Topic # 3 – Faith Journeys and Quests
How do we lead a holy life in an unholy world?
Fall 2007
The Christian Ideas group tried something a bit different in Fall 2007, reading two full books that addressed faith journeys (plus one warmup) rather than several shorter pieces. The common theme for the books was man’s quest for holiness, either personal salvation or an intimate communion with God.
Reading list:
Jonathon Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress (Part I)
The Quest of the Holy Grail
I can find no on-line version. It is available from Amazon.com. Look for a translation by P. M. Matarasso.
Summary of the readings and discussion
Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God¸ written in 1741
There are sermons that one remembers for the week. There are sermons that one remembers for many weeks. There are even sermons that one remembers for a lifetime. Edwards’ Sinners has been remembered for over 250 years, with little sign of fading away. Even reading it simply as rhetoric or for its dramatic punch is rewarding. (My own favorite line: “Unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering.”)
There is hellfire, smoke, and damnation. There is wailing and gnashing of teeth. There is a grim portrait of the torments that await… That awaits whom?
In the face of burning and brimstone, salvation is offered. To all. Stubborn hope runs through the sermon, unquenched by the fires of hell. To each loathsome sinful one of us, dangling over flames and steeped in intractable sin, salvation is offered in Jesus Christ.
One interesting thought near the end of the sermon recurs in the other books we read this fall – the notion of hardening of heart. Edwards warns his congregation, especially the youth, against hardening and blindness as a consequence of delaying one’s conversion. Sin becomes habit, and declining the saving power of God becomes a habit as well.
Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress, written in 1678
More widely read than any book in English except the Bible (at least according to the blurb on the back cover), Part I of Pilgrim’s Progress tells the story of Christian journeying from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City. (Part II, written several years later, relays a similar journey of his wife, Christina, whose declining to join her husband is an early scene in Part I.) He joins with fellow travelers – Hopeful, Faithful, and Ignorance among the most prominent – and encounters others along the way (Obstinate, Pliable, Simple, Sloth, and Presumption in just the first few chapters). Evangelist and Interpreter help him on his way, while Worldly Wiseman and the Giant Despair lead him astray. This is not a subtle book.
Three aspects of Progress provide interesting contrast to the other faith journey book that we read. First is the reason for the journey. Everyman led a contented life in the City of Destruction until he began reading (presumably the Bible; Jonathon Edwards would also fit, but that sermon was some 60 years later). Stunned by newfound knowledge of the “wrath to come,” he knows not where to turn until guided by Evangelist to seek the Wicket Gate, to lay down his burden (which he hadn’t even noticed prior to his reading) at Mount Calvary, and follow the narrow way to Celestial City. In short, Christian is saving his soul from destruction. This is not portrayed selfishly, as he exhorts scornful friends and family to join him, but he is clearly seeking personal salvation from an otherwise horrible fate.
The nature of the obstacles are fascinating. Sins of the flesh do not make their appearance (save a tantalizingly brief story by Faithful of his encounter with Wanton). The diversions are diversions of faith. Morality and Civility, for example, are early diversions that lure Christian off the narrow path. We generally consider both of these to be desirable virtues – but for Bunyan, they are fatal diversions. Formalist and Hypocrisy are recognizable representatives of religions (Catholicism, for one) that do not lead to the Celestial City. Pope and Pagan, two giants ranting from their cave, reinforce this message. Ignorance is the most interesting, as he professes basic Christian belief in salvation through Christ – but the details of his belief in salvation are erroneous enough to earn him Christian’s derision and an unceremonious ejection from the Celestial City.
As with Edwards, hardening of heart makes an appearance in Progress. Held in a cage in the Interpreter’s House, a man in a metal cage forms a pathetic site. He bemoans his own fate as so sinful that no salvation is possible. The scene is curiously ambiguous. Given the tone of the work as a whole, Bunyan may actually agree with the despairing man’s self-assessment. A bit more positively (only a bit), one may interpret this as self-inflicted condemnation. Salvation for one so sinful may certainly be possible, but the injury to his own psyche wrought by his sinfulness leads the man to conclude incorrectly that his only fate is eternal damnation.
