Several years ago, when I renewed my Christian faith, my sister recommended a book to me, A Severe Mercy, by Sheldon Vanauken. The author and his wife were deeply in love, agnostic (or "pagan" in his words), and searching for truth. During his search, he started corresponding with C.S. Lewis. During this correspondence, his wife became a Christian. Sheldon accepted her decision, even following her with his own, yet always placed the marriage ahead of his commitment to God. The book details the early years of their faith, which ended with her death at a young age. Sheldon was devastated, yet came to understand that within that loss, God was calling him to come closer, that her death was "a severe mercy" given to him for his greater good.
Now, since I am about to talk about my cat, I must apologize in advance for equating my pet's death to the loss of a human life. I do so only for the sake of describing my feelings. I definitely believe that there is a wide gulf between the worth of a human life and that of the "beasts that perish", though that in no way excuses wanton acts of cruelty against animals.
When playing outside with my daughter Rebecca today, I was struck by how happy she is even though I have been so sad lately, even crying in front of her. I am encouraged by her energy, her playfulness, and her love for life. My pastor told me not to worry about her too much, for the will to live within a child is very great. They are not yet discouraged by the cares of this world.
I feel a new era is opening up in my life, one that is calling me away from giving my affection to pets, and giving it to God, my wife, and my daughter. This decision is not written in stone, but the way I feel now is that I will no longer have a pet in my house with my name on its collar - that time has past. Rebecca may choose a pet, and I will give it my love, but my affection belongs to my daughter now, and my first love must be for God.
I'm going to open this book "A Severe Mercy" again. I think it has a message for me, again.
Here's a verse that spoke to me today. Though the loss of a pet is not the context, it still comes across strong for anyone feeling great loss and wondering if God is there.
Whom have I in heaven but You?
And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You.
My flesh and my heart fail;
But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
Ps 73:25-26 NKJV
I've just completed my second reading of this wonderful work by C.S. Lewis, the first reading done while I was a young teenager. It was almost like reading the whole series again, I had forgotten a lot. I remembered The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe pretty well, but had forgotten all the details of the other books, except for one chapter from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Dragon Island.
I've got a new favorite in this series, no long The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, but now The Silver Chair. Why? I am Prince Rilian.
Read more below, but there are spoilers.
To recap:
Prince Rilian has been enchanted and taken away from the Kingdom of Narnia by an evil witch. Two schoolchildren, Eustace and Jill, are called by Aslan to rescue the Prince. They are given several signs to guide their way (and they mess these all up rather well, though they get the last and most important one right). Prince Rilian is released from his enchantment, but before escaping his underground prison, they all must face the evil witch for one last confrontation. They barely escape from another attack of evil magic, and Prince Rilian slays the witch. They escape back to Narnia and Prince Rilian sees his father, King Caspian, just before Caspian dies.
How does Prince Rilian's life describe me?
Prince Rilian's spell which holds him fast is unconfessed sin and doubt. In my case, it crept into my life when I began to doubt the truth of Christianity, and began to think of all religions and all points of view as valid searches for truth. I expressed that doubt by attending a church in a liberal denomination which prides itself on rejecting orthodox belief and replacing it with a "free and responsible search for truth and meaning". Now I respect that a little bit, but the way it is put into practice, in this worldview, one can't find the truth. It doesn't exist, or if it does exist, it only exists for oneself, and of course, since your search is never ending, one can always toss it aside and search for a different truth. Even the Principles and Purposes of this religion cannot be considered absolutes, but rather mere postulates.
Something happened in my belief system which told me that truth really does matter. How did it happen? Well, one author who had an effect on me was Ayn Rand, whose philosophy emphasized the existence of objective truth (though I have since rejected her atheism and extreme individualism). I realized that a search for truth should acknowledge the existence of a destination, and the willingess to stop searching (but not to stop learning and growing) when we get there. Otherwise one is just emulating Brownian motion, and not getting anywhere. I didn't think that was a good model for life. I've studied other religions and philosophies, and the one which seems to be most grounded in reality, is the one I believed in as a child, the one described by the Apostles' Creed, and by this creed I wrote after hearing a childrens' sermon on the First and Great Commandment.
Love God with all you've got.
Loving Jesus is loving God.
The Holy Spirit is God in us.
I recommitted my life to Christ just two years before the passing of my mother, and three years before the passing of my father. Reading through some of my mom's letters, I found out that one thing that made her very happy was my wife's decision to follow Jesus just a few months after my decision. I'm glad for the wisdom my parents passed on to me, and glad that we recognized its truth in time to share it with them.
Picking up the book again, I'm moving on to chapter 3, where the author interviews Jonathan Wells, of the Discovery Institute of Seattle (which is a think tank dedicated to much more than promoting Intelligent Design).
The subject of the chapter is Jonathan Wells' fisking of four icons of evolution:
The Miller Experiment
Jonathan Wells says that the significance of the Miller experiment depends on the accuracy of the recreation of earth's early atmosphere, and in this regard it fails. "Miller chose a hydrogen-rich mixture of methane, ammonia, and water vapor, which was consistent with what scientists thought back then. But scientists don't believe that anymore....The best hypothesis now is that there was very little hydrogen in the atmosphere because it would have escaped into space. Instead, the atmosphere probably consisted of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and water vapor." Strobel asks Wells what happens if you repeat the experiment with those components, and Wells tells him you'll get organic molecules, but not amino acids; what you'll get is formaldehyde, a toxic substance.
Going on from there, Strobel asks what if amino acids could be produced somehow - maybe we're wrong to throw out Miller's hypothesis; could amino acids produce life? Wells replies that it is a long way to go from a soup of amino acids to a living cell. He asks Strobel to think about what is involved by considering putting a single living cell in a sterile salt solution, and then poking a hole in it so that its contents leak into the solution. All the components of life are there, indeed more than the Miller experiment actually produced, but there is no life there; it's just a solution of molecules. It's not enough to have the molecules at hand, they have to be put together correctly, a mind-boggling task.
The bottom line of all this is that natural selection may offer an explanation of how life changes, but it is woefully inadequate in explaining how life first began. Strobel quotes another origin-of-expert, Walter Bradley, a former professor at Texas A&M University, "I think people who believe that life emerged naturalistically need to have a great deal more faith than people who reasonably infer that there's an Intelligent Designer."
Anoter way of perceiving the problem of life's beginning is to imagine yourself walking along the beach, and suddenly you see the words of Homer's The Iliad written in the sand. No reasonable person would conclude they were the product of random motions of waves on the sand - we recognize the vast improbability of that. We know that another person was there before us and wrote those words in the sand. The components of our cells, including our DNA, is much more complicated than words written in the sand, yet naturalists continue to deny that an intelligent being "wrote them down", insisting they are the product of random motions of molecules from a long time ago. (This example is from Lee Strobel's previous work, The Case for Christ)
The other topics from the list will be covered in future posts.
*****
A big thank you to David Heddle (He Lives), for providing me with a copy of a presentation he gave on Intelligent Design. His material complements Lee Strobel's book rather well.
Chapters 1 and 2 of Lee Strobel's book, The Case for a Creator, set up the framework for the discussion that follows, namely: is our universe the product of a designer or did it happen randomly? Is it possible to believe in what looks like a random process but was the work of a designer (theistic evolution).
Strobel introduces several quotes from scientists who think it is possible to believe in evolution and God, such as biology professor Kenneth R. Miller, of Brown University who declared that evolution "is not anti-God." Strobel goes on to say in opposition that that is not how evolution is presented. The foundation of natural selection theory is that it is by nature undirected, and that rules out a supernatural force directing the process. I've read works by Carl Sagan, Stephen J. Gould, and others who insist that there is no plan in natural selection, there are no morals in nature. This seems to be pretty hostile to the idea of a living, knowing Creator to me. Stephen C. Meyer, director of the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute confronts the contradiction, "To say that God guides an inherently unguided natural process, or that God designed a natural mechanism as a substitute for his design, is clearly contradictory."
It all comes down to one's worldview ultimately; is mankind here by accident or on purpose? In the book of Isaiah, the prophet testifies of the work of the Lord:
For thus says the Lord, Who created the heavens, Who is God, Who formed the earth and made it, Who has established it, Who did not create it in vain, Who formed it to be inhabited: "I am the Lord, and there is no other.Is. 45:18 NKJV
I've been rereading Lee Strobel's book The Case for a Creator, and am finally going to start a multi-part review of it. I've been reluctant to start though, mainly because I feel so ignorant about so much of the creation / evolution / intelligent design discussion.
Rather than jumping right into the book, I'm going to talk a little about how my beliefs have changed. I've always respected science, believing that honest inquiry will always find the truth. The key word there is honest, of course. The search must be conducted without bias, and where bias is found it must be questioned. There was a time in my life where my beliefs caused me to doubt God's role in creation. There was a later time where I reevaluated that doubt and believed in God again. When I renewed my faith, evolution wasn't an issue. I came back to faith because I saw that faith in God strengthens the family. I was soon confronted with the evolution issue however. Since I believe in God - should I also believe in His testimony? in His works? If I believe the Bible, do I have to believe in a literal six-day creation process, or can it be six ages and a very old earth? Can I believe in both the process of natural selection and God? My beliefs have slowly been changing, and I am definitely being led away from the attitude that I can believe in natural selection and God, though I still believe in an old earth and that the days are actually long periods of time. The main reason for that is what naturalists claim - to paraphrase Stephen Jay Gould, there is no morality in natural selection. If that is the foundation for natural selection, I've got to reject it out of hand, because I believe in a God who created something He called "good", indicating a process with a goal, not random. I also find the argument for a natural origin of life to be very weak. Whether natural selection may be valid for explaining some changes to existing life, it does not explain how life was first formed.
(to be continued)
Ronald Bailey reviews Paul Ehrlich, unfavorably, asking "Why does anyone stilll listen to him?"
I recently posted on Joshua Claybourn's site on the subject of faith and doubt, posting some reflections on a recent sermon delivered in my church.
That sermon was based on Thomas and his initial unbelief in Jesus' resurrection. I'm currently reading a book called The Case for a Creator, by Lee Strobel. Lee Strobel, a former atheist, interviews several people who are knowledgable in both science and theology, and discovers that the evidence for a creator is actually pretty strong. He shows that it actually takes a lot of faith, in fact more faith, to believe that the existence of the universe was a random event.
So far, my favorite chapter is his interview with William Lane Craig, where Dr. Craig presents the kalam argument:
I'm really enjoying reading this book. I'm going to discuss more of it as I go through it.
In the meantime, here are two columns from Boundless magazine: William Lane Craig, on the importance of intellectual development for Christians, and J.P. Moreland, on how the human mind could not have been a product of natural selection.
