Baxter, Bunyan, and a Puritan Refraining of Ageing

• Published in: Bunyan studies no. 14; p. 56
• Main Authors: Hancock, Maxine, Zinck, Arlette
• 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

[...]in a healthy Christian society interdependency establishes a context for the needs of all: the call to the Christian journey is a call into community and especially into communal narrative. [...]the point Old Honest makes in his conversation with Gaius is exemplified in the negative in Badman's tale. [...]the vision throughout Bunyan's works is also profoundly communal. [...]while it is true that both Christian and Badman's tales appear to reify some of the ageist assumptions apparent in the culture at large, it is also true that, in terms of the Puritan theory that governs these texts, both the first part of The Pilgrim 's Progress and The Life and Death of Mr. Badman focus on the story of individual sanctification. Since the old and young are understood to be similarly engaged in this process, there is less need to distinguish age cohorts than there is in the later allegories, where the individual story of sanctification is positioned in the larger context of congregational life.