You might imagine that the thoughts of an evangelic preacher like John Bunyan (1628-1688)[1] are as far as possible from a rationalist science based blog like this one. Yet the man and his works, including The Pilgrim’s Progress represent the psychological journey of anyone who has to confront the insufficiencies of this world, and knows that to remake it has become an urgent work of survival.
Born in Bedford to a family of tinkers and small traders, Bunyan’s life encompassed that most radical period of the English speaking world at a time when it was the epicentre of human progress and self discovery. The central challenge of Protestantism-the lone confrontation of the Soul with God-meant that anyone from any social class was thereby liberated to play a role in History, but thereby carried the almost insupportable burden to remake the world around them. Bunyan’s early life (Puritan preacher, service in the Parliamentary Army) was with the grain of his times. But the return of the King in the 1660s put radicalism out of fashion, and he spent 12 long years in jail for his beliefs- a sort of Alexy Navalny of his epoch.
Anyone of any faith, or none, who wants to reform the world will have experienced the slow journey from Angry Young Communist through Socialist, Social Democrat, Liberal and Whig, with each each progressive dilution of virtue seen as a Wordly Wise compromise with reality. The Pilgrims Progress is an analysis of the psychological challenges faced by those who refuse to compromise and stay out there, to confront the Devil and his works, in the name of us all.
For a long time, the journey to Moderation seemed the safer bet, for it has given us science, reason and the comfortable amenities, pleasures even, of modern life. Yet the Devil has not gone away. These days his identity is pretty clear, in the shape of the fossil fuel industry and its various outriders and lackeys in the media and politics. The danger they represent is now very real, and the challenge of how to respond is daunting.
There is no point in returning to Evangelical Christianity, most of whose acolytes now seem to lie on the the side of the very rich and white supremacy, at least in the United States. Yet the actions of protestors like Greenpeace who recently(and peacefully) daubed the house of the Prime Minister in oil coloured sheeting seem to have captured something of the spirit of Bunyan and his kind. If our side is to prevail(and our species thereby to survive) maybe we need just a little more of that angry spirit that knows evil when it sees it. And refuses to bend.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bunyan
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pilgrim%27s_Progress
#christianity #global warming #john bunyan #radical #moderate
Learning, Science and Society 