"'Everywhere I go,' the novelist Flannery O'Connor said, 'I'm asked if I think universities stifle writers.' Frankly, she'd reply, 'they don't stifle enough of them.'"
So begins an article (not on-line) in the latest issue of Claremont Review of Books (Spring 2004) by Scott Walter entitled "The Strange Case of a Hillbilly Thomist." It's a review of a few books about O'Connor, including Flannery O'Connor: Spiritual Writings edited by Robert Ellsberg, and Return to Good and Evil: Flannery O'Connor's Response to Nihilism by Henry T. Edmondson III.
A Southerner, O'Connor wrote two novels and several collections of stories; she was a political and theological conservative, and a Catholic.
Once, after arriving at a famous literary soiree at 8 pm -- an evening that included Mary McCarthy and Robert Lowell -- (she later said) that by 1 am "[I] hadn't opened my mouth once, there being nothing for me in such company to say."
Then, at one point, conversation turned to the Eucharist and McCarthy said it was a lovely symbol. O'Connor spoke: "Well, if it's a symbol, to hell with it."
She was admired by the literati, even as she saw through them....
According to Walter:
"After Iowa [State University] she spent time at Yaddo, an artists' colony where she worked to finish her novel and socialized with other guests, including Alfred Kazin, Edward Maisel, and Robert Lowell. Her distrust of 'innerleckshuls' only deepened at Yaddo, as she observed that their self-indulgence in drugs, alcohol, and sex were matched with 'arty' phoniness and a cowardly conformity to secular leftism. Still, Yaddo allowed her to bear down on her novel [Wise Blood], and she gained her peers' respect. Kazin was impressed by her faith, 'so rare in America that it makes her stand out in every possible way. To me she is one of the few writers of that post-war generation who will live for a very long time.'"
Walter reports that O'Connor's views on education can be intuited from a letter of hers that reported on a conversation she had with the conservative philosopher and author of The Conservative Mind -- Russel Kirk:
"ME: I read old William Heard Kilpatrick died recently. John Dewey's dead too, isn't he?
KIRK: Yes, thank God. Gone to his reward. Ha ha.
ME: I hope there's children crawling all over him.
KIRK: Yes, I hope he's with the unbaptized enfants.
ME: No, they would be too innocent.
KIRK: Yes. Ha ha. With the baptized enfants."
She marked the following sentence in her copy of Kirk's book: "Abstract sentimentality ends in real brutality."
At one time O'Connor had written in an essay:
"If other ages felt less they saw more, even though they saw with the blind, prophetical, unsentimental eye of acceptance, which is to say, of faith. In the absence of this faith now, we govern by tenderness....[But when] tenderness is detached from the source of tenderness, its logical outcome is terror. It ends in forced labor camps and the fumes of the gas chamber."
What's interesting about her stories is their reality; her curious eyes recommend a bracing approach to life. A few pages can be an ordeal.
Walter quotes T.S. Elliot as saying of her stories -- "[I] was quite horrified by those I read. She has certainly an uncanny talent of a high order but my nerves are just not strong enough to take much of a disturbance." Walter goes on: "She sets the stories in her backwoods South and peoples them, as she readily confessed, with 'freaks.'...Puzzlement over their meaning can be lessened by reading the essays and letters. The latter brim with her humor and her steely-eyed insights into literature, religion, and the modern world."
Walter adds:
"O'Connor devoted her life to her art, and she devoted her art to a battle against relativism and the nihilism she saw had spawned it. She celebrated both reason and faith as part of an objective approach to reality and railed against the twin falsehoods of sentimentality and pornography. She decried the former wherever she found it -- in subjectivist philosophy, in best-selling novels, and, as Giannone quotes, in the 'sugary slice of inspirational pie' common in the popular piety of her day."
I'm a neo-conservative and don't always agree with the "traditional conservative" intellectuals -- holding that social change involving individual behavior is not always a threat to the order -- but still, I often I find myself intrigued by the wisdom and deeper philosophical vision in the writings of the Protestant and Catholic conservative thinkers.
The traditionalists point out certain inescapable truths: freedom and individuality are essential American values, yet despite the fact that leftist progressive or right-wing libertarian movements in the twentieth century have led to brave new thinking; the new secular plans of greater liberty: don't work. We still have a breakdown of morality, a conspicuous shattering of social bonds and family structures, and continue to experience shrinking codes of common decency and interpersonal mores. This happens even when the Right comes to political power. Why?
Here are a few deep books that deal with these subjects from a traditional perspective:
*** First, a book recommended to me by my cousin-in-law Mark Franz of Shafter, California; his son David has studied with the author: The Death of Character: Moral Education in an Age Without Good or Evil by James Davison Hunter (Basic Books, 2000). According to the back cover, the book: "traces the death of character to the disintegration of the moral and social conditions that make character possible in the first place." The author focuses on the problem of the education of character -- and how America hopelessly yearns to encourage character, but without realizing it is only the requisite limits and obligations on individuals which would make it work. Yet this seems impossible to realize since it contradicts American individualism.
Then, Eric Miller's article "Alone in the Academy" in the February 2004 issue of First Things provides three other books:
*** Conspicuous Criticism: Tradition, the Individual, and Culture in American Social Thought, from Veblen to Mills by Christopher Shannon (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996). Shannon was one of Christopher Lasch's students at the University of Rochester. (Lasch wrote the 1979 best-seller The Culture of Narcissim: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations.)
*** Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (University of Notre Dame Press, 1980; 2nd edition 1997). Miller says MacIntyre is "perhaps the dominant moral philosopher of the last third of the twentieth century," and that MacIntyre "had moved from Marxism to Thomism" by the publication of this book.
*** George Packer's Blood of the Liberals (Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2001) is not written by a Christian, but of which Miller writes: "George Packer’s beautifully crafted memoir...provides a poignant personal rendering of [these] development[s]. The grandson of a self-proclaimed Jeffersonian Congressman from Alabama and the son of a self-consciously liberal law professor (and a Stanford University provost during the late 1960s), Packer tells, with disarming frankness, a three-generational story about what has happened to a country that seems unable to bind itself together in ways that honor its venerable, organizing ideals of citizenship."
There you have it. A few more notes about each book, along with quotes, follows....
******* Concerning James Davison Hunter's The Death of Character: Moral Education in an Age Without Good or Evil, here are a few quotes from the opening section of the book -- called "Postmortem":
"Character is dead. Attempts to revive it will yield little. Its time has passed.
"The irony is sharp. The death of character comes at a time when the call to 'renew values' and to 'restore character' is especially loud, persistent, universal -- not to mention urgent....
"Even so, a restoration of character as a common feature within American society and a common trait of its people will not likely occur any time soon. The social and cultural conditions that make character possible are no longer present and no amount of political rhetoric, legal maneuvering, educational policy making, or money can change that reality. Its time has passed.
"Character is formed in relation to convictions and is manifested in the capacity to abide by those convictions even in, especially in, the face of temptation. This being so, the demise of character begins with the destruction of creeds, the convictions, and the 'god-terms' that made those creeds sacred to us and inviolable within us.
"This destruction occurs simultaneously with the rise of 'values.' Values are truths that have been deprived of their commanding character....The very word 'value' signifies the reduction of truth into utility, taboo, to fashion, conviction to mere preference; all provisional, all exchangeable. Both values and 'lifestyle' -- a way of living that reflects the accumulation of one's values -- bespeak a world in which nothing is sacred....
"We say we want a renewal of character in our day but we don't really know what we ask for. To have a renewal of character is to have a renewal of a creedal order that constrains, limits, binds, obligates, and compels. This price to too high for us to pay."
******* Concerning Christopher Shannon's Conspicuous Criticism: Tradition, the Individual, and Culture in American Social Thought, from Veblen to Mills, Eric Miller's article says Shannon is even more pessimistic than Lasch:
"The Culture of Narcissm...summed up and deepened a conviction shared by many that Americans were changing, becoming less able and willing to practice citizenship, exchanging the common life for, as he put it, 'purely personal preoccupations.' Lasch tied this historical shift in character to the ongoing advance of liberal capitalism, with its ever-colonizing market and ever-expanding state. 'The atrophy of older traditions of self-help has eroded everyday competence, in one area after another, and has made the individual dependent on the state, the corporation, and other bureaucracies,' he said. 'Narcissism represents the psychological dimension of this dependence.'
"It was a powerful argument. It was also precisely the type of argument -- a jeremiad -- that Shannon, two decades later, called at once understandable, monotonous, and futile. For Shannon, the ending of the American story was already scripted, and even a collective turning away from corporate capitalism wouldn't remove the fact that America's deepest (and sole) point of unity was the individual, and the individual alone -- a laughably weak foundation upon which to construct anything like a 'commonwealth,' 'republic,' or even a 'community.'"
Miller notes that:
"It was Shannon’s position as a Christian writing within the academy that helped to account for my own grateful and enthusiastic reception of his arguments. I suspected, as I made my way through his book, that Shannon felt as uncomfortable in the modern American university as I did, and his book seemed at least in part an effort to probe the roots of his unease and to explain his findings to his (uncomprehending) peers and colleagues. What provoked Shannon (and me) wasn’t simply a wrongheaded 'worldview,' or some other species of philosophical abstraction in the university. Rather, it was a way of life -- the actual living out by real people of this 'rational alternative to tradition.' By the century’s end this way of life was standard within the American university, where both Shannon and I, as fledgling Christian scholars, found ourselves uneasily living and moving and having our being.
"One obvious feature of this university-sanctioned-and-sustained way of life is its depleted understanding of marriage and sexuality, and its accompanying commitment to oppose any who would speak against this understanding. Although this received wisdom is conveyed in the language of liberation, I discovered that it provided cover for lives that were often full of hopelessness. One of my classmates was about to be married, and I remember hearing another student wisecrack to him about the divorce that was sure to follow -- a barren, ugly cynicism, rooted, sadly, in an all-too-intimate knowledge of the empirical evidence."
******* Concerning Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, Miller says:
"On MacIntyre’s view, having gradually abandoned the long-dominant Aristotelian tradition of virtue ethics, modern moral thinking had devolved into emotivism, which assumes as a matter of course that 'all moral judgments are nothing but expressions of preference, expressions of attitude or feeling, insofar as they are moral or evaluative in character' 'We live in a specifically emotivist culture,' contended MacIntyre, a culture that locates moral order not in a benevolent, overarching telos but solely within the individual self.
"Like Lasch, MacIntyre looked at the twentieth century and saw chaos; the old moral consensus of Europe and North America had dissolved. 'Each moral agent now spoke unconstrained by the externalities of divine law, natural teleology, or hierarchical authority; but why should anyone else now listen to him?'"
