I will turn this quote a bit on its head: “I take my pleasure in walking alone,” Ignorance explains. Isn’t this always the way of ignorance? It’s not that he’s an introvert (nothing wrong with that!), but rather it’s that he stubbornly resists the element of “iron sharpening iron” that happens in community. He’d rather “do his own research” than humbly learn from others more knowledgeable and experienced than he.” Ignorance may be at fault but so is the Christian community that allows him to languish on the sidelines in his beliefs. This is a product of our autonomous culture - every person a master of his fate! Alan Noble’s “We Are Not Our Own” is a wonderful antidote to this condition. I have introvertish tendencies but find that when people are interested in me, I respond and engage in conversation and am enlightened. I read Jia Tolentino’s “Trick Mirror” about her growing up in a Houston mega-church before rejecting the faith as a college student. I noticed that not once in her book did she mention an adult woman who came alongside her to engage in conversation about her faith. I also noticed that Molly Worthen, once a confirmed atheist, found Christ through conversations with Tim Keller and JD Greer.
I was thinking as I read Hopeful's account of his salvation that the insistence on having a vision of the Lord was more charismatic than modern Baptists would approve. I also thought that Ignorance might represent Bunyan's view of the Established church.
Yes, Bunyan's religious scrupulousity is in full view in Christian's conversations with Hopeful and Ignorance - he brings out all the frightening verses that terrified me at my lowest points. He really needed someone like my old pastor to teach him on the work of the Holy Spirit.
On Christian's difficult passage through the waters, I have known it to happen. More than one of my relatives, who were shining lights in their lives, struggled at the end. "The sorrows of death compassed me", a phrase David uses more than once in Psalm 18 and 116. I think Bunyan was courageous to portray it to the rather judgemental religious circle in which he moved.
In Christian's case, his old fears from the Valley of the Shadow of Death crowd in on him. As the body weakens, the mind can also weakens, and things thought forgotten may return. My religious scrupulousity symptoms reappear when I am exhausted and stressed. When I came close to death as a result of a serious asthmatic flare up while working overseas, my fears resurged with it.
I used to work as an EMT and we often got called by family even for hospice patients. I was able to witness some sweet, peaceful deaths, and some anxious ones. Having others around to soothe and encourage helped anyone, but a believer's death always had a different tone. The sting was greatly diminished by hope. The body's fearful response to death is natural. The spirit focused on Christ can transcend that. I often think of Samuel Rutherford reminding us that it's important for a believer to die well.
It is important that we not go beyond Scripture in thinking what a Christian's death should look like. That places a terrible burden on those approaching death. Their fears might actually be increased because they might misinterpret their natural fear as evidence that they are not truly Christian, if they have been told real Christians do not fear death.
We actually have very few death scenes recorded in the New Testament, other than Jesus Christ's. Stephen the Martyr is the only other 'onscreen' death, and his was quick and violent. All other martyrdoms are only recorded as having happened, not described. Even the penitent thief's moment of death is not described. No deathbed scenes occur, and all the people who die 'offscreen' on their beds are raised to life again - Jairus' daughter, Lazarus, Dorcas. I do not think God finds as much significance in a Christian's manner of death as Christian sentiment often gives it. Those of us who believe that salvation is by grace, not works, should know a 'good' death does not give a Christian any greater merit.
Hebrews calls Christ the High Priest who knows our infirmities. He certainly knows the horror of death. Paul calls death the last enemy, and looks forward to its final defeat in the Resurrection, when at last we will be able to say "Death, where is your sting?" (I Corinthians 15). But we are not at that point yet. Faith is not sight, it is looking forward to when we will see, and in the meantime, we pass through dark places, of which our death may be one.
One of the things my old pastor taught about the Holy Spirit is that it is the Spirit who seals us - he keeps our faith for us. That has been enormously helpful in my journey, to say, "I cannot keep my Lord, it is he who keeps me." In those times when fears have bewildered me to breaking point, I mentally have to let go - it is like one of those dramatic film or book scenes is clinging desperately to a branch of a cliff or a floating log and their rescuer has to say, "Let go, trust me, I've got you."
I'd like to beg to differ a little on the issue of dying mildly, if I may. I wonder if it might at times be the case that those who appear to suffer greatly in dying do have a strong faith, perhaps even more so than others, but the Lord permits their faith to be tested (and proved) by a deeper struggle. And then there's also the reality of Satan's war against the Lord's people enduring right to the last moment. I think it's pastorally helpful to allow for those possibilities, given the significant variation in experiences. It's also the case that some who have no faith appear to die very mildly; not all rage against the dying of the light or in evident despair.
Certainly in my own ministry, having seen up close a good number of Christians dying, there doesn't appear to be a correlation between evident, mature faith in life and a milder experience of death. It's true that "the godly person need not be weighed down by guilt, fear, or shame" and yet they often are. We might not precisely know the reasons for that. But we do know, for certain, that all will receive an abundant welcome into the presence of the Lord Jesus and how wonderfully comforting that thought is!
