Only when it's convenient...

One of those who had become a Pilgrim through Faithful’s preaching and persecution was Hopeful, who now joins Christian on the Way, ‘entering into brotherly covenant’. It’s a powerful concept, and one that gives a robustness to the idea of joining in fellowship with other Christians that is sadly lacking in our own day. Covenant is a word we reserve for something of the import of marriage, and the idea that our involvement in a Church family has something of this level of significance is likely to have never occurred to us. Realising it now might have us scurrying for repentance as we consider the ‘looseness’ with which we have sat on even attending Church at times, let alone being so deeply committed to the pilgrimage of others.

Pilgrim’s Progress has often been criticized for underplaying the role and importance of the Church. Reading through this classic again in recent weeks, I’m increasingly unsure this is fair. Undoubtedly, Part II seems more obviously to celebrate travelling as part of a company, and under the care of ‘Mr. Greatheart’, but I am less sure that the place of the Church is quite so lacking in Part I as is often alleged. Not everyone who travels with Christian is genuinely converted, but he is constantly surrounded by other Pilgrims on the Way. ‘Thus one died to bear testimony to the truth, and another rises out of his ashes to be a companion with Christian in his pilgrimage’. Bunyan would not have Christian travel alone.

But one whose confession lacks spiritual reality is Mr. By-Ends. He is from the town of Fair-Speech, and we get a strong sense of its character as we are told of who lives there, among them, Lord Turn-about, Lady Feigning, Mr. Facing-both-ways… But the citizen who bears the most scathing name is ‘the parson of our parish, Mr. Two-tongues’. In case we are in any doubt, Bunyan lays out the over-arching nature of the town: ‘We are always most zealous when religion goes in his silver slippers; we love much to walk with him in the street, if the sun shines and the people applaud him’. Mr. By-ends personifies this attribute exquisitely: ‘I had always the luck to jump in my judgement with the present way of the times, whatever it was…’. In other words, when religion is fashionable, acceptable and even applauded by the world, Mr. By-ends will be found in the pews. But when confessing the Name of Christ, or standing for the implications of that confession ‘goes against wind and tide’, By-ends claims liberty to withdraw from the ranks. Though if he had stayed in his own town, he would have no need, for what he heard from the pulpit would be only the faint echo of all that the world applauded at any rate.

A ‘by-end’ is a subsidiary aim or objective. It has connotations of a secret purpose seeking a selfish advantage. The citizens of Fairspeech have, as their main objective, personal gain, and seek their own promotion. If religion serves that end in any given situation, then they will be religious. When it doesn’t they are as quick to disavow themselves of it. They are those who speak of Christ on Sunday, but not on Monday. They are those who will do ‘mission’ but not ‘evangelism’. Their ‘gospel’ will be framed in terms of whatever the world deems good and respectable, and their doctrine will slip easily into whatever is politically palatable, and socially valued. They are those who are religious in a way that the world finds agreeable (not ‘of the stricter sort’). But because By-ends prizes the acceptance of those around him over his acceptance by Christ, when the two come into conflict, he is quiet and chameleon-like in his religiosity fades into the background. He would use Christ for his own ends, and the Church to serve an ulterior motive. Like a parent who goes to Church to get their child into a local CE School; or perhaps more subtly, the person who has an unspoken transaction with God that if they go to Church, God will ‘bless’ their family… or career… or relationship…

The true Christian will be wary of such as Mr. By-ends (‘a knave in our company’!), and will be justifiably hesitant about cultivating fellowship. ‘If you will go with us, you must go against wind and tide … you must also own religion in his rags as well as in his silver slippers; and stand by him too when bound in irons as well as when he walketh the streets with applause’. When By-ends refuses these terms, which are after all only those laid down by Christ, Christian and Hopeful step back. In spite of By-ends accusations of judgementalism, ’Christian and Hopeful forsook him, and kept their distance before him’.

Questions to Ponder:

How do you think Christian feels about Mr. By-ends’ attitude after everything he (and Faithful) have endured in Vanity Fair?

How can we avoid making Mr. By-ends mistake in ouir approach to Christ? How would we be able to recognise if we had!?

My Supreme weapon is dying

‘Thus came Faithful to his end’.

…which we might mis-interpret as a tragedy, a disastrous miscarriage of justice, a denial of Faithful’s basic human rights. It might well be, but Bunyan paints a different picture. Faithful is honoured by the Church, and taken to the Celestial City, where he is welcomed with trumpet blast, and in victory procession! Faithful’s death is not a defeat, but a triumph.