******* Concerning George Packer's Blood of the Liberals, Miller writes:
"Repelled by the tendency of twentieth-century liberals like his father to cut themselves off from their own 'blood' to serve the mind (he notes, for instance that his father gave the university 'all his energy, much more than he gave his family, because he believed in the high importance of the life of the mind'), Packer narrates his own journey through his family’s past, subtly intertwining his personal narrative with a broader argument about the direction of American history itself. His conclusion? 'The main problem of our time is a loss of belief in collective self-betterment.' The revolts of the sixties, he contends, may have changed a lot of lives but they 'didn’t leave behind a viable worldview,' making what he calls the post-sixties 'ruins of liberalism' at once understandable and pathetic. 'This was the face of American prosperity at the end of the twentieth century,' he writes, 'racially tolerant, environmentally conscious, and determined to wall itself off from the low-paid countrymen who cut its grass and wait on its tables and look after its children.'
"Packer is a leftist longing for a community that he can’t find. In his mid-thirties he goes so far as to investigate his aunt’s evangelical world, and even travels from his home in Boston to Washington D.C. to attend the massive 1997 Promise Keepers rally, in search of one single experience of social, interracial solidarity. Understanding 'religion' to be a 'challenge' to his 'liberalism,' he nonetheless senses that evangelicals have what he has been unable to locate on the left, 'something that can’t be summoned on demand: vitality.' At the end of his evangelical explorations, he sadly concludes that 'all the years of rational training at home had killed the nerves that might have been receptive to religious stimuli.'
"Packer was looking in the right direction -- cultus -- even if his own search ended in disappointment. The communities that will be forged in our midst will surely be religious in a self-conscious way, for actual religions -- our collective responses to the mystery that lies beyond and within our seeing and touching -- are what have historically made possible the sorts of communities that we in our time so struggle to achieve. Communities need God as children need parents: apart from the ordering presence of a religion, we fly apart and die alone."
Lord of the Rings fans have a lot of reading to do. Another of the many books coming out these days about Tolkien is reviewed on the Books & Culture website; the review entitled “The Doom of Choice: Fate, free will, and moral responsibility in Tolkien” by David O’Hara.
It’s a review of the book Following Gandalf: Epic Battles and Moral Victory in The Lord of the Rings by Matthew Dickerson.
(I’m partly mentioning this to draw attention to the incredible Books & Culture: A Christian Review -- one of the best intellectual “book review” publications around, and worth subscribing to. I spend hours with each issue.)
What stuck me most about the film trilogy Lord of the Rings was the emphasis on the relation between the difficulty of responsibility and the freedom of choice.
O’Hara’s review takes this subject on: “Following Gandalf is a timely and relevant exploration of how military conflict illustrates the profound inner conflict of moral responsibility. Its basic argument is that Tolkien's restraint in describing battles exalts heroism, not violence; and that heroism is an image of the universal human need to strive for moral victory, which is made possible by real freedom.”
A new translation of the Bible may be a gem; so claims Alan Jacobs in his article “A Bible for Everyone” in the December 2003 issue of First Things.
The King James Version (KJV) -- a hauntingly beautiful work of Shakespearian dimension -- was THE favorite for years. But in recent decades many new ones have appeared. The New International Version (NIV) has become the most popular version BY FAR across the country in evangelistic churches.
Scholars say the NIV is the MOST ACCURATE version. But I can’t keep it a secret any longer: I HAVE to say this: there’s something terribly wrong with the NIV! How can I put this?
AAAAAAGGGGHHHH!
No, wait a minute….How's this:
If you want one-dimensional style, flat expression, and stale word usage -- the NIV’s for you!
No….
The NIV reads like an OFFICE MEMO!
No….
The NIV READS LIKE A WAREHOUSE PACKING SLIP!
(OK, you get the point.)
WHY does the NIV take the word “garments” (in King James) -- referring to the clothing of the wealthy -- and render it “clothes”? CLUNK! The dry, ordinary word CLOGS the throat. THE RICH DON’T WEAR CLOTHES -- THEY WEAR GARMENTS, YOU (BLANK)...!
The NIV HAS NO POETRY!
(Alright, I’ll calm down. I’ve complained about this for years and I just get STEAMED when this comes up.)
The new translation sets out to change this. It’s called the ENGLISH STANDARD VERSION (ESV) and it's an attempt to merge excellent modern scholarship with beautiful prose.
Jacobs says: “It is the ESV’s balance of thorough, up-to-date scholarship and deference to the elders’ wisdom that makes it the best available English Bible. What this means, further, is that the ESV is the best candidate yet for the long-hoped-for ‘replacement’ of the KJV, the translation that bridges denominational gaps and strikes the right balance among the virtues of clarity, correctness, and grace.”
Jacobs explains why so many of the new translations are so boring: “When King James commissioned his Companies of Translators, the people most thoroughly educated in the various humanistic disciplines were also those most learned in the biblical tongues. The celebrated ‘poetic’ or ‘literary’ qualities of the KJV are a function of this long-lost union. But in the last two centuries the training of biblical scholars in what has come to be called the ‘grammatical-historical’ method has assumed a character alien to the literary and rhetorical education rooted in the schools of the Roman Empire. A model of Christian learning shared -- not altogether but to some degree -- by Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin had virtually disappeared by the end of the eighteenth century….Thus C. S. Lewis’ complaint that a scholar whose ‘literary experiences of [the biblical] texts lack any standard of comparison such as can only grow from a wide and deep and genial experience of literature in general’ is not wholly reliable as a guide. ‘If he tells me that something in a Gospel is legend or romance, I want to know how many legends and romances he has read, how well his palate is trained in detecting them by the flavor.’”
Jacobs ends his article this way: “Everyone who grew up with the KJV feels the loss of a shared language, of particular words and phrases that resonated in the common ear -- words and phrases whose meanings could be tested, considered, deployed and redeployed in an infinitely varied set of contexts. I think now of all those generations of the English-speaking peoples separating the wheat from the chaff, lying down in green pastures, sometimes being weighed in the balance and found wanting but at other times fighting the good fight -- the whole vast array of discourse (much of it richly metaphorical) tells us that it is very difficult to share thoughts when we do not share language. And since Christians are counseled to be of one mind, they should be more attentive to the particular words that shape and form our minds. To have once again a widely shared English Bible -- ‘one principal good one’ -- would be a significant step towards that one mind in Christ.”
I use the georgeous New King James Version, or the succinct and bracing American Standard Version. The NIV gives me the willies!
I tried finding the new ESV at some Bible book stores recently in Southern California but they were sold out.
Check it out.
I finished Timeline pretty quickly, it was a fast read given that it's hard to put down when a character's life is on the line.
Treason was another matter altogether. I got about halfway through it, and just could not force myself to finish. The book was returned to the library yesterday. Maybe I'll pick it up later, it's hard to read this kind of book in the summer, when it's easy to fall asleep on the back porch while the cats cavort in the back yard, killing all the birds and squirrels they can catch (not really!! - my cats are fifteen years old, the birds and squirrels are too fast for them now)
About Treason: Ann Coulter is probably right in her assessment of Joe McCarthy as a great American patriot who was trying to save America from Communism. I do have a problem with believing that he did it flawlessly however. There were some innocent people who got hurt, along with many who probably deserved every bit of trouble they got, but the end result is that now if anyone says anything bad about people who support Communism, they get smeared with the label of McCarthyism. Too bad, because Communism seems to appeal to higher ideals without providing the means to achieve them, being thought up by an economic idiot.
I got far enough into the book to say that Lileks is right on in this post, (also see this Bleat from last year), Ann Coulter is a lumper, and lumps all Democrats under the treason label, disregarding the political views and actions of some who stood up to and question the Communist influence in our culture. Just to name one name, Ronald Reagan was a Democrat when he stood up to the Communist presence in the Screen Actors Guild. He switched parties later, but in his words, the party changed, not him.
I respect Ann Coulter's opinions for the most part. I think it is important to have people like her who forcefully argue conservative opinion. But she does have a tendency to speak carelessly sometimes. During the 2000 election recount, she claimed, on Hannity & Colmes, that a prominent judge on the Florida Supreme Court was a contributor to the Gore campaign. A clerk for the judge was on the show at the time and said no, he was a contributor to the Democratic Party, and all contributions ended when he became a judge, as Florida state law proscribed contributions from judges. Ann Coulter did not have a response to that, and that gave me the sense that the clerk was correct.
I really enjoyed Coulter's last book, Slander, which I think accurately described the liberal bias inherent in our media, especially elite opinion such as that found in The New York Times or The New Yorker. I particularly liked the way she skewered the myth of The Religious Right as an organized political entity. I wish Treason was written as well.
After all the introductions are complete, the pilgrims continue on their way. The conversation turns to the discussion of another pilgrim. Great Heart asks Old Honesty if he has ever heard of a pilgrim named Mr. Fearing. Honesty says he has, and knew him very well, though he was one of the most troublesome pilgrims he ever met. Great Heart says Honesty has described Mr. Fearing very well, and Honesty replies, "Knew him! I was a great companion of his! I was with him almost to the end. When he first began to think of what would come upon us hereafter, I was with him." Great Heart also replies that he was with Mr. Fearing from his Master's house to the Gate of Celestial City.
Honesty says that Great Heart must have found him a very troubling case, and Great Heart replies that it's all part of his job, "I certainly did, but I could bear it very well, for men of my calling are often entrusted with the conduct of such as he." Honesty asks Great Heart to describe how Fearing fared under his guidance.
Great Heart describes Fearing as a man who was always afraid of coming short of wherever he had a desire to go. He was in the Swamp of Despondence for over a month, not even accepting a hand when offered by the other pilgrims who passed him by. At the Gate, he stood by, unwilling to knock while others entered before him. At last, he gathered the courage to knock, and was granted welcome and blessing, and was then sent on his way. At the Interpreter's house, he stood outside the door for a very long time, even though he had a Note of Necessity for the master which would have granted him full access to the comforts of the house. Great Heart, who was in the Interpreter's house at the time, saw him outside and brought him in, though with much difficulty. When inside however, the Interpreter treated him most lovingly.
Great Heart served as escort for Mr. Fearing upon leaving the Interpreter's House, and Fearing seemed to make better progress from then on. At the Cross and Tomb, he lingered, but in such a way as was appropriate to the beauty of the place. The Hill of Difficulty and the lions were no problem, as Fearing's fear was of not being accepted. At the house Beautiful, Great Heart pushes Fearing in before he is willing to go, and though he is embarrased in the presence of the ladies who live there, he does appreciate seeing the ancient things.
