2-3-14<\/p>\n
I recently have re-read \u201cThe Pilgrim\u2019s Progress\u201d by John Bunyan (or re-re-re-read, actually forgetting the number of times I have read it). It is the most remarkable of books, once held to be the most printed book in the English language after the Bible. Despite our culture\u2019s sudden and virtually total disassociation from it, that record might still hold.<\/p>\n
Bunyan\u2019s book is an allegory: the journey through life of the everyman hero, Mr Christian. It once was required reading in schools, beside the Bible \u2013 yes, in bygone times \u2013 but also for its masterful allusions, exquisite language, and impressive construction. The hero\u2019s name, and those of myriad characters (Valiant-for-Truth; Worldly-Wiseman), were not crudely conceived of an impoverished imagination but to be clear about metaphors and symbols. Bunyan was teaching a lesson.<\/p>\n
He wrote \u201cThe Pilgrim\u2019s Progress\u201d while he himself presumably was being taught a lesson. The Englishman Bunyan, who lived 1628 \u2013 1688, had been a poor tradesman of relatively loose morals, but was converted to Christianity when he heard the voice of God. Like Martin Luther more than a century previous in Germany, he became conscious of his sinful nature, and grew to faith in fear of God. He was moved spontaneously to preach, and attracted a following. But at that time, in England, it was forbidden to preach unless ordained by the Crown\u2019s church.<\/p>\n
During two prison sojourns Bunyan wrote \u201cThe Pilgrim\u2019s Progress.\u201d The texts were received, the writer said, through visions, in the manner of St John transcribing the Book of Revelation on the Isle of Patmos.<\/p>\n
Quotations from this great book strike us like lightning-bolts through the centuries. Its truths are still true. The nature of humankind \u2013 our needs and temptations and failures and hopes and triumphs? There have been no changes to our natures: we still need the message!<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat God says is best, is best, though all the men in the world are against it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA man there was, though some did count him mad, the more he cast away the more he had.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe man that takes up religion for the world will throw away religion for the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is my duty to distrust mine own ability, that I may have reliance on Him that is stronger than all.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the most significant allegorical aspect of \u201cThe Pilgrim\u2019s Progress\u201d \u2013 in any event, the metaphor on which the narrative depends \u2013 is the Road. The Path. The Way. The journey\u2019s channel; the Highway. Mr Christian proceeds amidst detours, roadblocks, false advice\u2026 toward the Destination, the Cross. To Heaven.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow I saw in my dream, that the Highway, up which Christian was to go, was fenced on either side with a wall, and that wall was called Salvation. Up this way, therefore, did burdened Christian run, but not without great difficulty, because of the load on his back. He ran thus till he came at a place somewhat ascending; and upon that place stood a cross, and a little below, in the bottom, a sepulchre. So I saw in my dream, that just as Christian came up with the cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back, and began to tumble, and so continued to do till it came to the mouth of the sepulchre, where it fell in, and I saw it no more.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Highway to Heaven is an allegory easy to comprehend. But it is hard to travel! As hard as the poor, beleaguered Mr Christian found it. Bunyan likely was under no illusions that his book would turn the world upside-down. Indeed it had great impact \u2013 it is possible that millions have accepted Christ because of it through the centuries \u2013 yet it can only be expected to speak to readers one by one. One by one.<\/p>\n
Despite books of old and mass-media today, the personal appeal of the gospel, which in fact was the mode of Jesus and the Apostles, is just that: a PERSONAL appeal. God\u2019s plan\u2026 Christ\u2019s Great Commission\u2026 the Holy Spirit\u2019s ministry. \u201cGo and make disciples.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is a temptation of human nature, and a specific spiritual malady of contemporary Western culture, to think that knowing ABOUT the \u201cHighway,\u201d being generally supportive, is enough. Or that wandering down detours at least corresponds to good intentions. Or that \u201cother\u201d Highways are efficacious, if the traveler, after all, means to arrive at a similar happy place to where the cross stands.<\/p>\n
These relativistic lies and deadly heresies will result not only in others (and ourselves) walking aimlessly through life\u2026 but being \u201clost.\u201d Fatally lost. Eternally lost. The Bible makes clear that all other roads lead to destruction. God is a guide; the Bible is our road map; and millions of sermons, songs, allegories, and books like \u201cThe Pilgrim\u2019s Progress\u201d graciously have been laid before us as spiritual MapQuests.<\/p>\n
Even more, God allows U-Turns, as my friend Allison Bottke has called her ministry. However, He doesn\u2019t allow short-cuts. He has not cancelled, nor even postponed, our journeys. And to use another Web-Age reference, it is Jesus\u2019s voice we hear in the GPS, reminding us that there is no way to Heaven \u2013 no other way \u2013 but through Him.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWalking Up the King\u2019s Highway\u201d is a standard song in many hymnals. It is a favorite of the Black church, written by the great Thomas A Dorsey and Mary Gardner. Here it is performed in rousing fashion by more than a hundred \u201cGospel Legends,\u201d giants of influential Spirituals of the past half-century. The late Rev Donald Vails leads the singers. Billy Preston is on the organ.<\/p>\n