That’s a good corrective, Richard. Thank you. And I suppose in artistic terms it would have been cheating to have Christian just sail smoothly through the waters at this point in the story. He’s struggled so muck all the way!
Our brief thoughts on death this morning occur to me here. It's very difficult to imagine a world in which death is not natural and resurrection not the eucatastophe that it is.
I really enjoyed reading this essay after I had just finished the book. I found the bit between Hopeful and Christian talking as they walked toward the city off-putting. It reminded me of revivals in my church as a teenager. It felt almost as if I was being coerced to believe. Then you mentioned the revival preacher in this essay, and I thought, "Ah-ha!"
I did not like his depiction of death in the river. I don't think death is like that for a believer.
I did enjoy the descriptions of "pearly gates" and "streets of gold." I love a good image of a shining heaven. I don't know how it will be exactly, but I love imagining a big ole' pearly gate.
I could not help but compare the ending of PP to the ending of Paradise Lost. As the pilgrims advanced toward Beulah Land, so did their joy, rest, and hope. As Adam and Eve's time in the garden ended, they became despairing and desperate, though it ended on a hopeful note.
One last thought: I grew up with this book being discussed as gospel truth, theologically sound, and a guide for the Christian life. I can see why. But what I see in PP is a human being trying to make sense of faith in Jesus Christ and all that it means. I see a worthwhile struggle. I see deconstruction. I see a flawed man, loving Jesus, and trying to "work out his salvation with fear and trembling". When I read it in that light, the allegory makes more sense, Bunyan makes more sense, and the book is more interesting.
I love that last part, Mel. (Well, all of it, actually.) Both PL and PP are works by literary geniuses trying to apply their imperfect theological understandings (one more earnest than the other, to be sure) to their art for our pleasure and edification.
"Thou believest with a fantastical faith; for this faith is nowhere described in the Word. When Christ comes, and but one part of his righteousness is in him that is justified, then all they that are justified by that which is in them, are justified with a fantastical righteousness; and the faith that apprehends and takes hold of that as a justifier, is fantastical faith."
Once again, I need to highlight that American Protestantism is built upon the "Reformed" paradigm. Someone once pointed out that English Protestantism was not so much against Catholic theology as it was against the authority of the papacy. The English didn't leave the church catholic for theological reasons but merely because of a desire to assert secular authority. It is hard not to see Christian's attack on "Ignorance" as nothing more than an English attack on the "Ignorant Catholic." Yet, this cartoonish, strawman attack is undone by Christian's own journey itself.
Throughout, we run into the quasi-deist and secular god of English Calvinism. God is far off, always calling always beckoning, a disembodied force that draws us out of the collapsing world and into the Celestial City. The only hope or help God seems to offer Christian is a promise that if he just keeps "progressing," he will reach the Celestial City. The burden, once again, ultimately rests on Christian.
So, what is the difference between Christian and Ignorance? It is where each person locates his works. In making sanctification the evidence of justification inevitably turns the Christian inward rather than outward to Christ. Even if sanctification doesn't cause justification, if it serves as the proof of justification, then the believer becomes anxiously self-monitoring. "Am I progressing enough? Are my works sufficient evidence? Do I have enough fruit?"
Throughout the work, Christian has despaired of his inadequacy and, although Bunyan intends for this to be a reassurance for his fellow believers that there difficulties aren't the end of the story, he fails to close the deal by showing that the evidence of Christian's morality is that he transcends his circumstances. The fruit of the Spirit becomes the metric for reassurance rather than the promises of Christ.
In this reading, both Christian and Ignorance are looking to their own spiritual condition for assurance - Ignorance to his moral performance, Christian to his sanctified progress. Both are subtly works-oriented, just at different stages of the ordo salutis.
A Calvinist might respond that Christian's struggles show the necessary battle of faith against unbelief, and that his ultimate peace comes not from his performance but from the promises received at key moments (the Cross, the scroll, Mount Zion's vision). His self-examination isn't to earn salvation but to fight against the deceptions that would lead him away from grace.
But the Lutheran critique remains potent: if Christian must rely on "his own grit" to persevere, and if his assurance waxes and wanes with his spiritual condition, then how is this meaningfully different from a sophisticated form of works-righteousness?
Thank you, once again, for an insightful critique. You bring helpful analysis and context to these questions.
I will add a bit more, drawing on a chapter in my book, The Evangelical Imagination. The chapter is on “improvement” a concept which is very much a modern one. “Progress” is even more modern and was identified by Neil Postman as having been “invented” in the 18th century. So I think there’s an enlightenment aspect to this emphasis by Bunyan as well as a religious and theological one.