Going on from there, in the Valley of Humiliation, Fearing seemed to thrive. Great Heart says, "he went down as well as I ever saw a man do in my life, for he didn't care how little or how low he was as long as he could be happy at last. Yes, I think there was a kind of sympathy between that valley and him, for I never saw him better in all his Pilgrimage than when he was in that valley."
In the Valley of the Shadow of Death, Great Heart is afraid he is going to lose his man, however. Fearing is ready to die from fear. Great Heart cannot shake him from this fear, and is even afraid that his crying out will attract the enemy. Great Heart notes that the valley is unusually quiet for their passing however, a sign of grace from our Lord.
Wrapping up the story, Great Heart says that Mr. Fearing was unusually full of zeal at Vanity Fair, ready to fight with every man in the place. He is also very alert on the Enchanted Ground, but when he reaches the river separating him from Celestial City, he is afraid to cross. Great Heart notes that while Fearing is crossing the river, the water is low, as low as he has ever seen it in fact. The water is not even above Fearing's shoes. They part ways and Fearing is accepted into Celestial City.
Returning to the current conversation, Honesty expresses gladness that Fearing wound up well at last. Great Heart says, "I never had a doubt about him. He was a man of a choice spirit; only he was always kept very low, and that made his life so burdensome to himself and so troublesome to others."
Honesty notes that Fearing was a very earnest man, "He didn't fear difficulties, lions, or the Vanity Fair at all. It was only sin, death, and Hell that were a terror to him, and that was because he had some doubts about his share in that Celestial Country."
The others also relate how their lives are similar to Fearing, also noting some particular differences. Christiana also felt fearful in the beginning of her pilgrimage, but her fear inspired her to knock all the louder at the gate and get on in the way as quickly as possible. Mercy says that Fearing's experience pretty much matches hers, she has always been more afraid of the lake and the loss of a place in Paradise than of any other thing.
James adds "No fears, no grace, although there isn't always grace where there is the fear of Hell, yet, to be sure, there is no grace where there is no fear of God." Great Heart concludes the discussion, "Well said, James. You've hit the mark, for 'the fear of God is the beginning of Wisdom.' "
(to be continued)
Thoughts on this chapter
Have you ever known a Christian, perhaps in your church, who was so humble or so self-abasing, that it was a pain to be around them? The experience that Great Heart shares with us tells us that the best way to deal with such people is with extreme patience. Maybe we should be looking at them for wisdom instead of impatience. God has such people in the church for a reason, and while they may not be claiming all the grace and fullness God has for them, they are beloved of Him all the more for it.
The next segment of this chapter deals with another individual, SelfWill, and he is a completely different character, in every way, than Mr. Fearing.
Great Heart, Christiana, Mercy, and the boys continue the journey, leaving the battle with the giant Maul. Leaving the Valley of the Shadow of Death, they come upon the point where Christian met up with Faithful. Christiana and her sons have some questions for Great Heart.
Christiana: "But weren't you afraid, good Sir, when you saw him come out with his club?"
Great Heart: "It's my duty to distrust my own ability so I might rely on Him who is stronger than all."
Matthew: "When you've all thought what you please, I think God has been wonderfully good to us, both in bringing us out of this valley and in delivering us out of the hand of this enemy. For my part, I see no reason why we should distrust our God anymore since He has now given us such a testimony of His love in such a place as this."
Going on, the party encounters a sleeping pilgrim, who wakes up, and is apparently ready to fight. Great Heart calms him down, claiming to be his friend, and the pilgrim says that he was afraid that the party was in the company of those who robbed Little Faith of his money.
Great Heart asks the pilgrim for his name, but the pilgrim is not willing to share it. He only claims his hometown, which is the Town of Stupidity, beyond the City of Destruction. Great Heart then guesses the pilgrim's name, which is Old Honesty. Honesty blushes, and says "I hope my nature will agree to what I'm called. But Sir, how could you guess that I am such a man since I came from that kind of a place?" Great Heart replies that He has heard of him, from his master, but expresses wonder "that anyone could come from your place, for your town is worse than what the City of Destruction is itself."
Mr. Honest replies, "Yes, we're farther away from the sun, so are more cold and senseless. But even if a man lived in a mountain of ice, if the sun of righteousness arose upon him, his frozen heart would feel a thaw; and this is how it has been with me."
Everyone is introduced, and Mr. Honest is especially enthusiastic about meeting Christiana, and has special blessings for her, her sons Matthew, Samuel, Joseph, and James, and Mercy, Christiana's companion from the City of Destruction.
(to be continued, this is a long chapter)
Thoughts on this chapter
This chapter begins a change of style in the narrative. From here on, we are going to be picking up more pilgrims until the entourage resembles a small church. Part Two is not the walk of a couple of individuals that Part One was. Three people are introduced today (though the last two are not actually encountered, just talked about). I'll add more comments when I finish this chapter.
The Pilgrims now descend into the Valley of Humiliation. They know of Christian's fight with Apollyon, and talk about it, expressing fear of a similar fate. Great Heart assures them that they will be safe. Christian's fight with Apollyon actually resulted from Christian's missteps as he descended into the valley. Great Heart goes on to say that the Valley is actually a very pleasant place, that our Lord actually had a country house here, and loved to walk and partake of the beauty of this place. Here is solitude and rest. They see the spot where Christian and Apollyon fought, and there is a pillar erected there to commemorate Christian's victory. Great Heart tells them that when Apollyon was defeated, he fled to the Valley of the Shadow of Death, their next destination.
Now they come upon the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and they have two advantages that Christian did not have: they enter the Valley in daylight, and they have Great Heart as their guide (as well as each other). The Valley is long and difficult still, and the boys are afraid. Great Heart gives them comfort from his experience. He has traveled this Valley many times, and this time is not as challenging as the worst of them, so he tells the boys to take comfort from the fact that he is still alive. One of the boys becomes ill, but Christiana applies some of the medicine obtained from the Physician at the Family's house, and he recovers. Christiana soon sees something fiendish and ugly approaching them from the front, and gathers the boys and Mercy around her, but as it comes closer, it vanishes as if they were passing through fog. Later, Mercy hears a lion roaring, and looks back to see a lion stalking them. Great Heart moves to the rear, and when the lion sees his drawn sword, stops the pursuit. Later they come upon an open pit, and cannot see the bottom for all the smoke and fire about it. Great Heart tells them this is like doing business on the Great Deep, or going down to the roots of mountains. He directs them to pray, and soon the hindrance is cleared and they are able to continue.
One last obstacle remains, the cave at the end of the valley. However, this time, they do not encounter Pope and Pagan, as Christian did, but a raging giant, Maul who demands that Great Heart stop his business with pilgrims. Maul is known for encountering Pilgrims with sophistry, subtle reasoning and deception leading to a skeptical view of the truth. Great Heart confronts Maul, saying they shall fight, but not until the Pilgrims hear the reason for the fight. Maul accuses Great Heart of robbing the country. Great Heart asks him to be specific in his accusations. Maul says, "You practice the craft of a kidnapper. You gather up women and children and carry them into a strange country to the weakening of my Master's kingdom." Great Heart replies, "I am a servant of the God of Heaven. My business is to bring Sinners to repentance...And if this is indeed the business of your quarrel, let us get to it as soon as you would like."
The giant has a club, Great Heart a sword. The giant strikes first, bringing Great Heart down to his knees, but he recovers and delivers a wound to the giant's arm. The fight is fierce and takes more than an hour. Eventually both have to stop to rest. Maul simply catches his breath, but Great Heart prays earnestly. The women and children stand nearby, huddled together, sighing and crying all through the battle. When the fight resumes, Great Heart knocks the giant down, whereupon the giant cries out "Stop, let me recover!" Great Heart stops and lets the giant get up. As soon as the giant is up, he delivers a blow which just barely misses breaking Great Heart's skull, but in the weak moment after the thrust, Great Heart pierces the giant's chest with the sword. The giant begins to faint, and Great Heart cuts off his head.
Thoughts on this chapter
The Valley of Humiliation, which many people view as a bad thing, is actually a desired place to be closer to the Lord.
The Valley of the Shadow of Death presents many dangers. Some of them are just illusions, figments of our imagination. Others are real, but thwarted with the strong defense of the sword of God's word. Others are more difficult to travers and require fervent prayer. Then there is the ever present chatter from those who would discourage Christians from going on their Pilgrimage or encouraging others to do so. Confronting them may be difficult, even violent (in spiritual terms), but we are called to take on the Pilgrimage boldly. It helps to have a guide with a sword to do the actual fighting, however.
Great Heart leads the Pilgrims to the Porter's Gate (we're at the House Beautiful now), and introduces them. He then begs leave of them in order to return to the Interpreter's house, his mission being fulfilled. Christiana expresses regret at his having to leave, and Mercy and James express similar sentiments. Great Heart replies that he has to be obedient to his Lord, but he would be willing to accompany them, if the Interpreter will send him. He then tells Christiana that she could have asked for this back when they were at the Interpreter's house -- but he has to return now, and will return if called for.
Christiana then identifies herself as Christian's widow, and the Porter leads everyone into the house where the Pilgrims are introduced to the family. They are greeted with joy and thanksgiving, a much easier reception than the one Christian received. After dinner, Christiana asks to have Christian's old room, and she shares the room with Mercy. Mercy has a dream that evening, where she is lamenting the hardness of her heart, and she sees someone with wings coming to her. Mercy is asked what troubles her, and when she tells her complaint, she is told "Peace be to you," and she is dressed in fine clothes, adorned with beautiful jewelry and a crown, and is led to One sitting on a throne, where she is welcomed. She laughs out loud in her dream, and Christiana asks her about the dream in the morning. Christiana assures her that the latter part of the dream will come true just as the first part.
Christiana and Mercy decide to stay with the Family for about a month, learning all they can from them. Prudence asks Christiana's permission to test hers sons. She asks James, "Can you tell me who saves you?" James replies, "God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit."
Prudence: "How does God the Father save you?"
James: "By His grace."
Prudence: "How does God the Son save you?"
James: "By His righteousness, death, blood, and life."
Prudence: "And how does God the Holy Spirit save you?"
James: "By His illumination, by His renovation, and by His preservation."
Prudence commends Christiana for the quality of James' learning.
Prudence questions Joseph, "What is assumed by this word 'saved'?"
Joseph: "That by sin Man has brought himself into a state captivity and misery."
Prudence: "What is assumed by his being saved by the Trinity?"
Joseph: "That sin is so great and mighty a tyrant, that no one but God can pull us out of its clutches, and that God is so good and loving to people as to indeed pull them out of this miserable state."
Joseph is commended for learning well.
Prudence questions Samuel, "Why do you want to go to Heaven?"
Samuel answers, "So I may see God and serve Him without weariness, so I may see Christ and love Him forever, and so I may have a fullness of the Holy Spirit in me suc as I can't enjoy here."