Let us listen again to Josef Tson as he addresses an interrogator who is struggling to understand his unwillingness to compromise:

‘Sir, let me explain how I see this issue. Your supreme weapon is killing. My supreme weapon is dying. Here is how it works. You know that my sermons on tape have spread all over the country. If you kill me, those sermons will be sprinkled with my blood. Everyone will know I died for my preaching. And everyone who has a tape will pick it up and say, ‘I’d better listen again to what this man preached, because he really meant it: he sealed it with his life.’ So, sir, my sermons will speak 10 times louder than before. I will actually rejoice in this supreme victory if you kill me.”

Later, Tson found out another officer said, “We know that Mr. Tson would love to be a martyr, but we are not that foolish to fulfil his wish.” Reflecting on this interaction years later in a sermon, Tson explained:

“I stopped to consider the meaning of that statement. I remembered how for many years, I had been afraid of dying. I had kept a low profile. Because I wanted badly to live, I had wasted my life in inactivity. But now that I had placed my life on the altar and decided I was ready to die for the gospel, they were telling me they would not kill me! I could go wherever I wanted in the country and preach whatever I wanted, knowing I was safe. As long as I tried to save my life, I was losing it. Now that I was willing to lose it, I found it.”

This is the atmosphere surrounding Faithful’s death. He has found life! This is what lay behind his courageous witness prior to and during his trial; it is what lay behind his willing surrender to death; it is what lay behind the Lord’s honouring of him.

Bunyan reminds us at this key moment that the Lord overrules all things, and held in His own hand ‘the power of their rage’. This is the only explanation he gives for why Faithful is martyred, while Christian is' granted some respite (see Acts 12:1-7). But this is not all he would have us learn.

What else should we take away from this chapter? Comfort. Even if our suffering and death comes in ways that seem unexpected, tragic, painful, unjust or cruel, we can trust that God remains sovereign, that He will clasp us to Himself, and that He will bring us home. ‘Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints’ (Ps.116:15).

This is nothing more than the realisation of Jesus’ double promise concerning His sheep: ‘I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand’. Both the Father and the Son hold us, and not even suffering and death can cause Him to loosen His grip.

For a Christian with their eyes fixed on the New Creation, their hearts rooted in the Heavenly City, and their minds shaped by the hope of the Gospel, death is gain. As Paul famously puts it: I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain’ (Phil.1:20-21). Even when confronted with injustice and death, we are ‘more than conquerors’ (Rom.8:37). These are not simply defeated foes, but they are additionally brought to serve us in our pursuit of Christ.

After all, ‘we live by faith, not by sight’. And wouldn’t we, like Paul, actually ‘prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord’ (II Cor.5:7-8)?

Quesitons to ponder:
How have the last few days refelctions recast how you think about your relationship with others?

What difference does it make when you realise that God is sovereign voer your suffering?

When it's not your fault...

The trial of Faithful and Christian is one of the most graphic episodes in Pilgrim’s Progress. We are introduced to a range of new characters: Lord Hate-Good, Envy, Superstition, Pickthank, and a jury so stacked against the cause of Christ and the good of the Church that there can be no doubt as to the verdict that will be returned to the Court. Again, part of Bunyan’s purpose is to underline that consistent reality that the world hates Christ and His Church without cause (Ps.35, 38:19, 109:3, 119:86, John 15:25 etc.). This is bizarrely comforting if for no other reason than when we speak of and live for Christ, and incur the displeasure, hatred or anger of others, we can often turn inward, wondering what we did wrong, or perhaps what we didn’t do right. Painting the Judge, Witnesses and Jury in such vibrant colours helps us to see that the reason can lie not in us, but in those who pit themselves against the Gospel.

It is worth noting in passing that not everyone in Vanity Fair stands so implacably against the Pilgrims, nor are they so determined to engineer their demise. But enough are, and few enough are willing to seek to prevent it. Yet ‘the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church’. When our testimony to Christ is sealed with tears and blood, our evangelism resonates with the chords of creation, and people are saved. Later, as Christian leaves the Fair with Hopeful (one such convert), we are told ‘there were many more of the men in the Fair who would take their time and follw after’.

The Pilgrims are accused of being enemies of the Fair’s trade, causing commotion and division, and winning ‘a party to their own most dangerous opinions’. In a sense they can only plead guilty! The first witness, Envy simply reiterates that they were evangelistically zealous, and that they had declared that ‘Christianity and the customs of our town of Vanity, were diametrically opposite, and could not be reconciled’. Again, there is little the Pilgrims could dispute, but Bunyan’s point is that persecution can be motivated by Envy. He draws this from the Scriptures where we see the Pharisees treatment of Jesus, and then later the Apostles being driven by their resentment of growing impact and popularity (see e.g. Matt.27:17-18, Acts 13:44-45, Phil.1:15-18). No matter how sophisticated the charges brought against the Church, they are often a cover for more base motives. In Acts we see that fear of losing profit is enough to instigate a riot against visiting preachers (Acts 9:23f)!