You bring up some interesting points. Around 1930, the renowned economist John Maynard Keynes, published a paper entitled: "Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren." The main thrust is that the average person working in 2030 will be able to work for just fifteen hours a week. The paper is often dismissed out of hand as being too naive. Yet, these charges rest upon unexamined assumptions from the critics.
Keynes is stating that because of exponentially increased technological efficiency, output had increased exponentially. Even in 1930, Keynes points out, the reason for the economic downturn is not manufacturing output but the inefficiencies in humanity to absorb the abundance. Keynes predicts that this output will only continue apace. In this way, most extra work will be superfluous and inefficient.
Underlying Keynes' critics' assessment is a belief that our works make us human. Asking people to work less to them, is like asking them to cut off part of their identity ... part of their soul. Keynes' unanswered challenge is simply this: What does it mean to be human when we don't have to earn or merit our identity?
For the longest time, throughout history, we've been permitted to kick this question down the road. The cruel curse of scarcity in a fallen world carried with it a tempting lie: To survive, we had to work ourselves to bone. Work's righteousness was not some philosophical abstraction, it was physical necessity. I do not believe the devil is behind the abundance of our contemporary world; but I do believe he is ultimate opportunist.
Keynes' challenge is not a logistical one, but rather a moral one. For the Christian it is even more so, as we wrestle with the fact that we must now practice what we preach. Are we really justified by grace? Do we have meaning and identity by His free gift alone? Or have we just been "double-souled" hypocrites, mouthing the words of our Savior while still worshipping ourselves and our own works?
Few questions occupy my mind more than that one these days.
This brings me back to your statement about Bunyan. I believe many early Protestants laid the foundation for proto-secularism. It is more than life becoming disenchanted or the rise of the individual; but instead, it is that the frontier of the future became filled with possibility and so relationship with God moved to a lower priority.
I often fear I am too hard on my fellow Protestants. Yet, I sometimes feel as if there is something that is lost in the bright utopianism of Protestant Rationalism: a sense that the human need for reconciliation with God cannot be completely logically deduced to the narrative of the journey. It is more like Lewis' "The Great Divorce," where heaven is always just at people's elbows but they are too busy looking at their reflections.
So, what are we to do, when our "services are no longer required"? What becomes of a person when the last artifices are pulled off of the age of old human sin of work's righteousness? Even I shudder when I think that there will come a day when I will no longer be able to justify myself by my busyness.
I agree that Protestantism (generally speaking) laid the ground for secularism. This forms some part of Charles Taylor’s 900-page argument in A Secular Age. It’s a long read, but I bet you’d enjoy it, Philip.
I've read a bit of it, but a lot of things have been interfering. Taylor's argument is good, but still falls within the clinical understanding of the post-Enlightenment world.
There is a story told by David Foster Wallace at a speech. An older fish, encountering two younger fish, asks the younger fish "How's the water?" only to be met with confusion because the younger fish don't recognize the all-encompassing medium they inhabit. Foster uses this anecdote to serve as a powerful metaphor for our contemporary understanding of reality. The "water" represents the default, unexamined assumptions and frameworks that shape our perception. In the context of Taylor's work, this "water" is precisely the "immanent frame" of the disenchanted world – a world where meaning is primarily found within human experience and reason, devoid of inherent spiritual or transcendent dimensions.
Taylor argues that in a disenchanted world, the pre-Enlightenment "porous self," open to spiritual forces and a cosmos imbued with meaning, has been replaced by the "buffered self," which sees itself as distinct from the world and self-sufficient. This shift led to the rise of an "exclusive humanism," where human flourishing and well-being become the ultimate goals, often to the exclusion of transcendent concerns.
However, just as the fish are unaware of the water, we, as products of a post-Enlightenment society, often operate within the immanent frame without fully realizing its pervasive influence. When we criticize the perceived emptiness, fragmentation, or loss of meaning (as Taylor does) in a secular age, our arguments frequently rely on concepts like individual autonomy, rational analysis, and social progress – all hallmarks of the very framework we're critiquing.
Despite this inherent limitation – that our tools of critique are forged in the very world we're examining – Wallace's message still resonates: "This is Water" is about the constant, difficult work of awareness. We must strive to recognize the "water" we're swimming in, even if we can never fully escape it. Taylor, like Wallace, doesn’t want us to go back to the old ways. He thinks that’s not only impossible but also not a good idea in all areas. Instead, both Wallace and Taylor suggest that we should keep critiquing things, even though it’s not always perfect.
This has probably been the greatest good that has happened due to postmodernism. Modernism rested upon an illusion of certainty. That simplistic binary relegated God to the periphery of discussion and existence; and centered what is right strictly within the parameters of the observable universe. (We mustn't forget that it was modernity, and not postmodernity, that produced the slave trade, nationalist imperialism, and the totalitarianism of the mid-twentieth century.)
From what I have read from Taylor, he is approaching the critique of the Enlightenment from a different angle than I would; and I'd be lying if that my devotion to my particular religious tribe doesn't make me overly harsh to his particular way of doing things. However, I am willing to lay aside my pride to join in with fellow travelers.