Prudence commends Samuel, "You are a good young man, also, and one who has learned well."
Prudence now questions the oldest, Matthew, "What do you think of the Bible?"
Matthew: "It is the Holy Word of God"
Prudence: "Is there anything written in it that you don't understand?"
Matthew: "Yes, a great deal"
Prudence: "What do you do when you come across in it places that you don't understand?"
Matthew: "I think that God is wiser than I. I also pray that He will please let me know everything in it that He knows will be for my good."
Prudence: "What do you believe regarding the resurrection of the dead?
Matthew: "I believe the same people who were buried shall rise the same in nature but not in corruption. And I believe this for two reasons. First--because God has promised it. Second--because He is able to perform it."
Prudence then tells the boys that they must continue to learn from their mother, and to observe what the heavens and earth teach them, and to pay special heed to the Book which led Christian to become a Pilgrim.
Mercy has a gentleman caller while staying at the house, a man named Brisk, who has designs on marrying her. Mercy asks the girls of the family about him, and is told that he is a man who pretends to be religious, but is actually stuck very closely to the world. She wonders what to do, for she does not want to continue the relationship. She is told to do what is in her nature, and Brisk will stop calling. The next time Brisk comes by, he finds Mercy making clothes for the poor. He asks how much money she makes doing this, and Mercy replies that she is doing this out of compassion, there is no profit. Brisk is discouraged and leaves.
Now finally, the bad effects of Beelzebub's fruit is felt (back from when the boys picked up the fruit on the path, right inside the Gate several days ago). Matthew becomes very ill. A Physician is called for, and after some questioning the cause is found. A laxative is made, which is found to be too weak, so stronger medicine is called for, "Ex Carne et Sanguine Christi (you know, physicians give strange medicines to their patients)" A footnote on this passage, from Hazelbaker, says "This Latin phrase means 'of the flesh and blood of Christ.' John 6:53-58 Hebrews 9:14 [Bunyan's scripture reference] The medicine of the Law was not enough to cure the sickness. The blood and flesh of Christ is the only medicine strong enough to overcome the effects of sin. Romans 8:3" Matthew reluctantly takes the medicine and recovers. Christiana asks for some of this medicine to take with her. The Physician gives her some of it and she is told that she must administer it in the same fashion, or it will have no effect.
During the remaining part of the month, the boys have several questions to ask Prudence, and the Pilgrims are shown a few artifacts, such as the fruit that Eve ate from, and the altar, wood, and knife used by Abraham when he was told to sacrifice his son Isaac, and finally they are shown Jacob's ladder, with angels ascending and descending upon it.
They finally send for Great Heart, who returns to accompany them on their Pilgrimage, to the end this time, and they depart.
Thoughts on this chapter
This chapter is full of questions and answers on basic theology. I've included only some of them, the ones I felt to be most significant. Once again, Mercy is reassured that she will be welcome at the end of the Pilgrimage. The boys are growing in wisdom. We will see later that they are growing in stature as well, the Pilgrimage is an allegorical type of a full and entire Christian life, from childhood to adulthood. Christian's journey as described, seemed to be only several months long, in Part Two, it encompasses an entire lifetime.
Great Heart leads the Pilgrims from the Interpreter's house, and they soon reach the Cross, where Christian's burden fell off his back, and rolled into the tomb at the bottom of a hill, where it was seen no more. Christiana knows that the Cross is the means of pardon, in word by the promise of God, but she does not understand its fulfillment in deed. She asks Great Heart for an explanation. Great Heart talks of pardon by deed by the work of Christ, "And He has obtained it in this double way: He has performed righteousness to cover you and has spilled blood in which to wash you." He goes on to describe fully the nature of Christ and His righteousness, both as God incarnate, and as fully human Man. He talks of the necessity for a redemption from the curse of sin, "this is by The Blood of your Lord who came and stood in your place and stead, and who died your death for your transgressions....For the sake of this, God passes by you and will not hurt you when He comes to judge the world."
They go on to the point where Christian tried to wake Simple, Sloth, and Presumption. They are still here, but are not asleep on the ground. They are now hanged up in irons a short distance from the path. They talk for a while about how their sloth resulted in their confinement and how it now serves as a warning for others, though for a while, they turned many Pilgrims from the path, hence deserving their punishment.
Going on, the Pilgrims reach the Hill of Difficulty, and see the paths around the hill that Formal and Hypocrisy took, thereby becoming lost. They note that there are obstacles preventing access to the false paths, yet the foolish still insist on taking what seems to be an easier path. They go up the hill, and find it strenuous after a while. They soon desire rest, and Great Heart leads them to the Prince's Arbor, the place where Christian fell asleep and lost his Certificate. They rest, being wary of falling asleep. Great Heart asks James, one of Christiana's sons, what he thinks of the Pilgrimage now. James says that he almost lost heart, but thanking Great Heart for his guidance, he replies that his mother has told him that the way to Heaven is like a ladder, and the way to Hill is like down a hill. He'd rather go up the ladder to life, than down the hill to death. Mercy replies, "But the proverb is: 'To go down the hill is easy.' " James answers, "In my opinion, the day is coming when going down the hill will be the hardest of all." Great Heart commends the boy for his correct answer.
They resume their journey, and soon approach the place where Christian encountered Fearful and Mistrust, running away from the lions. There is now a platform there, and a plate engraved with a message warning those who would turn back from fear, and stating that Fearful and Mistrust were here punished for endeavoring to hinder Christian on his journey.
They are now in sight of the lions. The young boys are afraid, and fall back to the rear. Great Heart smiles and chides them gently, saying "How's this, my Boys? Do you love to take the lead when no danger approaches but love to take the rear as soon as the lions appear?" Great Heart draws his sword, even though the lions are chained. His sword is drawn wisely, for their is a new danger here. A giant appears, Grim, and claims that the Pilgrims are trespassing. Great Heart replies that the women and children are going on Pilgrimage, "and this is the way they must go. And go it they shall, in spite of you and the lions." Christiana affirms that she and her companions will walk through. A fight ensues between Great Heart and Grim, resulting in Grim's death. The party then walks on by the chained lions safely, though they are afraid of them.
Thoughts on this chapter
There is a long monologue in this chapter regarding the righteousness of Christ and how He accomplished our salvation. It is rather detailed and hard to repeat in this review, but it is certainly worth a second look for anyone wishing to look it up.
The lions are now reinforced by a giant who actively resists the progress of the Pilgrims. In Part One, the lions were harmless. They still are, as long as they are by themselves, but the giant presents quite an obstacle. He is no match for Great Heart however. We will see more giants slain later, some by the boys, for by the end of the Pilgrimage, they will be men.
Our party of Pilgrims head off from the Gate walking along a walled path. On the other side of the wall is Beezebub's land, on which several trees grow, whose branches hang over the path. Christiana's boys jump up and grab some of the fruit from the trees and eat. Christiana rebukes them for stealing what isn't theirs, but she does not stop them in time. (We will see consequences of their actions later, but not today).
Continuing on, they encounter two men who assault the women, and the women cry out. Since they are still close to the Gate, some individuals come out and find the men in a great scuffle with Christiana and Mercy. The boys are nearby, powerless to intervene. The man coming to help them attempts to take the ruffians, but they escape and climb over the wall. The author notes that the dog which threatened the Pilgrims now becomes their (the bad guys') protector.
The Reliever then asks the women how they are, and they say they are alright. The Reliever then says that he is amazed that they did not ask for a Guide to assist them in their journey. Christiana says she did not know they would face danger so soon, but since it would have been good to have a Guide, she wonders why one was not sent with them. The Reliever says that it is not necessary to grant that which is not asked for "lest by doing so, they become of little value." Christiana asks if they should go back and ask for a Guide, but the Reliever says that will not be necessary, for in all of the Lord's lodgings there are sufficient things there to equip them with everything they need.."But as I said, He will be asked of them to do it for them, and it is a worthless thing that is not worth asking for."
They continue on their journey, and Mercy expresses amazement that they have faced such violent danger so soon. Christiana says that she should have recognized the danger. The men were similar in appearance to the two she saw in her dream back in Chapter 20, the two who were wondering how to thwart her pilgrimage before she received her invitation from the King.
As they continue, they come to the house of the Interpreter (compare with Chapter 5). They stop at the door, and hear people inside talking about Christiana. The news has gone forth that she is on pilgrimage, and the Interpreter's household is rejoicing at the news. Christiana knocks at the door, and a young girl, Innocent answers. She asks who is calling, and Christiana identifies herself and her party. The girl is overjoyed, and rushes in to announce the visitors. The Interpreter comes to the door, and welcomes them into the home.
In the house, they are shown the same images which were shown to Christian earlier, plus some additional ones. They are shown an image of a man holding a muckrake [a muckrake is a rake used for moving heavy, moist earth, most usually mixed with manure. -Hazelbaker]. Above his head, an individual holds a celestial crown and offers to trade the man the crown for his muckrake. The man does not look up or regard it, but continues to rake the straw, sticks, and dust of the ground. This is a figure of a man of this world, and the muckrake shows his sinful mind. The fact that he disregards the one calling from above shows that Heaven is only a fable to some and that things here are accounted the only things substantial.
They are then led to a fine room of the house, and told to look for anything profitable there. They see nothing, but are asked to look again. Mercy then sees an ugly spider hanging by its hands upon the opposite wall. When asked if there is only one, they notice that there is indeed more than one spider, and venomous ones at that. This shows that no matter how much one is infected with the venom of sin, one may still lay hold of and dwell in the best room which belongs to the King's house above.
They are then led into a room with a hen and chicks, and asked to observe for a while. They see a chick drinking water, and as it drinks it lifts its head and eyes up to heaven. They note the way the hen takes care of her chicks. She has a fourfold manner-- first, she has a common call, and she has this all day long; second, she has a special call, only used occasionally; third, a brooding call; and fourth, an outcry of alarm. The King has a similar manner with His people: a common call by which He gives nothing; a special call by which He always has something to give; a brooding voice for those under His wing; and finally an outcry when He sees the enemy come.
They are then led into a room where a butcher is killing a sheep. The sheep is quiet, taking its death patiently. They are reminded to learn from the sheep to suffer and to put up with wrongs without murmurings and complaints. "Your King calls you His Sheep."
They are led outside to a flower bed full of many flowers; some more spectacular than others, yet there are no complaints heard from them, nor do they argue with one another.
They are then led to a field of grain, from which the tops have all been cut off so that only the straw remains. Christiana asks what should be done with the crop. She answers, "Burn some of it, and make compost of the rest". The Interpreter notes that fruit is the thing to be looked for, and for the lack of it, the field is condemned to be burned or be trodden under foot by men. "Beware that in this you don't condemn yourselves."