A third interesting aspect is the role of organized religion. There is none, save for the misdirection of the “wrong” religions. Bunyan wrote much of this work while confined in jail for unauthorized preaching. His omission of the establishment church as a promoter of salvation is, perhaps, not surprising.
The book is neither subtle nor overly comforting. Christian is neither humble nor even very likable. And to be sure, many of the Christian Ideas participants did not enjoy reading the book. It is worth the potential displeasure, however, as an extremely influential view of salvation. It is also a cultural icon, having introduced us to Vanity Fair and the Slough of Despond, among other recognizable locales. It conflicts with the more inclusive views of salvation prevalent today, but it is worth the effort to read.
The Quest of the Holy Grail, written around 1225 by an unknown French author
Despite being a cliché and the subject of movies from Indiana Jones to Monty Python, details about the Holy Grail are not very widely known to contemporary Christians. As portrayed in this book, believed to have been authored by a 13th Century Cistercian monk, the Grail was the platter from which Christ and the Apostles dined at the last supper. Brought to Britain by Joseph of Arimathea, in this tale it represents the hidden, glorious, mysteries of God, which may be seen unveiled by only the most worthy of Christians.
The plot is simple. The Grail appears to the Round Table and then vanishes, leading each of the knights to swear that they will seek the Grail until they either behold it in all its glory or are proven to be unworthy. Only three – Sir Perceval, Sir Bors, and the Christ-like Sir Galahad – meet with complete success, and only Galahad sees the Grail’s glories to the fullest (after which he dies).
As with Pilgrim’s Progress, the book is not particularly subtle. It has a different tone, however, and reads much more as an adventure. The moral and theological lessons are obvious, but they are markedly different from Bunyan’s.
The first difference is with the intent and nature of the journey. Jonathan Edwards warned of the wrath to come; Christian heeded the warning and took flight to save his soul. The knights of the Round Table embarked on a different journey – one to behold the glories of God. Their quest, as they described, sought neither self-preservation nor salvation. It was instead a journey to see God (a bit presumptuously, to be sure), and in so doing to prove their own worthiness. Beyond intent, the journey itself was different. There was no straight and narrow path for the knights; they went everywhere. In fact, as they embarked on their individual ways, they deliberately sought paths that were the most difficult and least straight.
The obstacles and temptations are far more interesting than the faith diversions faced by Christian. Perceval and Bors are deviously tempted by sins of the flesh. And far more than Christian, they come perilously close to succumbing to mortal sin.
Sir Lancelot presents a lesson in repentance. Steeped in sin from the outset (again, sins of the flesh – the nearly divine Sir Galahad being his illegitimate son), Lancelot realizes almost immediately that he is not only unworthy of finding the Grail, but at great risk of eternal damnation. He becomes genuinely repentant, however, especially after hearing the same sermon from three or four hermits in a row. His slow ascent is a remarkably optimistic portrayal of redemption and leads to his viewing – from a distance – the Grail.
In contrast, Sir Gawain is another knight ensnared by sin (this time of unspecified nature). When warned of his peril by a nearby hermit, Gawain replies that he accepts his fate, adding that repentance and reforming are just too hard. He presents a vivid picture of the “hardness of heart” against which both Edwards and Bunyan also warn.
Organized religion is a last distinction between The Quest and Pilgrim’s Progress. While it played little or no (positive, at least) role for Bunyan, the Church (in the form of hermit monks and priests at isolated abbeys) is a significant factor in Lancelot’s redemption and the successful quests of Bors, Perceval, and Galahad. The sacraments are also on full display. Appearances of the Grail are almost invariably in conjunction with celebrations of the Eucharist, and hermits’ hearing of Lancelot’s confessions start him on the path of repentance.
The translator’s introduction to The Quest states that the book is not a romance, but rather a spiritual fable. Given the time at which it was written, its intended audience is the social elite (that is, the literate). It serves as a strong warning of the sinfulness of various aspects of the chivalrous ideal and presents a favorable alternative in seeking the grace of God. It is also a great story in its own right – complete with jousts, damsels in distress, licentious temptresses, and even a flashback to Eve planting a twig connected to the apple (yes, that apple) that grows into the Tree of Life. This book received strong Thumbs Ups from the Christian Ideas readers.