, while those in power oppressively exploit their wealth and their position. But perhaps Hill’s latent Methodism gave him the honesty to understand that Bunyan was not a class warrior, or a proto-Marxist.2 Bunyan was not consumed with envy or determined to prove that the rich had stolen their money from the poor. In all of Bunyan’s writings the wealthy and privileged are baddies because they are corrupted by their wealth and blinded by their position. Bunyan found it heart-breaking. He seemed to pity the rich. Bunyan’s attitude seems to be entirely consistent with Christ who said of the rich man: “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!” (Mark 10:23).
The Church of England, as the established church of the land, would do well to heed the warnings of Bunyan. So it is right that we remember – even against his will – John Bunyan on 30th August. And if you want to go further, why not sing Bunyan’s own words – hobgoblins and all – to the tune of Monk’s Gate?
Who would true valour see, let him come hither;
one here will constant be, come wind, come weather;
there's no discouragement shall make him once relent
his first avowed intent
to be a pilgrim.
Whoso beset him round with dismal stories,
do but themselves confound, his strength the more is.
No lion can him fright: he'll with a giant fight,
but he will have the right
to be a pilgrim.
Hobgoblin nor foul fiend can daunt his spirit;
he knows he at the end shall life inherit.
Then, fancies, fly away; he'll not fear what men say;
he'll labour night and day
to be a pilgrim.
And here’s a fun folk version to sing along to:
Listen to my parody of Pilgrim’s Progress from The Gospel According to a Sitcom Writer here:
Originally in Time & Tide.Now in Of This and Other Worlds
I only just finished the book last night, and his Marxism does start to show in the last few pages, but he’d earned the right, I think. Wasn’t he lucky that he could express himself that way without fear of censorship? Not sure the Marxists would afford others that right…