They are shown a robin with a spider in its mouth. Christiana notes that she is not used to seeing a robin this way, she is used to seeing them feed on crumbs of bread or other harmless matter. "I don't like him as much as I did." She is told that the robin is an emblem very suited to be likened to some professors of faith, who are pretenders in that they frequent the house of the godly and the appointments of the Lord, but when they're by themselves, they can gobble up spiders like the robin.
They are then led into dinner, where they are presented with many proverbs before dinner is served. A sampling of those presented in the book:
"He who lives in sin and looks for happiness thereafter is like him who sows cockleburs and thinks to fill his barn with wheat or barley."
"If a man intends to live well, let him fetch his last day to himself and make it always his companion."
"Whispering and change of mind prove that sin is in the world."
Dinner is served, and the Interpreter engages Christiana and Mercy in conversation. He asks Christiana about her motivation for her pilgrimage, and she tells of her feelings for her husband, her dream, and the invitation she received. The Interpreter asks her about opposition from her city, and she tells how Mrs. Fearful tried to talk her out of coming. She tells of their assault on the way to the Interpreter's house, and he notes that their beginning has been good, and their latter end will greatly increase. He asks Mercy about her pilgrimage, and Mercy again answers timidly, and states that her lack of experience makes her desire to be silent; she cannot talk of dreams and visions, she has none to talk about. The Interpreter presses on her for her reason for coming, and Mercy states that her heart burned within her as she listened to Christiana defend her reasons for pilgrimage against Mrs. Fearful. Mercy decided then that if Christiana would accept her as a companion, she would accompany her on the pilgrimage. The Interpreter gives her a special blessing, "Your leaving is good, for you've given credit to the truth. You're a Ruth, who for the love she had for Naomi and the Lord her God left father, mother, and the land of her birth to leave and go with a people whom she didn't know before. 'May the Lord repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.' Ruth two, twelve"
Supper is over, and everyone goes to bed, but Mercy has trouble sleeping because of her joy, for her doubts are removed from her farther than ever before.
The next day, they prepare to go, but Innocent is told to take them to the garden for a final Bath, where they are all washed, then given a special Seal on their forehead, and given new garments. The Interpreter calls a manservant of his, Great Heart, and tells him, "Take Sword, Helmet, and Shield; and these, my daughters, and guide them to the house called Beautiful, where they will next rest."
Thoughts on this chapter
God knows our needs before we pray, yet He still wants us to pray, and ask Him for what we need. Why? So we will have a thankful heart and not take Him for granted. Christiana neglects to ask for a guide, yet a guide would have been handy so close to Beelzebub's castle. Don't try the Christian walk alone. We have help from God available, ask for it. Also seek fellowship in a God-fearing Church, where He is worshipped in Spirit and truth.
Mercy finally seems to understand that she is accepted by the King. She has no vision, no dream, to support her decision to come on the pilgrimage, but she finally understands that she is welcomed by the King. Many of us have no special conversion experiences, no shouting, no crying; just a simple, yet sincere, prayer of repentance and asking for God's forgiveness. Don't let the lack of feeling mislead you to think your prayer wasn't heard. Jesus does not turn anyone away.
Our party of Pilgrims come to the Swamp of Despondence, which Christian had fallen into before he entered the Gate. It is in worse shape than ever. Sagacity, the narrator, speaking to the author, says that the poor shape is due to laborers who claim to be serving the King, but secretly act to bring dirt and manure into the swamp instead of stones, and thus serve to mar rather than mend it.
Christiana and her boys stop to ponder the Swamp, but Mercy says, "Come, let's go on. But let's be careful." They look for the steps which lead through the middle of the swamp, and with several close calls make it over without falling off the steps. As soon as they reach the other side, they hear a voice, "Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!"
Sagacity now leaves the author to tell of his dream with no further narration, and he sees Christiana, her sons, and Mercy approach the Gate. They agree that Christiana will speak for the entire group, so she goes up and knocks. But instead of being greeted by the gatekeeper, a fierce dog begins barking. They are frightened and confused; afraid to knock, yet afraid to turn back. Eventually, they choose to knock again, and knock much louder. The Gate Keeper answers this time, and asks who they are. Christiana tells him who she is, and their quest, and he lets her in, and says "Let the little children come to me." Mercy is left outside the gate however! Christiana realizes Mercy is missing and tells the Gate Keeper there is another desiring entrance, but as she is speaking, Mercy knocks again, so loud that Christiana is startled. The Gate Keeper asks who is there, and Christiana says that it is her friend. The Gate Keeper opens the Gate, but Mercy has fallen in a swoon. She had begun to believe that she would be left behind. The Gate Keeper tells her to get up, and tell where she is from.
Mercy says that she has come without an invitation from the King, that her only invitation is from Christiana. She expresses her fear of being presumptuous. The Gate Keeper asks if Christiana asked Mercy to accompany her, and she says that is so. The Gate Keeper brings her in, saying, "I pray for alll them who believe on me regardless of what brings them to me." All the Pilgrims ask the Gate Keeper, "We're sorry for our sins and beg of our Lord His pardon and further information about what we must do." The Gate Keeper grants His pardon and speaks many more good words to them. He then leads them to a summer parlor for conversation among themselves. They discuss their fortune for being united in their pilgrimage; Mercy is especially grateful. Mercy asks if the Gate Keeper was angry when she knocked so loudly. Christiana replies, "When He heard your lumbering noise, He gave a wonderfully innocent smile. I believe what you did pleased him well enough, for He showed no sign to the contrary. But I marvel in my heart why He keeps such a dog."
The Keeper comes back down, and Mercy asks him, timidly, why He has such a cruel dog. The Keeper answers, "That dog has another owner. He is also kept close by in another man's ground so my Pilgrims hear his barking. He belongs to the castle, which you see there at a distance, but he can come up to the walls of this place..." He goes on to say that the dog sometimes gets loose, and causes trouble for His Pilgrims and scares them away from the Gate, but He provides timely help for them. Mercy acknowledges the righteousness and integrity of the Gate Keeper, and with encouraging words everyone is sent on their way.
Thoughts on this chapter
Christiana knows of the steps in the middle of the Swamp of Despondence. We will see this pattern throughout Part Two -- Christiana has foreknowledge of the path based on her husband's experience. Perhaps Bunyan meant to imply that in real life, a real Christian man would not be divorced from a non-Christian wife, and the separation existed only in the fictional realm of the allegory. In any case, it is presented as if Christiana had seen Christian's walk all the way up to the River.
Mercy is afraid she will not be invited into the Gate, but the Keeper assures her that she is welcome. Unfortunately, she has to knock a second time, maybe because of her timidity at stepping forward when Christiana is first brought in. In Part Two, we will meet many more personalities, some bold, some afraid. We have seen, in Part One, Pilgrims who turned back in fear. In Part Two, we will also meet Pilgrims who are afraid, and choose to go forward anyway. Not all of us have the same courage and boldness as Christian and Christiana.
Christian faced the prospect of being shot at by arrows from Beelzebub's castle as he knocked at the gate. Christiana and Mercy face the prospect of being attacked by Beelzebub's dog. The Gate Keeper brings them all in however.
This chapter finds the author dreaming again, and he sees an aged gentleman, named Sagacity coming by him, and as he is walking in the same general direction, the author engages him in conversation, and they talk of Christian and his pilgrimage. Sagacity tells the author (they are overlooking the City of Destruction) that Christian has left this place, has succeeded in his pilgrimage, and is now highly commended wherever his name is heard, even in the city he departed. The author rejoices in Christian's reward, but he then asks, "Sir, do you hear anything of his wife and children? Poor things, I wonder in my mind what they're doing."
Mr. Sagacity replies, "Who? Christiana and her sons? They're likely to do as well as Christian himself.... They've packed up and have gone after him."
The author asks if that is really true, and Sagacity replies that he was there when it happened and saw it with his own eyes. He then proceeds to begin the tale of the Pilgrimage of Christiana, her sons, and a friend Mercy.
It seems that after Christiana's husband had crossed over the River, and she could not hear from him anymore, that her thoughts began to work upon her mind. She had lost her husband, and that cost her many tears, but that was not all; she began to wonder if her unbecoming behaviour toward him was one reason why she saw him no more. She became loaded with guilt. She remembered how she had hardened her heart against his appeals and persuasions, to her and her sons, to go with him. Then Christiana said to her children, "Sons, we're all undone. I've sinned away your father, and he is gone. He wanted to have us with him, but I wouldn't go myself, and I hindered you from receiving life." With that the boys all begin weeping and cry out to go after their father. Christiana expresses a regret that they did not follow him when given the original opportunity.
The next night Christiana has a dream, and in the dream she sees a broad parchment on which is recorded the sum of her ways. She is distressed by the sight of her deeds, and cries out, "God, have mercy on me, a sinner." After this, she thinks she sees two ugly beings standing by her bedside saying, "What shall we do with this woman? She cries out for mercy when awake and asleep. If she's allowed to go on like this, we'll lsoe her as we lost her husband. Therefore, we must by one way or another seek to take her thoughts off of what shall be hereafter, or else all the world won't be able to stop it, and she'll become a Pilgrim." Christiana wakes up in a sweat, and trembling, but eventually falls back asleep. She dreams again, and sees Christian in a place of bliss, worshipping One sitting on a throne.
The next morning, she awakes and prays and someone knocks on the door. She calls out, "If you come in God's name, come in!" A Visitor responds "Amen!" and enters. He greets Christiana, "Peace to this house! Christiana, do you know why I've come?" Christiana blushes and trembles and she feels warm to this gentleman's errand. He goes on, "My name is Secret. I live with those who are high. It is talked of where I live that you have a desire to go there. Also, there is a report that you're aware of the evil you've formerly done to your husband in hardening your heart against his way and in keeping your babes in their ignorance. Christiana, the Merciful One has sent me to tell you that He is a God ready to forgive and that He takes delight in multiplying the pardon of offenses. He also wants you to know that He invites you to come into His presence, to His table, and that He will feed you with the fat of His house and with the heritage of Jacob your father." He goes on to say that Christian is there, along with many others, and they will all be glad when they hear the sound of her feet step over "your Father's threshold." Christiana is confounded and bows her head. The Visitor then gives Christiana a letter, brought to her from her husband's King. The letter tells her that the King desires her to do as Christian has done. Christiana asks Secret to accompany her. Secret declines, telling her she must set out the same way as Christian has done, and go to the Narrow Gate. He also tells her to keep the letter next to her heart, to read it, memorize it, and present it at the end of her journey.
