Pilgrim's Progress: The Original Christian Fantasy

A man who lives in a city doomed for destruction receives an invitation from the king and embarks on a dangerous quest. His journey takes him far away: up high mountains, down into dark caves, and across a deep river. He faces lions, gets captured by a giant, suffers through a false trial, and battles a fierce monster. Many of the people he meets try to prevent him from continuing on his quest, but at long last, he finally arrives in the Celestial City and is united with his king.

Sounds like an epic fantasy, doesn’t it? And quite the epic fantasy it is! John Bunyan’s "The Pilgrim’s Progress: From This World to that Which is to Come" was originally published in 1678 (with Part II released in 1684), making this book one of the originals in its genre. The story follows a man (appropriately named “Christian”) on his journey to the Celestial City, which mirrors the journey of faith that believers follow across their lifetime. Part II follows Christian’s wife, Christiana, and their children as they follow in Christian’s footsteps. In both parts the “Christian” influence is very easy to see, as John Bunyan incorporated verses from Scripture about every other paragraph (sometimes multiple times in a single paragraph!). The story is intriguing, even for a modern-day audience, and gives a hard look at what it means to follow the path that leads to Christ. If you are looking for a sugar-coated conversion message, this is not it!

I loved John Bunyan’s devotion to using biblical references for all of twists and turns in this fantasy. You could almost say he got his entire story straight out of the Bible and just put it in a different order! To include Scripture verses consistently and repeatedly was a labor of love and faith (aided perhaps by the time John Bunyan spent in prison for preaching the Bible without conforming to the rules of the government at that time). And I appreciated his realistic perspective of what it means to be a Christian. The challenges faced on the journey and the temptations to veer off-course provided excellent conversational diving boards for my husband and I as we read this story together.

However, his style is a little too intense for me to imitate in my own works! Comparatively speaking, I certainly lean more towards the “fantasy” than the “faith” when it comes to story elements. Not to say that the Christian aspects of my stories are not important, just that I don’t want to overload my audience. I write to appeal to both Christians (who would enjoy a fantasy story that mirrors their beliefs) as well as non-Christians (who could enjoy the story without feeling preached at, and possibly might feel positively influenced towards Christ as they read). John Bunyan, I think, understood that only an audience of faith would fully appreciate his work, and even then, his original piece starts off with an “apology” to defend his decision to write and publish his book, and both parts are written as taking place inside a dream. Such intensity was a hard path for him to take as an author, but I’m thankful as a maturing Christian to have this novel to engage with. All levels of Christian fantasy are worthwhile, from those that give only the baby-steps of faith to those that plunge us into the deep end, as long as they direct us back to the truth.

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The Pilgrim's Progress