Cutting the Sacred Oak

Navegation

Cutting the Sacred Oak

An Anabaptist examines the theology of Pilgrim's Progress

Millions of rats run through some of India’s granaries, eating their fill while children lie starving in nearby ghettos. “Why do they not kill the rats?” you ask.

Because of their religious beliefs about reincarnation, some of the Indian people refuse to kill rats. It may just be that one of the rats is their departed grandfather, returned to earth as a rat this time. The same goes for cows. Cows may wander the streets, dying of old age ... but no one will touch one of them to feed the starving, pot-bellied orphans because it may just be their aunt come back in a lower form.

Sacred cows walk among us, too. Fearing that they would be destroying something sacred, Christians will sometimes let obvious needs pass by for fear of destroying someone’s idol. Would it be wise for a missionary to go to India and kill one of those sacred cows to feed starving orphans? The question has been debated, without any always-obvious answer. To kill the cow could be an unnecessary offence towards other people’s sincere religious beliefs. After all, we as Christians do not like to see someone urinate on a picture representing Jesus, even though we may not even believe in using pictures of Jesus. It still comes across as an unnecessary repulsive action.

In times past, the issue of killing sacred cows has raised strong emotions. Called iconoclasts (destroyers of icons), people have pulled over statues, burned exquisite art, busted stained glass windows, and otherwise destroyed objects of worship. Why? Because they felt that the church had turned to idolatry, and they wanted to destroy the idols. In their zeal, they “cleaned house.”

The story of Donar’s Oak from the eighth century presents a similar theme, only a sacred oak yielded to the bold missionary’s axe, instead of a living animal. When Boniface had only cut but a small notch in the huge oak—so goes the story—with angry tree worshippers watching, the mighty oak suddenly fell over and split into four pieces. The pagans who had worshipped the tree watched in awe, and were convinced of their error. From the lumber of the worshipped oak the missionary built a chapel.

Yes, there are times to kill sacred cows and chop sacred oaks. In the Bible itself we read where a zealous Hezekiah broke in pieces the very brass serpent which had formerly been a source of healing, because the people had started to worship it instead of God.

With these thoughts in mind, we will now pick up our axe and proceed to the sacred oak of ... Pilgrim’s Progress.

“You mean you are going to be audacious enough to chop into that book?” I hear people ask. Like Boniface of days gone by, we shall take a few swings. If it falls, it falls. If it stands, it stands. The axe of God’s word will test the tree.

Translated into over 200 languages (that’s a lot of branches, folks!) and never out of print since first published (that’s a long time folks, over three centuries!), the book has been one of the best sellers in the English language, besides the Bible itself. Protestant missionaries used the book to teach their doctrine, introducing it wherever they roamed.

Why did Protestants find it useful? The Wikipedia article on the book states it this way: “The explicit Protestant theology of The Pilgrim's Progress made it [very popular].”

As Anabaptists, such a statement should make a red light come on in our mind. What “explicit Protestant theology” is in that book? Not everything the Protestants said was wrong, but we know that some of what they taught is plain contrary to the simple teachings of Jesus.

Before we swing our axe, let’s look at the author a bit. Who was he? What did he teach and live? Can we trust him to our children, to read his thrilling stories of fighting dragons? John Bunyan was a full-blown Calvinist. At least that is what full-blown Calvinists say. No, he was a Baptist who believed in freedom of the will, say the Free-Will Baptists. He was essentially a Presbyterian, according to some Presbyterians. He was a Puritan, say others.

So who was he? Was he someone we can trust? Well, one thing is absolutely sure: he was NOT a Quaker. Bunyan’s first published work was a blast against Quaker ideas, and it wasn’t his last anti-Quaker work. He despised the Quakers’ teaching because the Quakers felt that grace changes a person’s heart, which will change his works, which will make him righteous ... because only those who do righteousness are righteous. Bunyan was a strong proponent of imputed righteousness, which says that our works are nothing, only the works of Christ imputed to us are of value. In the end, the Quakers won the debate by good works: they used their influence to get Bunyan out of jail. Imagine using your influence to get someone out of jail who has written some strong words against you while sitting in that jail!

In short, Bunyan was a Puritan, which is usually defined as someone who holds Calvinist doctrine, but would like to see the established State churches be reformed further in terms of personal conduct and character. Some of the Puritans held high moral ideals (Bunyan did himself), but none of them taught full obedience to the Sermon on the Mount. He seems not to have held to any one certain denomination, but his teaching on the “essentials” was solidly Protestant, and therefore a variety of Protestants could claim him as their own.

Was he an Anabaptist? Of course not, if he was a solid Protestant. He never, as far as I have found, taught nonresistance, nor called believers away from the political realm. “So John Bunyan wasn’t an Anabaptist?” a very conservative Anabaptist man asked me recently. “I never realized that.” This ignorance among Anabaptists of John Bunyan’s underlying doctrine is what has caused me to sharpen my axe and approach the sacred oak. With that in mind, let’s look to see what this Puritan has to teach us.