I appreciated a talk N.T. Wright gave about Critical Realism in his and Michael Bird's introduction to the New Testament. Finding the balance between objective reality and subjective experience is a challenge. Modernism hewed too far to the former, declaring objective reality where it mayn't have been (or, let's be honest, where actually wasn't at all); but then again, by positing such notions, it did show us there was a tension.
One of the biggest questions I ask myself deals with the fact that I firmly believe we are living in the halcyon days of life. We are objectively better off than we have ever been. Amongst the myriad good things of the contemporary world is that I believe scholarship is better than it has ever been. I have some theories as to why this is.* A big part of this is the fact that people have moved out of modernism's broad sweeping generalizations based on a priori assumptions as well as the bourgeois postmodernism which saw everything as simply being power dynamics disguised as the hand of history; to being one which accepts that there is an objectivity to reality while also acknowledging that we cannot be completely credulous of our own subjective observations. Think of the Tulsa Massacre or the Insurrection Wilmington. Previous historians would have either viewed these as points in history to ignore or to turn into totems for cultural reaction. Modern historians are more circumspect handling guilt and shame, with the realities of how human nature must live after the fall. Indeed, Arthur Miller's haunting rumination on the death camps as given voice by Quentin, "Who can be innocent again on this mountain of skulls? I tell you what I know. My brothers died here - but my brothers built this place, our hearts have cut these stones."
Comfort leads to simplicity and simplicity leads away from confession and a reticence to admit that we don't know everything. So, I don't know if critical realism is a step in the right direction or if I am being just as delusional as the modernists or the deconstructionists were. The best we can do is just move forward holding the tools we have.
* I think many people who entered into the history departments and philosophy departments of yesteryear were actually people who would be in the various expanded humanities departments today. As such, a person who felt called to, say, the sociology of a particular subgroup; would have had to enter a more established department since the department didn't exist in the 1960s. Now that it does, the people who have those degrees go to those departments and the people who are interested in the more mainline history or sociology or what have you go into their departments. So, I think our history departments have a better focus on history, for example. And I think that is reflected in the books published. But, I also confess that this is an untested theory or musing and could be completely wrong. I just don't have the bandwidth to explore this hypothesis.
Again, I find myself comparing Pilgrim's Progress with the Divine Comedy. Bunyan chooses water as the last trial; Dante chooses fire. Both the river of water and the wall of fire are terrifying. Neither is passable to the hero without help. Love comes alongside in both cases, certainly as an aide to cross the barrier in Pilgrim's Progress, and in the Divine Comedy, as a goal.
Thank you, Karen for your wonderful insights, explanations, and contributions as we travelled to the Celestial City with Pilgrim and all the other characters.
I'm still working my way through this section, but I appreciate the conversation among Hopeful, Christian, and Ignorance. I'm really beginning to think our autonomous culture is so problematic not just in the Christian community, but just also to merely being human. We need each other - and not as creatures to compete against, but to truly commune with.
Do you think Bunyan describes death in this way because, without painkillers , death was just a much more harrowing experience in the seventeenth century?
That’s a good question but I think the scene is depicting spiritual agony not physical for three reasons: Hopeful is also crossing the River and doing fine; the terrors Christian feels are emotional/spiritual (whereas the ones they felt in the dungeon of Doubting Castle were physical too); the mention of the water being deeper or shallower depending on one’s faith. So I think his struggle in death is a spiritual one not physical.
First of all - love that photo of the graduates from Ottawa Teacher’s College - those hair styles, those button to the neck blouses, the sea of white - so 19th century and so remote from our day. So you, Karen, have a Canadian background; so do I. My grandfather arrive in Canada from Scotland as a result of a shipwreck that took the lives of his mother and family. The ship was The Scotsman!
But my main comment so far is a reference to Molly Worthen’s new book, “Spellbound,” in which she surveys the whole of American History to uncover various forms of charisma and the 19th century is loaded with interesting and a highly diverse collection of spiritualisms. America it seems was a seedbed for these people who created religions and attracted people fleeing from Calvinism and anxious to exercise their free will in religious expression. Molly has done a wonderful job of laying out the framework including a good deal about Charles Finney’s revivals. That was a century of spiritual experimentation let loose by Protestantism’s weak ecclesiology. I just finished the section on the 19th century which Molly identifies as a century of spiritual conquerors.
