Weekend Rant 8.26.17

Yesterday I finished Pilgrim's Progress--John Bunyan's Christian classic. I remember reading children's versions of this book when I was younger, complete with illustrations, and I would admire my favorite scene of Christian duking it out with the devilish fiend Apollyon. But reading through the original I cannot help but be impressed by the incredible desperation that Bunyan paints the Christian walk. This is not some sort of beneficial, feel good Christianity. This is not the health and wealth gospel. Evangelicalism these days I fear has been reduced to this encouraging, positive thinking brand which, as much as I would like to believe it, does not seem to match the extreme, entirely demanding tones throughout all of Scripture. Seriously, I can barely listen to our local Christian radio station 91.9 anymore because they are always having a "positive thought for the day"; branding themselves as "encouraging, uplifting" music.

I do not want positive. I do not want encouraging. I want the truth, because in the end--the truth is going to be the only thing that turns out positive for anyone.

Even our churches today I feel have been reduced to this kind of utilitarian moralism. Parents want their kids to "turn out right"--to be good citizens who do not do drugs and who get good jobs and who have happy families of their own, complete with altruistic manners! That's what they want. They want this shiny product of Christianity: a nice, moral life. What they do not figure is that real Christianity is far more demanding, far more painful than they have ever anticipated. Yes Jesus teaches the golden rule, but He also says: "If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters-yes, even their own life-such a person cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26). He teaches us to forgive one another, it is true, but He also requires us to "take up our cross and follow Christ." That means that Christ demands we carry on our backs the most graphic death instrument of his time.

Yeah, maybe this Christianity is not so positive after all.

That is why Pilgrim's Progress is such an important book to revisit in our modernized and softened Christianity. Here the stakes are far higher. The protagonist Christian does not go on his death sentence of a pilgrimage to better his manners or to help him become a model citizen. He does not begin his journey to become "a better version of himself." He leaves the City of Destruction because eternal life and eternal death hang in the balance. And when his wife and his children beseech him to stay--when they call him to stop being such a "fanatic" and just make peace with the world--he sticks his fingers in his ears as he runs, proclaiming: "Life, life, eternal life!"

So much for my "positive thought for the day."

And once Christian is on his journey things do not seem to get any easier. Some friends come, some allies encourage him--yes, he does lose his burden and is equipped with weaponry to face the challenges; but Bunyan's Christianity is not a convenient "Get out of hell free card". It is something bereft with pitfalls, temptations, threats, despair, counterfeits, and yes the likely chance of falling away or turning back. I am not here to question whether Bunyan is of the opinion that you can lose your salvation. Pilgrim's Progress is written from a human perspective which shows that whether we persist in the journey--is in itself the evidence of the work of God in our hearts. Bunyan’s narrative is no different from what Paul writes in Col 1:21-23, "Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation—if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel." The way I understand that "if"--is not that our salvation is conditionally based on our work of "continuing in our faith"--but rather that "our continuing in our faith" is evidence of the genuine conversion and work of God (Phil 1:6, John 10:28, Eph 2:8).

John Bunyan does not really go into such theological complications, however. As far as he is concerned many pilgrims seem to turn back--and many followers seem to go astray from the human perspective. Therefore Christian's journey post-salvation remains just as desperate as it was before. He is pressed up on all sides by attacks, his friend is slain, he is imprisoned, he falls down and makes mistakes, even doubts the promises of God. But he persists. He persists, and step by step--he perilously makes his way to the Celestial City, where his King is awaiting his presence.

We can learn a lot from Bunyan's classic today. The vast majority of us Christians seem to be fairly comfortable with our lives, fairly at peace with the temporary and carnal things of this world. Pilgrim's Progress is a call of the most extreme proportions to throw off every weight that entangles and run the race with perseverance, fixing our eyes on Christ the author and perfector of our faith. The stakes are higher than we ever could imagine. The perils are more pervasive than we would ever dare to think. The cost could not possibly be greater.

Will you follow Him nevertheless?