Grace Overwhelming: John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress, and the Extremes of the Baptist Mind

• Published in: Bunyan studies no. 14; p. 131
• Main Author: Simpson, Ken
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Newcastle Upon Tyne Northumbria University, Department of Humanities, Faculty of Arts, Design and Social Sciences 01.01.2010
• Subjects: British & Irish literature; Bunyan, John (1628-1688); Bunyan, John (1628-88); English literature
• ISSN: 0954-0970

[...]Bunyan's discourse of spiritual extremes is . . . related to an absence of stability' (p. 288) and The Pilgrim 's Progress emphasizes 'a series of ordeals and snares' (p. 300) rather than an exemplary or direct route through the wilderness of the world. In Part I Dunan-Page discusses how Bunyan's rhetoric rather than his open communion principles in A Confession of My Faith, And a Reason of My Practice led to extreme attacks on him by closed communion Baptists - those who insisted that baptism should be an 'initiating' rite of church membership - and by those outside the Baptist community. Not only does she show that Bunyan is aware of the complex distinctions within these discourses, and that we need to be aware of these distinctions if we hope to appreciate some of the smallest details as well as the larger pastoral and doctrinal function of The Pilgrim 's Progress, but she also shows that Bunyan is a much more astute commentator on everyday Christian emotional states than is usually acknowledged. [...]while varieties of fear, from slavish fear and terror of judgment to saving and godly fear, dominate the lives of Timorous, Fearing, Much-afraid, Mercie, Christiana and Christian, and contribute to the City of Destruction, Slough of Despond, Mount Sinai, and Valley of the Shadow of Death episodes, to mention only a few, they also inform numerous forms of sloth, as characters attempt to avoid the direct action that is required by God's call. First of all, it seems to me that a number of false dilemmas or 'extremes' are constructed.