I will turn this quote a bit on its head: “I take my pleasure in walking alone,” Ignorance explains. Isn’t this always the way of ignorance? It’s not that he’s an introvert (nothing wrong with that!), but rather it’s that he stubbornly resists the element of “iron sharpening iron” that happens in community. He’d rather “do his own research” than humbly learn from others more knowledgeable and experienced than he.” Ignorance may be at fault but so is the Christian community that allows him to languish on the sidelines in his beliefs. This is a product of our autonomous culture - every person a master of his fate! Alan Noble’s “We Are Not Our Own” is a wonderful antidote to this condition. I have introvertish tendencies but find that when people are interested in me, I respond and engage in conversation and am enlightened. I read Jia Tolentino’s “Trick Mirror” about her growing up in a Houston mega-church before rejecting the faith as a college student. I noticed that not once in her book did she mention an adult woman who came alongside her to engage in conversation about her faith. I also noticed that Molly Worthen, once a confirmed atheist, found Christ through conversations with Tim Keller and JD Greer.
Ooooh. This is good, Jack. Thank you.
I was thinking as I read Hopeful's account of his salvation that the insistence on having a vision of the Lord was more charismatic than modern Baptists would approve. I also thought that Ignorance might represent Bunyan's view of the Established church.
Yes, Bunyan's religious scrupulousity is in full view in Christian's conversations with Hopeful and Ignorance - he brings out all the frightening verses that terrified me at my lowest points. He really needed someone like my old pastor to teach him on the work of the Holy Spirit.
On Christian's difficult passage through the waters, I have known it to happen. More than one of my relatives, who were shining lights in their lives, struggled at the end. "The sorrows of death compassed me", a phrase David uses more than once in Psalm 18 and 116. I think Bunyan was courageous to portray it to the rather judgemental religious circle in which he moved.
In Christian's case, his old fears from the Valley of the Shadow of Death crowd in on him. As the body weakens, the mind can also weakens, and things thought forgotten may return. My religious scrupulousity symptoms reappear when I am exhausted and stressed. When I came close to death as a result of a serious asthmatic flare up while working overseas, my fears resurged with it.
I used to work as an EMT and we often got called by family even for hospice patients. I was able to witness some sweet, peaceful deaths, and some anxious ones. Having others around to soothe and encourage helped anyone, but a believer's death always had a different tone. The sting was greatly diminished by hope. The body's fearful response to death is natural. The spirit focused on Christ can transcend that. I often think of Samuel Rutherford reminding us that it's important for a believer to die well.
It is important that we not go beyond Scripture in thinking what a Christian's death should look like. That places a terrible burden on those approaching death. Their fears might actually be increased because they might misinterpret their natural fear as evidence that they are not truly Christian, if they have been told real Christians do not fear death.
We actually have very few death scenes recorded in the New Testament, other than Jesus Christ's. Stephen the Martyr is the only other 'onscreen' death, and his was quick and violent. All other martyrdoms are only recorded as having happened, not described. Even the penitent thief's moment of death is not described. No deathbed scenes occur, and all the people who die 'offscreen' on their beds are raised to life again - Jairus' daughter, Lazarus, Dorcas. I do not think God finds as much significance in a Christian's manner of death as Christian sentiment often gives it. Those of us who believe that salvation is by grace, not works, should know a 'good' death does not give a Christian any greater merit.
Hebrews calls Christ the High Priest who knows our infirmities. He certainly knows the horror of death. Paul calls death the last enemy, and looks forward to its final defeat in the Resurrection, when at last we will be able to say "Death, where is your sting?" (I Corinthians 15). But we are not at that point yet. Faith is not sight, it is looking forward to when we will see, and in the meantime, we pass through dark places, of which our death may be one.
So helpful, Holly.
Thank you for sharing that experience and perspective, Holly. Mine is very limited and it’s helpful to have it enlarged.
One of the things my old pastor taught about the Holy Spirit is that it is the Spirit who seals us - he keeps our faith for us. That has been enormously helpful in my journey, to say, "I cannot keep my Lord, it is he who keeps me." In those times when fears have bewildered me to breaking point, I mentally have to let go - it is like one of those dramatic film or book scenes is clinging desperately to a branch of a cliff or a floating log and their rescuer has to say, "Let go, trust me, I've got you."
Yes! I believe that too.
I'd like to beg to differ a little on the issue of dying mildly, if I may. I wonder if it might at times be the case that those who appear to suffer greatly in dying do have a strong faith, perhaps even more so than others, but the Lord permits their faith to be tested (and proved) by a deeper struggle. And then there's also the reality of Satan's war against the Lord's people enduring right to the last moment. I think it's pastorally helpful to allow for those possibilities, given the significant variation in experiences. It's also the case that some who have no faith appear to die very mildly; not all rage against the dying of the light or in evident despair.
Certainly in my own ministry, having seen up close a good number of Christians dying, there doesn't appear to be a correlation between evident, mature faith in life and a milder experience of death. It's true that "the godly person need not be weighed down by guilt, fear, or shame" and yet they often are. We might not precisely know the reasons for that. But we do know, for certain, that all will receive an abundant welcome into the presence of the Lord Jesus and how wonderfully comforting that thought is!