Chop #1

Did you ever notice that Christian walked right through (actually, he was pulled part way) the strait gate with his sins still on his back? That’s right! Imagine how that happened! In contrast, Thieleman J. van Braght wrote in the Martyrs Mirror about a man who “fought or pressed his way with such force through the strait gate, that he left his flesh on the posts.” Does not the strait gate represent repentance from sin?

Did you see the great difference? One man, Bunyan’s Christian, gets through the strait gate with a huge load of sins on his back. The other man presses through such a narrow gate that he leaves some of his skin and blood on the post. There is no way a big load could have stayed on his back through such a narrow gate. It would have been scraped off!

The issue of Christian not losing his sins at the strait gate has caused many debates as to what Bunyan intended to teach. The famed Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon, who was a really big fan of Pilgrim’s Progress, even had a negative comment about the matter, the only negative point he had on the book: “I could have gotten Christian’s load off his back a lot faster than Bunyan did,” he said.

The full reason for this anomaly is not known, since no one questioned Bunyan about this aspect of the story. Frankly, they couldn’t, because Pilgrim’s Progress was only published after Bunyan had died. In Bunyan’s day, a huge controversy developed in Presbyterian Churches about whether a man could actually repent before he was converted. Since they held to Calvinistic principles, which denied any free will to man, some came to the conclusion that a man cannot repent of any sins before he is converted, since man is so depraved he cannot respond to God before he is saved, nor would any of man’s works be of any avail anyways, until after he is born again. Everything before conversion is filthy rags in some Calvinist’s eyes. So, if Christian had repented, cutting the sins off his back at the strait gate so he could squeeze through, that would have been filthy rags of self-righteousness. That would have been himself straightening out his life, not God straightening out his life.

Charles Finney complained about this dilemma, which he found among the New England Puritans in his day. He wrote:

Sinners have been commanded to repent, and told that they could not repent, in the same sermon. A great deal of ingenuity has been exercised in endeavoring to reconcile a sinner’s “inability” with his obligation to obey God. Election, predestination, free-agency, inability, and duty, have all been thrown together in one promiscuous jumble. And with regard to many sermons, it has been too true, as has been objected, that (Puritan) ministers have preached:
“You can and you can’t,
You shall and you sha’n’t,
You will and you won’t,
And you’ll be damned if you don’t.”

Bunyan was in such a quagmire. Unfortunately, he didn’t seem to recognize the slough he was in by his Calvinist theology. It was deeper and sticker than the slough of despair in his story!

Other Presbyterians argued that a man can repent and turn from some of his sins before conversion. The debate went on, rattling theological sabers among them. Eventually the side that said a man can repent before conversion seemed to win the day. However, the question remains: did Bunyan intend to teach us that repentance comes after conversion, or before? From Pilgrim’s Progress, it seems as if Bunyan did not count the strait gate to be repentance and release from sin. At least Bunyan’s Christian didn’t lose any of his sins at the wicket-gate.

Chop #2

Traveling with Hopeful, toward the latter part of the story, Christian relates a story he heard about Little-Faith. Little-Faith had been attacked by three men and had his loose change stolen when the three rogues knocked him almost dead. However, even though Little-Faith does not protect his scroll, the three thieves do not get this “jewel.” From that point on, Little-Faith goes bumbling onward, always poor and barely making it.

Hopeful asks Christian how it is that Little-Faith doesn’t sell his precious jewel, after all, Esau sold his birthright. Christian gets a bit upset at Hopeful for even asking such a question. He tells Hopeful that Esau never had faith, so he could not have sold it. But Little-Faith does have some faith, and ... it would have been impossible for Little-Faith to even sell the jewels. In other words, if a person has faith, even though it is little, it is impossible to lose it, since the thieves cannot steal it, and one cannot sell it.

Recognize that doctrine? It’s called “you can’t lose salvation once you have it.”

The man in the iron cage of the unpardonable sin, earlier in the story, is said to have “thought” he was on the way, and was called a “professor.” This type of wording seems to point that he had never been truly in the faith, but was now locked into a cage from which he could never escape. The Bible tells us that only those who have tasted the heavenly gift can fall away. Bunyan’s story paints a picture of someone who had only “professed” and “thought” he was in the way as having committed the unpardonable sin. Is it possible to fall away from something that you were never truly a partaker of?

All in all, Bunyan’s “once saved, always saved” theology shines through.

Chop #3

Finally, Christian arrives at the cross. Somehow, he missed picking up the cross that should have been waiting for him right on the other side of the strait gate, as Anabaptists do. It would be quite the sight though, to see a pilgrim carrying a huge load of sins and a cross at the same time. Ever seen such a sight? No, I don’t suppose you have!

While we are on the subject of taking up the cross, did you ever see Christian taking it up anywhere in the whole story?