Christiana then gathers her sons and tells them they are going to follow their father. The boys burst into tears for joy, and they all prepare for the journey. As they are about ready to leave, another knock is heard on the door, and Christiana again invites the visitor to come if they come in God's name. This time the visitors are taken aback by these words. The eldest of the two visitors is Mrs. Fearful, the daughter of the man giving up his journey for fear of the lions (back in Part One). Mrs. Fearful tells Christiana she is taking her sons into grave danger, and that for their sakes', she should not go. Christiana disregards her advice, remembering her dreams and the tender invitation from the King. Mrs. Fearful tries again, telling Christiana of all the dangers her husband faced, the lions, Apollyon, the Shadow of Death, Vanity Fair, and many other things. Christiana urges Mrs. Fearful to stop tempting her as her mind is made up. Mrs. Fearful then turns to her companion and says, Come, neighbor Mercy, let's leave her in her own hands, since she scorns our counsel and company." Mercy is thinking of taking Christiana's pilgrimage as her own, however, and resists Mrs. Fearful. She says, "I think I'll walk a short distance with her this sunshiny morning to help her on her way." She actually intends to travel with Christiana, but is too timid to admit it to Mrs. Fearful. Mrs. Fearful leaves in a huff, and goes to her friends to discuss Christiana's foolish endeavor.
Christiana extends an invitation to Mercy to travel with her, extending the King's invitation to her friend. Mercy is not sure if she'll be accepted, however. She does not have an engraved invitation, as does Christiana. Christiana urges Mercy to travel with her to the Narrow Gate, and there she will inquire on Mercy's behalf. They set out, and Mercy begins to weep. Christiana asks what troubles her. "Alas!" exclaimed Mercy, "How can I keep from sorrowing when I rightly consider what a state and condition my poor relatives are in -- those who yet remain in our sinful town. And what makes my grief even more heavy is that they have no instructor or anyone to tell them what is to come." Christiana answers, "Feelings of compassion befit a Pilgrim...I have hope, Mercy, that these tears of yours won't be lost, for the Truth has said, 'Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him.' "
Thoughts on this chapter
Christian's life serves as witness to Christiana and she follows in his path. God calls us to be witnesses, using words if necessary. Are we letting the power of our walk with God serve as a witness to others of His grace, truth, power, and compassion?
We've now covered Part One of the Pilgrim's Progress, which covered the pilgrimage of Christian from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City. I'm going to take two days off the blog so I can travel out of town with Amy, and I'll resume Part Two on Sunday. Here's a little preview.
The pilgrim in Part Two is Christian's wife, who will be called Christiana. She travels with her sons, and a companion, a neighbor of hers. Along the way, they meet many other pilgrims on the path (and talk about many others as well), and the size of the group grows considerably. They also have a guide for the entire duration of the journey (except for a short duration at the beginning). We'll be discussing the significance of these differences, and others, as we cover the next fourteen chapters.
The Pilgrims finally get over the Enchanted Ground and enter beautiful land, the country of Beulah, where the air is pleasant and sweet. Birds sing, flowers bloom, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in the land (The Song of Solomon is quoted several times in describing this land). The sun always shines, and the land is out of reach of villains such as Giant Despair or the monsters lurking in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. They are also within sight of the City where they are going, though the glory is so great they cannot look directly at it. Inhabitants of the country are met, Shining Ones who walk here because it is next to the border of Heaven.
They meet a Gardener who tells them that the beautiful vineyards and gardens are the King's are are planted there for His own enjoyment and for the comfort of Pilgrims, so they refresh themselves with delicacies from the gardens. They get to sleep finally, and when they awake, they purpose to go straightway to the City, and on their way, they meet two Shining Ones who wish to accompany them. The Shining Ones inquire about their journey, as has happened so often before, but the Shining Ones have words for them, "You have only two more difficulties to experience, and then you are in the City."
Christian and Hopeful ask the men to travel with them, and the men are willing to do so, but state that their goal must be obtained by their own faith. They go on until they are in sight of the gate. Before them is a River. There is no bridge over it, and the River appears to be deep. The Pilgrims are astounded, and they are told, "You must go through, or you can't arrive at the gate." The Pilgrims ask if there is another way, but are told that only two men have ever entered the city without going through the River, "nor shall there be until the Last Trumpet shall sound." Then the Pilgrims, especially Christian, begin to despair. They ask if the River is always the same depth, and are told no, but are denied any further help in the matter. "For you shall find it deeper or shallower as you believe in the King of the place."
Christian enters the water, and begins to sink. He cries out to Hopeful, "I'm sinking in deep waters! The breakers go over my head! All the waves go over me." Hopeful responds, "Be of good cheer, my Brother! I feel the bottom, and it is good." Hopeful's encouragement doesn't help Christian as he is overcome with a great darknes and horror. He is afraid he will die in the river, and never enter the gate. He doesn't remember the events of his pilgrimage and has troublesome thoughts of the sins he has committed. Hopeful holds Christian's head above the water, with much difficulty, and endeavors to comfort him, telling him he sees the gate and people to welcome them. Christian is sure they are waiting only for Hopeful, but Hopeful says, "These troubles and distresses that you go through in these waters are no sign that God has forsaken you, but they're sent to try you, to see whether you will call to mind that which you've received before of His goodness and depend upon Him in your distresses." Christian listens, seeming to get it finally. Hopeful adds, "Be of good cheer! Jesus Christ makes you whole!" Christian cries out with a loud voice, "Oh! I see Him again! and He tells me, 'When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.' " They both take courage, and soon find solid ground to stand on. The rest of the River is shallow.
On the other side, the two Shining Ones are already waiting for the Pilgrims. They admit their role in waiting, "We're ministering spirits sent to serve those who wil inherit salvation." The City stands upon a mighty hill, but they climb with no difficulty due to the assistance of the two men. The mortal garments (which I think means Christian's armor as well) were left behind in the river, and they emerge without them. They all talk about the glory of the place they are going to, "You are now going to the Paradise of God, in which you'll see the Tree of Life and eat of the never-fading fruits of it. And when you arrive there, white robes shall be given you, and every day your walk and talk shall be with the King, even all the days of eternity. You'll not see there again such things as you saw when you were in the lower region upon the earth -- that is, sorrow, sickness, affliction, and death, 'for the old order of things has passed away.' "
The Pilgrims then ask what they must do in the City, and are told that they must receive comfort for all their toil and joy for all their sorrow. They will wear crowns of gold, and enjoy the perpetual sight and vision of the Holy One, 'for we shall see Him as He is'. They will serve Him with praise, shouting, and thanksgiving, and will be delighted in seeing Him. They will enjoy the company of friends who have gone before them, clothed with glory and majesty. When He comes with the sound of a trumpet in the clouds, they will come with Him. When He passes sentence on the workers of iniquity, they will have a voice in that judgment because "they were His and your enemies."
As they draw near the gate, a company of the Heavenly Host come out to greet them. The Pilgrims are introduced by the two Shining Ones, and the Heavenly Host cry out, "Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!" The King's Trumpeters come out to meet them. Everyone travels together with much shouting, rejoicing, the salutes of trumpets. They reach the gate. Above the gates are written, "Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city." Shining Ones look down from above, Enoch, Moses, Elijah, and others.
The Pilgrims present their Certificates (yes, Hopeful had one too), and the Certificates are taken to the King, who orders the gates opened that the righteous may enter. In they go, and as they enter, they are transfigured and given new robes to wear. They break out into praise, singing with a loud voice, "To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!"
Now the gates are shut, and the narrator expresses the wish to be among those inside, but as he turns his head (in his dream), he sees another approaching the city, Ignorance. Ignorance approaches alone, with no guides to help him, but finds easy passage across the river, as a ferryman named Vainglory shows up with a boat. Ignorance walks up to the gate and knocks. Men look down on him from above and ask him who he is and what he wants, and then ask for his Certificate. Ignorance fumbles in his coat but produces nothing. When the King is told there is one at the door without a Certificate, He orders that Ignorance be bound and taken away. The Shining Ones who assisted Christian and Hopeful carry him to the door in the side of the hill (seen at the Delightful Mountains), the way to Hell.
Thoughts on this chapter
We're home at last! Do you ever think about Heaven, how great it is, how great it will be? I saw an episode of Touched by an Angel, where the angels were helping a family whose father was dying. The angels were trying to tell them that their father's death was actually a blessing, that it was only a transition. The quote I remember is that our lives are only a preparation for eternity. One objection to Christianity I've heard from skeptics is that we're too concerned with "pie-in-the-sky" stuff, not concerned enough with the here-and-now. Well, that may be a valid concern, or not, for about seventy to a hundred years, but we all die someday. Will that be a valid concern a thousand years from now? Think of yourself a thousand years from now, wherever you may be, looking back at your life. Are you going to be glad for the decisions you made, or regretting them?
Christian and Hopeful see Ignorance following up behind them, and they decide to wait for him in order to engage him in conversation. A heated discussion results over what constitutes true conversion, a true manifestation of God's grace in one's being. Christian says that intellectual belief is not enough, one must repent and be sorrowful for one's sinful nature. Ignorance claims that belief in Christ and having a good heart are enough, that His grace will make one's intentions and good actions meritable. Hopeful adds to the discussion by saying that no one can be saved unless God the Father extends to him a revelation of His Son.
Ignorance falls back, preferring to walk alone, and Christian and Hopeful start a new discussion on the mechanics of backsliding. They are almost out of the Enchanted Ground.
Thoughts on this chapter
This is a deeper and longer chapter, and it is rather awkward to detail the entire conversation, hence the shorter post tonight. This is a chapter which merits more study, and I don't think I can do it complete justice without more time. As far as I understand it, it seems that Ignorance thinks that if he thinks he is doing good, his heart is good, and God would have no choice but honor that goodness. It's based on good feelings and intentions, but is not built on solid rock.
Tomorrow is the end of Part 1. Part 2 will follow starting on Sunday, as Amy and I are going to be traveling this weekend. As a result of skipping four days, I will have fourteen days to cover fourteen chapters before Easter. I'm still going to do that, maybe I'll have some shorter posts some days and double them up, so I can have a day or two of rest before Easter.
Christian and Hopeful walk into an area where the air makes them drowsy, and Hopeful suggests they lay down to take a nap. Christian will have none of it, and reminds Hopeful of the Shepherds' warning regarding the Enchanted Ground. Hopeful thanks Christian for his wisdom, and admits he would have run the danger of death if he had been alone. "Two are better than one".
Christian suggests they have a good discussion in order to stay alert. Christian starts first with a song, then asks Hopeful, "How did you at first come to think of doing as you now do?"
Hopeful responds, "Do you mean, how I at first came to look after the good of my soul?"
Christian answers, "Yes, that's what I mean."