That’s a good corrective, Richard. Thank you. And I suppose in artistic terms it would have been cheating to have Christian just sail smoothly through the waters at this point in the story. He’s struggled so muck all the way!
Yes indeed!
Our brief thoughts on death this morning occur to me here. It's very difficult to imagine a world in which death is not natural and resurrection not the eucatastophe that it is.
Indeed.
I really enjoyed reading this essay after I had just finished the book. I found the bit between Hopeful and Christian talking as they walked toward the city off-putting. It reminded me of revivals in my church as a teenager. It felt almost as if I was being coerced to believe. Then you mentioned the revival preacher in this essay, and I thought, "Ah-ha!"
I did not like his depiction of death in the river. I don't think death is like that for a believer.
I did enjoy the descriptions of "pearly gates" and "streets of gold." I love a good image of a shining heaven. I don't know how it will be exactly, but I love imagining a big ole' pearly gate.
I could not help but compare the ending of PP to the ending of Paradise Lost. As the pilgrims advanced toward Beulah Land, so did their joy, rest, and hope. As Adam and Eve's time in the garden ended, they became despairing and desperate, though it ended on a hopeful note.
One last thought: I grew up with this book being discussed as gospel truth, theologically sound, and a guide for the Christian life. I can see why. But what I see in PP is a human being trying to make sense of faith in Jesus Christ and all that it means. I see a worthwhile struggle. I see deconstruction. I see a flawed man, loving Jesus, and trying to "work out his salvation with fear and trembling". When I read it in that light, the allegory makes more sense, Bunyan makes more sense, and the book is more interesting.
I love that last part, Mel. (Well, all of it, actually.) Both PL and PP are works by literary geniuses trying to apply their imperfect theological understandings (one more earnest than the other, to be sure) to their art for our pleasure and edification.
"Thou believest with a fantastical faith; for this faith is nowhere described in the Word. When Christ comes, and but one part of his righteousness is in him that is justified, then all they that are justified by that which is in them, are justified with a fantastical righteousness; and the faith that apprehends and takes hold of that as a justifier, is fantastical faith."
Once again, I need to highlight that American Protestantism is built upon the "Reformed" paradigm. Someone once pointed out that English Protestantism was not so much against Catholic theology as it was against the authority of the papacy. The English didn't leave the church catholic for theological reasons but merely because of a desire to assert secular authority. It is hard not to see Christian's attack on "Ignorance" as nothing more than an English attack on the "Ignorant Catholic." Yet, this cartoonish, strawman attack is undone by Christian's own journey itself.
Throughout, we run into the quasi-deist and secular god of English Calvinism. God is far off, always calling always beckoning, a disembodied force that draws us out of the collapsing world and into the Celestial City. The only hope or help God seems to offer Christian is a promise that if he just keeps "progressing," he will reach the Celestial City. The burden, once again, ultimately rests on Christian.
So, what is the difference between Christian and Ignorance? It is where each person locates his works. In making sanctification the evidence of justification inevitably turns the Christian inward rather than outward to Christ. Even if sanctification doesn't cause justification, if it serves as the proof of justification, then the believer becomes anxiously self-monitoring. "Am I progressing enough? Are my works sufficient evidence? Do I have enough fruit?"
Throughout the work, Christian has despaired of his inadequacy and, although Bunyan intends for this to be a reassurance for his fellow believers that there difficulties aren't the end of the story, he fails to close the deal by showing that the evidence of Christian's morality is that he transcends his circumstances. The fruit of the Spirit becomes the metric for reassurance rather than the promises of Christ.
In this reading, both Christian and Ignorance are looking to their own spiritual condition for assurance - Ignorance to his moral performance, Christian to his sanctified progress. Both are subtly works-oriented, just at different stages of the ordo salutis.
A Calvinist might respond that Christian's struggles show the necessary battle of faith against unbelief, and that his ultimate peace comes not from his performance but from the promises received at key moments (the Cross, the scroll, Mount Zion's vision). His self-examination isn't to earn salvation but to fight against the deceptions that would lead him away from grace.
But the Lutheran critique remains potent: if Christian must rely on "his own grit" to persevere, and if his assurance waxes and wanes with his spiritual condition, then how is this meaningfully different from a sophisticated form of works-righteousness?
Thank you, once again, for an insightful critique. You bring helpful analysis and context to these questions.
I will add a bit more, drawing on a chapter in my book, The Evangelical Imagination. The chapter is on “improvement” a concept which is very much a modern one. “Progress” is even more modern and was identified by Neil Postman as having been “invented” in the 18th century. So I think there’s an enlightenment aspect to this emphasis by Bunyan as well as a religious and theological one.
You bring up some interesting points. Around 1930, the renowned economist John Maynard Keynes, published a paper entitled: "Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren." The main thrust is that the average person working in 2030 will be able to work for just fifteen hours a week. The paper is often dismissed out of hand as being too naive. Yet, these charges rest upon unexamined assumptions from the critics.