CHOP! CHOP! CHOP!

Yes, that is three chops at once. Christian is never seen taking up the cross in Pilgrim’s Progress, let alone actually dying on it with Christ. In fact, he only looks at it when he passes by. Did Jesus say, “Except a man look at me on the cross, he cannot be my disciple”?

Well, Christian finally loses his sins at the cross, when he looks and considers. That picture represents the typical Protestant view of the salvation by the cross. You may have sung the chorus that goes, Jesus “took my place on Calvary, now I don’t have to go ...” Please, dear Anabaptist brother, if that song is in your hymnbook, take a marker and blot out those words. We have to get up on that cross and die with Him. One cannot enter the kingdom of God unless He dies with Christ. Looking at Him dying is not enough. Methinks I see the mighty oak a leanin’ ...

Chop #4

Speaking of entering the kingdom, may I please ask you when Christian entered? The answer is simple: John Bunyan did not believe the kingdom of heaven was entered until physical death. The whole parable mentions the kingdom of heaven about half a dozen times, but never in the sense that Christian is in that kingdom while on his journey.

Thus we find Bunyan falling into the false gospel that the Protestants preach far and wide. The true gospel is the good news that the kingdom of heaven was planted on earth by Jesus, at His first coming, and by means of faith, repentance, and a rebirth of the human spirit, man can live in that kingdom NOW, producing heavenly ethics and morals in his daily conduct. That is the gospel of the kingdom. Yet, the majority of Protestants do not believe or teach that the kingdom has been established on earth yet. For that reason, Protestants—including Bunyan—do not call men to the kingdom ethics which Jesus laid out on the Sermon on the Mount, such as nonresistance and non-swearing of oaths, etc.

To put it bluntly and plainly, John Bunyan did not preach the gospel of the kingdom in Pilgrim’s Progress.

Chop #5

For our final comparison between Pilgrim’s Progress and Bible teaching, let us consider Christian’s entry into the celestial city. If you remember, at the time when he looked at the cross, he was given a certificate. At his entrance into the celestial city, he pulls the certificate out and the celestial beings take it into the King. Upon seeing the certificate, the King commands that Christian and Hopeful be allowed to enter in.

What was this “certificate”? Although Bunyan does not specifically say what it represented, the following paragraphs in his story tell of Ignorance’s effort to enter: he is rejected because he has no certificate.

Now if Bunyan had meant that the certificate was a list of Christian’s works during his pilgrimage, and he was judged by those works, whether they were good or evil, Bunyan would have been biblical. However, Ignorance simply has no certificate, so a list of his works while on earth cannot be the intended meaning of the certificate.

Let’s say it plainly: the certificate is an imagined “Get out of hell free” certificate that the “saved” turn in at the city gate to gain entrance. The Bible teaches no such thing!

The final judgment that will determine our eternal destiny will be based upon one thing: our works. Every New Testament final judgment scene given to us makes that absolutely clear. Romans 2:6 says it in these words: “Who will render to every man according to his deeds.” The following verses in that chapter give the two options

1. To those who patiently continue in doing well (v.7) and working good (v. 10), eternal life and blessing. In short, heaven.

2. To those who do not obey, tribulation and woe. In short, hell.

Our life’s deeds will be looked at, and we will be judged by what we have done. No pulling out a certificate, no “pleading the blood,” no theological questions to correctly answer … only “they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.” (Jn. 5:29)

En resumen

We have seen five major points where Pilgrim’s Progress teaches contrary to the Bible.

1. One can pass the strait gate and still have his sins on his back.

2. One cannot lose salvation.

3. One can become a Christian just by looking at the cross, without ever taking it up and dying on it with Christ.

4. Another gospel besides the coming of Christ’s kingdom to earth at His first coming.

5. Our final destiny will not be determined by our works done on earth.

What can we say, other than cry “Timber!” as the “holy” oak comes crashing to the ground?

Building the chapel

From the lumber of the fallen oak, we can build a chapel. This chapel may use some stories found in Pilgrim’s Progress to inspire us. It’s the same wood, but in a totally different shape.

To make the parable plain, we Anabaptists can possibly use parts of Pilgrim’s Progress. I personally have been inspired by some of the stories. Nevertheless, we do need to chop the “holy,” but holey, oak down, get it completely off its Protestant stump, and rearrange the boards into a totally different framework.

Meanwhile, for those who have a copy of Pilgrim’s Progress sitting on their shelf, perhaps you should consider the consequences of your children playing in that big old oak. Do you want your children to build a playhouse amongst its branches? Do you want them to build their conception of the Bible truth from its kingdom-less gospel, a gospel that promises salvation without taking up the cross? A kingdom-less gospel is “another gospel.” Fare ye well, pilgrims!

-Mike Atnip

Tracts and Articles

Primitive Christianity

Cutting the Sacred Oak

Navegation