Hopeful gives his testimony to Christian, telling how he lived a sinful life involved in all the enjoyment of things seen and sold at Vanity Fair. "All the treasures and riches of the world, also I enjoyed orgies, carousing, drinking, swearing, lying, impurity, Sabbath-breaking, and so on..." He says that the testimony of the two Pilgrims, Christian and Faithful, told him that "those things result in death" Christian asks if Hopeful fell under the power of this conviction right away. Hopeful says that it took a long time, that he resisted it at first. Christian asks how it was that he responded like this until God's Holy Spirit moved him.
Hopeful replies with four reasons: first -- He was ignorant that this was the work of God, second -- sin was still very sweet to him and he hated to leave it, third -- he didn't know how to part with his old companions, and fourth -- the times when he felt the convictions were very troublesome and heart-frightening hours. Christian replies that it sounded like he sometimes got rid of his troubles, and Hopeful replies, "Yes, of course, but it would come into my mind again, and then I would be as bad -- no, even worse -- than I was before."
Christian asks what brought his mind around to thinking about sin again, and Hopeful lists several things that reminded him of it: meeting a good man in the street, hearing anyone read from the Bible, physical pain (using a headache as an example), a neighbor being sick, a bell tolling for the dead, thinking of dying, hearing of sudden death, and especially thinking about the inevitability of arriving at Judgment.
Christian then asks Hopeful how he dealt with the conviction then. Hopeful replies that he departed from sinful company and started paying heed to religious duties: praying, reading, weeping for sin, speaking the truth, and so forth. Christian asks if that helped, and Hopeful says that it did for a short while, but the trouble returned. Christian asks how that happened, since Hopeful was now reformed. Hopeful replies that such sayings as "all our righteous acts are like filthy rags" continued to convict him of sin, as well as knowing that no one can observe the entire Law. He uses the example of being in debt to a store owner. Even if he resolves to pay for all his future purchases, he still has to repay the old debt. Hopeful also realizes that despite his best efforts, he continues to see new sin in his life.
Christian asks, "And what did you do then?" "Do!" exclaimed Hopeful, "I couldn't tell what to do until I shared my thoughts with Faithful. He and I were well acquainted, and he told me that unless I could obtain the righteousness of a Man who had never sinned, neither my own nor all the righteousness of the world could save me."
Christian asks if Hopeful thought that Faithful spoke the truth, and Hopeful says that if he had heard that earlier on, he would not have believed it, but given his frustration at his attempts for personal reformation, he now realized the truth of it. Christian asks if Hopeful thought there was such a Man to be found. Hopeful says he was at a loss until Faithful told him of Jesus: "Yes, and he told me it was the Lord Jesus, who dwells on the right hand of the Most High. And Faithful said this: 'You must be justified by Him, even by trusting in what He himself did during His life on earth as He suffered when He was hanging on the Tree.' I asked him further how that Man's righteousness could be so powerful as to be able to justify another person before God. And he told me He was the mighty God, and did what He did, and also died the death not for himself, but for me to whom His works---and the worthiness of them---would be ascribed if I believed on Him."
Hopeful then tells how Faithful invited him to go to Him and see, and Hopeful replied that that would have been presumptuous on his part, and then Faithful gave him a book containing the words of Jesus. Hopeful asked Faithful what he was to do when he arrived, and Faithful told him to ask the Father to reveal Him. "What should I say?" Faithful said to pray like this:
"God be merciful to me a sinner, and make me to know and believe in Jesus Christ, for I see that if His righteousness had not been, or I have not faith in that righteousness, I am utterly cast away. Lord, I have heard that You are a merciful God and have ordained that Your Son Jesus Christ should be the Savior of the world, and moreover, that you are willing to bestow on such a poor sinner as I am---and I am a sinner indeed---Lord. Take therefore this opportunity, and magnify Your grace in the salvation of my soul through Your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen."
Christian asks Hopeful how that affected his spirit. Hopeful tells how he became aware of the state of condemnation of the world, and how God the Father, though He be just, can justly justify the coming sinner. The revelation made him ashamed of his vileness of his former life, and made him love a holy life and long to do something for the honor and glory of the name of the Lord Jesus.
Thoughts on this chapter
Bunyan emphasizes praying through until one receives a revelation of Christ. This is no mere repeating a one-paragraph prayer from the last page of a religious tract. Bunyan also emphasizes being truly repentant and abhorring one's former sinful state; there is no salvation prayer with fingers crossed.
Underline this
"unless I could obtain the righteousness of a Man who had never sinned, neither my own nor all the righteousness of the world could save me."--Christian, speaking to Hopeful on the futility of being saved by one's own righteous acts.
Christian and Hopeful walk on until they reach a fork in the road and it is not obvious which way they should go. Soon a man wearing a light-colored robe comes up, and the Pilgrims ask him the way. The man says, "Follow me, that is where I'm going." Christian and Hopeful follow the man on a path which turns ever so slowly away from Celestial City until they are actually going away from their destination. Soon their guide leads them into a net which has been prepared for them and they are trapped. The man removes his robe, and they see him for who he really is. Christian says, "Didn't the Shepherds warn us to beware of the flatterers? As is the saying of the Wise Man, we have found it to be so this very day: 'Whoever flatters his neighbor is spreading a net for his feet.' " Hopeful also laments the fact that they did not think to consult the map given to them by the Shepherds
Christian and Hopeful remain trapped in the net for a while, until a Shining One approaches them with a whip made of small cord in his hand. He asks them where they came from and where they are going, and when he is told of the man trapping them in the net, the Shining One says, "It is Flatterer, a False Apostle who is masquerading as an angel of light. Follow me, so I may set you in your way again."
The Shining One also asks them where they stayed the previous night, and when told they stayed with the Shepherds of the Delightful Mountains, he asks them if they were given a Map of the Way.
"Yes," they answered.
"Did you take out your Map and read it?"
"No"
"Why?"
"We forgot"
He asked further if they were warned to beware of the Flatterer, and they admit to that, but also that they didn't imagine that such a fine-spoken person could have been he. The Shining One orders Christian and Hopeful to lie down, and when they do so, he chastises them severely. "Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent." Afterwards, he tells them to go and pay particular attention to the warnings of the Shepherds. So off they go, thanking him for his kindness and singing.
Christian and Hopeful then meet up with a man walking the wrong way, named Atheist. When Atheist hears that Christian and Hopeful are going to Celestial City, he starts laughing. "I laugh to see what ignorant persons you are to take upon yourselves such an exhausting journey, and yet you're likely to have nothing but your travel for your pains."
"Why, Man?" asks Christian. "Do you think we won't be received?"
"Received!" exclaimed Atheist. "In all this world there is no such place as you dream of."
Atheist goes on to tell how he left his home twenty years ago to search for Celestial City and has never found it. He is returning home to refresh himself with the things he had cast away for the sake of the journey.
Christian asks Hopeful if what Atheist says might be true. Hopeful says to take heed, Atheist is one of the Flatterers. He also says that Christian should be teaching him the lesson he is delivering to Christian, and urges Christian to not believe anything Atheist says. Christian replies that he was not saying that as an expression of doubt on his part, but was speaking in such a way as to test Hopeful. Christian and Hopeful turn away from Atheist and continue their journey. Atheist continues back to his original home, laughing at our Pilgrims.
Thoughts on this chapter
Christian and Hopeful trust an untrustworthy guide, and are ensnared. They are delivered, yet chastised for not heeding wisdom which would have spared them from danger. After the chastisement, they express no guilt or grief, they are glad and give thanks for the deliverance, and will remember the experience for good if the situation should arise again.
Atheist gives up on his journey, yet Celestial City was in view, though dimly, when Christian and Hopeful looked through the lens back at the Delightful Mountains. I'm reminded of a nineteenth century explorer, John Wesley Powell, who was the first man to traverse and map the Grand Canyon. As no one had done this before, no one knew how big the Canyon really was. He and his companions were traveling through the Canyon on the Colorado River. They were short on supplies, but Powell was determined to go on. There weren't enough supplies to make it back the way they came anyway. One day several members of his team decided to give up. They decided to leave the party and hike out of the canyon back to civilization. They didn't make it. They were killed at the hands of Shivwits Indians. What happened to Powell and those who remained with him? They reached the end of the canyon two days later.
Today's chapter is a transition chapter, consisting mainly of a conversation between Christian and Hopeful about another Pilgrim who is otherwise not in the story.
The chapter begins with our Pilgrims walking along, when to their left, another path merges into their own, and that path comes from the Country of Conceit. Along that path comes another pilgrim, Ignorance. Just as Formality and Hypocrisy did earlier, this character thinks he can just saunter onto the Path without going in through the gate. Christian asks, "But how do you think you'll get in at the gate? For you may find some difficulty there." Ignorance answers, "As other people do." "But what do you have to show at that gate in order for it to be opened to you?" "I know my Lord's will, and I've lived a good life. I pay every man what I owe him; I pray, fast, pay tithes, and give offerings; and I've left my country to go where I'm now going."
Christian tells Ignorance that he will be considered a thief and a robber when the day of reckoning comes. Ignorance shrugs off the rebuke, saying, "Gentlemen, you are absolute strangers to me. I don't know you. Be content to follow the religion of your country, and I will follow that of mine. I hope all will be well. And as for the Gate that you talk about, all the world knows that it's a great distance away from our country. I can't imagine that anyone in all our parts even so much as knows the way to it. Nor does it matter whether they do or not since, as you see, we have a fine pleasant green lane coming down from our country the next way into it."
Christian whispers to Hopeful, "There is more hope for a fool than for him". They decide to walk ahead and leave Ignorance alone. They'll talk to him again later, if he can stand it.
As they all continue, they enter a dark lane, and come upon a man bound with seven strong cords, being carried by seven evil spirits to the door they saw in the side of the hill in the previous chapter [the door to Hell]. Christian tries to see if he can recognize the man, perhaps he is Turn Away from the Town of Apostasy but the face is shrouded, but as they all pass each other, Hopeful can read on his back a paper which says, "Wanton professor and damnable apostate".
Now Christian and Hopeful start talking about another Pilgrim who walked this way earlier, named Little Faith, from the Town of Sincere. Little Faith sat down to rest and fell asleep. Three hoodlums happened to come down the path, Faint Heart, Mistrust, and Guilt; and with threatening language, Faint Heart ordered him to stand and hand over his money. Little Faith was slow to respond, and Mistrust runs up pulls a bag of silver out of the victim's pocket. Little Faith cries out "Thieves! Thieves!" and Guilt knocks him out with a blow to the head. The thieves hear someone coming, and thinking it might be Great Grace from the City of Good Confidence, they run off. Little Faith eventually comes to, and struggles on.
Little Faith had not lost everything he owned, however. He still had some Jew