On Pilgrim’s Progress, by Nick Ricketts

I would like to comment on two aspects of the Pilgrim’s Progress workshop. Bob Owens implied that the characters who tried to divert Christian in Pilgrim’s Progress were meant to represent aspects of the establishment, particularly the Anglican Church. I could see what he meant by that, but I have always thought they represented Christian’s internal conflicts. The second aspect concerns the differences in mind-set between the England of the 17th century and today. We talked about today’s secularism, but didn’t really explore how Pilgrim’s Progress might have been read at the time. Religion formed the background to much of daily life and I see a strong millennial flavour in the idea that Christian, and later Christiana, were ‘fleeing from the wrath to come’ towards the Celestial City. It took the 18th century Enlightenment to really question that and two World Wars to significantly affect people’s views on Heaven and Hell.

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