The Real 48--The Pilgrim's Progress

Well, I have a confession.  In my post “A New Reading List,” I said that I’d read The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan in college.  Not true.  I had read excerpts but I’d forgotten that I didn’t read the whole thing until last weekend when I was home for my sister’s wedding.

After finishing the comic books I brought with me (Batman rocks), I browsed through my parents library and found a very old pocketbook-sized Pilgrim’s Progress lying on the shelf and realized that that antique was my book.

I’d gotten it on my mission while tracting, i.e., knocking on doors and all the pleasantries that come with it, when an old lady became very excited to see me and my companion.  She wasn’t a Latter-day Saint or particularly interested in listening to us.  No, she had books for us.  Several years before, a friend of hers who had been a Latter-day Saint had died and she’d come into possession of some of his books.  They struck her as being “Mormon books” and had promised that if she ever came across the Mormons, she would get the books to the right church.

It was an innocent and easy mistake to make.  One of the books was a Book of Mormon published in the 70’s, and my companion leaped on that one.  He was into collecting all the various editions of The Book of Mormon as he could.  As far as I was concerned, he was welcome to it.  I was more enthralled with the five other books, which weren’t Mormon at all, but two of them were very Christian-oriented: In His Steps by Charles Monroe Sheldon and The Pilgrim’s Progress.

Missionaries have very strict rules and among them is that we were not allowed to read anything other than our scriptures and a small library of Church-approved materials.  So after I broke that rule and read In His Steps (wonderful story; no regrets) I mailed the rest of the books home to be waiting for me when I got back.  I only had half a year left; I could wait that long.

Over two years after getting back, I finally got to reading The Pilgrim’s Progress.  Now, I’d taken my time on it because even then I’d forgotten that I hadn’t read the entire thing.  I’m happy it worked out this way, though, I’m not sure I would have appreciated the book as much then as I do now.

I haven’t been so enthralled with a Christian work since reading C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters.  Pilgrim’s Progress is an allegorical adventure of a man named Christian who leaves his home to seek out the Celestial City, Mt. Zion.

The allegory is so obvious just from the names given to the heroes and villains and all the terrain encountered.  Christian is pointed in the right direction by a man called Evangelist, and his traveling companions are names Faithful and Hopeful.  He ends up having to deal with Obstinate, Pliable, Mr. Worldly Wiseman, Ignorance, and a host of others.  Normally, I get annoyed by allegory, especially the obvious ones, but since this is a subject that is pretty close to my heart, I was able to get past that and delve into the meat that this story gives, both as an entertainment and as religious teaching.

This book is timeless, not just in that it has never been out-of-print, but it addresses issues that continue to be relevant today.  One of the criticisms shouted against my religion time and again from the other Christian sects (I’ve had to discuss this with dozens of people before) is how they think we say it’s our works that get us into heaven.  There’s a scripture in the Book of Mormon that says “by grace we are saved after all we can do,” and the argument immediately comes, “You can’t do anything.  Your works don’t save you.  It’s by grace and that’s it!”

And I sigh and wonder if they’re deliberately misunderstanding me.  But John Bunyan gets what I’ve been trying to say for years.  In fact, he makes my point better than I ever have.  When Christian and Faith meet Talkative, they say get into a conversation regarding the difference between saying and doing.

Says Christian: “The soul of religion is the practical part: ‘Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.’…let us assure ourselves that at the day of doom men shall be judged according to their fruits; it will not be said then, Did you believe? But, Were you doers or talkers only? And accordingly shall they be judged.  The end of the world is compared to our harvest; and you know men at harvest regard nothing but fruit.”

The point is that belief in Jesus is not just saying you accept him but that you do what he would do, and it’s by the doing that salvation comes.

So if anybody argues with me about this in the future, I’m just sending them to Pilgrim’s Progress.

I am very happy I read this book before I died.  There’s more to it than just being able to win an argument.  I learned so much about the Law of Moses, how to handle depression, and most importantly, where I’m lacking as a person and how I can change those failings in myself.

I believe that to be the mark of great writing.  It’s the ones that make you want to change and better yourself to be a better person and be of value to those around you.  I am glad I read this one before I died.