Keynes is stating that because of exponentially increased technological efficiency, output had increased exponentially. Even in 1930, Keynes points out, the reason for the economic downturn is not manufacturing output but the inefficiencies in humanity to absorb the abundance. Keynes predicts that this output will only continue apace. In this way, most extra work will be superfluous and inefficient.
Underlying Keynes' critics' assessment is a belief that our works make us human. Asking people to work less to them, is like asking them to cut off part of their identity ... part of their soul. Keynes' unanswered challenge is simply this: What does it mean to be human when we don't have to earn or merit our identity?
For the longest time, throughout history, we've been permitted to kick this question down the road. The cruel curse of scarcity in a fallen world carried with it a tempting lie: To survive, we had to work ourselves to bone. Work's righteousness was not some philosophical abstraction, it was physical necessity. I do not believe the devil is behind the abundance of our contemporary world; but I do believe he is ultimate opportunist.
Keynes' challenge is not a logistical one, but rather a moral one. For the Christian it is even more so, as we wrestle with the fact that we must now practice what we preach. Are we really justified by grace? Do we have meaning and identity by His free gift alone? Or have we just been "double-souled" hypocrites, mouthing the words of our Savior while still worshipping ourselves and our own works?
Few questions occupy my mind more than that one these days.
This brings me back to your statement about Bunyan. I believe many early Protestants laid the foundation for proto-secularism. It is more than life becoming disenchanted or the rise of the individual; but instead, it is that the frontier of the future became filled with possibility and so relationship with God moved to a lower priority.
I often fear I am too hard on my fellow Protestants. Yet, I sometimes feel as if there is something that is lost in the bright utopianism of Protestant Rationalism: a sense that the human need for reconciliation with God cannot be completely logically deduced to the narrative of the journey. It is more like Lewis' "The Great Divorce," where heaven is always just at people's elbows but they are too busy looking at their reflections.
So, what are we to do, when our "services are no longer required"? What becomes of a person when the last artifices are pulled off of the age of old human sin of work's righteousness? Even I shudder when I think that there will come a day when I will no longer be able to justify myself by my busyness.
I agree that Protestantism (generally speaking) laid the ground for secularism. This forms some part of Charles Taylor’s 900-page argument in A Secular Age. It’s a long read, but I bet you’d enjoy it, Philip.
I've read a bit of it, but a lot of things have been interfering. Taylor's argument is good, but still falls within the clinical understanding of the post-Enlightenment world.
There is a story told by David Foster Wallace at a speech. An older fish, encountering two younger fish, asks the younger fish "How's the water?" only to be met with confusion because the younger fish don't recognize the all-encompassing medium they inhabit. Foster uses this anecdote to serve as a powerful metaphor for our contemporary understanding of reality. The "water" represents the default, unexamined assumptions and frameworks that shape our perception. In the context of Taylor's work, this "water" is precisely the "immanent frame" of the disenchanted world – a world where meaning is primarily found within human experience and reason, devoid of inherent spiritual or transcendent dimensions.
Taylor argues that in a disenchanted world, the pre-Enlightenment "porous self," open to spiritual forces and a cosmos imbued with meaning, has been replaced by the "buffered self," which sees itself as distinct from the world and self-sufficient. This shift led to the rise of an "exclusive humanism," where human flourishing and well-being become the ultimate goals, often to the exclusion of transcendent concerns.
However, just as the fish are unaware of the water, we, as products of a post-Enlightenment society, often operate within the immanent frame without fully realizing its pervasive influence. When we criticize the perceived emptiness, fragmentation, or loss of meaning (as Taylor does) in a secular age, our arguments frequently rely on concepts like individual autonomy, rational analysis, and social progress – all hallmarks of the very framework we're critiquing.
Despite this inherent limitation – that our tools of critique are forged in the very world we're examining – Wallace's message still resonates: "This is Water" is about the constant, difficult work of awareness. We must strive to recognize the "water" we're swimming in, even if we can never fully escape it. Taylor, like Wallace, doesn’t want us to go back to the old ways. He thinks that’s not only impossible but also not a good idea in all areas. Instead, both Wallace and Taylor suggest that we should keep critiquing things, even though it’s not always perfect.
This has probably been the greatest good that has happened due to postmodernism. Modernism rested upon an illusion of certainty. That simplistic binary relegated God to the periphery of discussion and existence; and centered what is right strictly within the parameters of the observable universe. (We mustn't forget that it was modernity, and not postmodernity, that produced the slave trade, nationalist imperialism, and the totalitarianism of the mid-twentieth century.)
From what I have read from Taylor, he is approaching the critique of the Enlightenment from a different angle than I would; and I'd be lying if that my devotion to my particular religious tribe doesn't make me overly harsh to his particular way of doing things. However, I am willing to lay aside my pride to join in with fellow travelers.
