An Outdated Progress: The Problem with The Pilgrim's Progress in a Modern Christian Context Cassidy McCullough College

John Bunyan’s work The Pilgrim’s Progress, is one of the most renowned Christian books to read, but it is not in fact within Christian rules, according to the Bible, thus unveiling a logical fallacy. With careful analysis of The Pilgrim’s Progress and the New and Old Testaments, one can see that there are many contradictory factors. Excluding the sequel, where Christian’s wife and children survive the apocalypse and join him in heaven, we can extrapolate that had they not been saved, Christian’s sin would have led him to love the deity that doomed his children and wife to live in constant torture. The wife, children, and friends of Christian are seen as hindrances, as obstacles to God, yet in the Bible itself states “But if anyone does not provide for his own family, especially for his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” (1 Timothy 5:8). The actions of Christian contradict the wishes of the Bible here, abandoning family, friends, and loved ones for individual salvation is to abandon responsibility. Noble states that Bunyan’s depiction of conversion is skewed “The Pilgrim’s Progress is at times a guide to follow in the way to God only in the sense that it is a compendium of snares to be...