Yes, I cite that speech from DFW in The Evangelical Imagination. It (along with Taylor) is central to my analysis in that book.
I appreciated a talk N.T. Wright gave about Critical Realism in his and Michael Bird's introduction to the New Testament. Finding the balance between objective reality and subjective experience is a challenge. Modernism hewed too far to the former, declaring objective reality where it mayn't have been (or, let's be honest, where actually wasn't at all); but then again, by positing such notions, it did show us there was a tension.
One of the biggest questions I ask myself deals with the fact that I firmly believe we are living in the halcyon days of life. We are objectively better off than we have ever been. Amongst the myriad good things of the contemporary world is that I believe scholarship is better than it has ever been. I have some theories as to why this is.* A big part of this is the fact that people have moved out of modernism's broad sweeping generalizations based on a priori assumptions as well as the bourgeois postmodernism which saw everything as simply being power dynamics disguised as the hand of history; to being one which accepts that there is an objectivity to reality while also acknowledging that we cannot be completely credulous of our own subjective observations. Think of the Tulsa Massacre or the Insurrection Wilmington. Previous historians would have either viewed these as points in history to ignore or to turn into totems for cultural reaction. Modern historians are more circumspect handling guilt and shame, with the realities of how human nature must live after the fall. Indeed, Arthur Miller's haunting rumination on the death camps as given voice by Quentin, "Who can be innocent again on this mountain of skulls? I tell you what I know. My brothers died here - but my brothers built this place, our hearts have cut these stones."
Comfort leads to simplicity and simplicity leads away from confession and a reticence to admit that we don't know everything. So, I don't know if critical realism is a step in the right direction or if I am being just as delusional as the modernists or the deconstructionists were. The best we can do is just move forward holding the tools we have.
* I think many people who entered into the history departments and philosophy departments of yesteryear were actually people who would be in the various expanded humanities departments today. As such, a person who felt called to, say, the sociology of a particular subgroup; would have had to enter a more established department since the department didn't exist in the 1960s. Now that it does, the people who have those degrees go to those departments and the people who are interested in the more mainline history or sociology or what have you go into their departments. So, I think our history departments have a better focus on history, for example. And I think that is reflected in the books published. But, I also confess that this is an untested theory or musing and could be completely wrong. I just don't have the bandwidth to explore this hypothesis.
I love the photo of Beulah!
😊
Again, I find myself comparing Pilgrim's Progress with the Divine Comedy. Bunyan chooses water as the last trial; Dante chooses fire. Both the river of water and the wall of fire are terrifying. Neither is passable to the hero without help. Love comes alongside in both cases, certainly as an aide to cross the barrier in Pilgrim's Progress, and in the Divine Comedy, as a goal.
Thank you, Karen for your wonderful insights, explanations, and contributions as we travelled to the Celestial City with Pilgrim and all the other characters.
Oh, that is a brilliant comparison, Teri! Thank you for it and for coming along on this journey!
I'm still working my way through this section, but I appreciate the conversation among Hopeful, Christian, and Ignorance. I'm really beginning to think our autonomous culture is so problematic not just in the Christian community, but just also to merely being human. We need each other - and not as creatures to compete against, but to truly commune with.
Truly!
Do you think Bunyan describes death in this way because, without painkillers , death was just a much more harrowing experience in the seventeenth century?
That’s a good question but I think the scene is depicting spiritual agony not physical for three reasons: Hopeful is also crossing the River and doing fine; the terrors Christian feels are emotional/spiritual (whereas the ones they felt in the dungeon of Doubting Castle were physical too); the mention of the water being deeper or shallower depending on one’s faith. So I think his struggle in death is a spiritual one not physical.
I’m enjoying Pilgrims Progress, but I missed the first one. How can I go back and read it? Thanks.
https://open.substack.com/pub/karenswallowprior/p/the-pilgrims-progress-week-1?r=90e4e&utm_medium=ios
You can go to my home page on Substack and scroll down through all my posts to find any previous ones. But I will link that one here:
First of all - love that photo of the graduates from Ottawa Teacher’s College - those hair styles, those button to the neck blouses, the sea of white - so 19th century and so remote from our day. So you, Karen, have a Canadian background; so do I. My grandfather arrive in Canada from Scotland as a result of a shipwreck that took the lives of his mother and family. The ship was The Scotsman!
But my main comment so far is a reference to Molly Worthen’s new book, “Spellbound,” in which she surveys the whole of American History to uncover various forms of charisma and the 19th century is loaded with interesting and a highly diverse collection of spiritualisms. America it seems was a seedbed for these people who created religions and attracted people fleeing from Calvinism and anxious to exercise their free will in religious expression. Molly has done a wonderful job of laying out the framework including a good deal about Charles Finney’s revivals. That was a century of spiritual experimentation let loose by Protestantism’s weak ecclesiology. I just finished the section on the 19th century which Molly identifies as a century of spiritual conquerors.