Superstiton is the most dangerous of the witnesses, and perhaps the one drawn most acutely from Bunyan’s own experience. He has in mind the clerics of the ‘official’ religion, who can often be amongst the most vicious persecutors. We need to be careful here for the reality on the ground is often complex and varied, but in many contexts where the Church is persecuted, there is an ‘official’, institutional ‘Church’ that is nominal, liberal, puppet to the state, and compliant with the dominating culture and political opinions and dynamics of the day. Again, we need to take great care against sweeping generalisations, for there are often many genuine Christians in such denominations, but Bunyan’s point is that the denominational structures can often be brought to the service of persecuting believers. That was his own experience, with Anglican Bishops of the day at the forefront of Bunyan’s own mistreatment. There is nothing like the preaching of the true Gospel to invoke the hatred and hostility of pretenders, even when by his own confession ‘I have no great acquaintance with this man, nor do i desire to have any further knowledge of him'.

The third witness, Pickthank, is the most obscure to us. It’s an archaic word that speaks of someone who will do whatever it takes to curry favour with those he perceives to be in power. He isn’t driven by any personal offence taken, but he knows that the nobility of the town are feeling threatened, and so adds his voice to the prosecution in the hope of winning their appreciation, acknowledgement and acclaim. He will ‘pick’ on the pilgrims to gain the ‘thanks’ of the nobility.

Faithful’s defense comes down to a restatement of the Gospel, and a re-commiting of himself to the mercy of God. There is no question of justice being done, and the Judge instructs the jury that Faithful’s crime is apparent, that by his own mouth he has confessed to treason and that he deserves to die. There is of course, the judge continues, legal precedent, for the world has persecuted the Church to death since the days of ‘Pharaoh the Great, servant to our prince’.

The Jury’s verdict is a foregone conclusion, and Faithful is ‘presently condemned, to be had from the place he was, to the place from whence he came, and there to be put to the most cruel death that could be invented’.

‘Thus came Faithful to his end’.

Which we might mis-interpret as a tragedy, a disastrous miscarriage of justice, a denial of Faithful’s basic human rights. But as we’ll see tomorrow, Bunyan paints a different picture.

Questions to ponder:

What mistakes could the Church / Christians make in seeking to avoid persecution? Do you see those mistakes being made today?

Do you think that the British Church’s unwillingness to suffer, and her lack of evangelistic effectiveness are linked?

Tried and tested ... but why?

As we come to the trial and martyrdom of the Pilgrim(s), it is worth reminding ourselves that Vanity Fair is on the Way, and we are told quite explicitly that any Pilgrim who would get to the Celestial City must pass through the Fair. The fact that Christian and Faithful are ‘passing through’ is, of course to do with the limitations of analogy. In the same way as we never pass on from the Beautiful Palace, so we never pass through Vanity Fair - at least not in this age. We live in both… indeed the fact that we live in Vanity Fair is one of the most compelling arguments for our frequenting the Beautiful Palace.

But that aside, why does the Way pass through such a place? Or put in a less allegorical way: Why does God ordain the persecution and martyrdom of Pilgrims? This is a huge question, and one that we have to come terms with when we look at the experience of the Church in most of the world, and slowly but increasingly, in the UK. Take, for example, the case of Maureen Martin, who last month was accused of gross misconduct and sacked after the Housing Association where she worked claimed her Lewisham Mayoral campaign pledge to promote 'natural marriage' was 'discriminatory'. The reason for dismissal was Maureen’s manifesting her Christian faith on the topic of marriage outside of the workplace. And we’ll get some insight into the plight of the Church elsewhere in the world at our Open Doors / Global Church Weekend, 9-11th September.

But that doesn’t answer the question. Why does the Way pass through such experiences? What does God seek to achieve in the persecution and martyrdom of the Church.

Josef Tson - who we’ve met before in this series - was a pastor in Romania during Ceausescu’s communist regime, under which the Church was systematically persecuted. Tson himself was arrested, imprisoned and ‘interrogated’ by Romania’s secret internal police force, the Securitate. A group of American Christians effectively ransomed Tson, who was in turn exiled from Romania. During his time in the West, he preached ceaselessly, raising awareness of the plight of the church in Eastern Europe… And he wrote a PhD exploring the question of why God takes His Church through persecution and suffering.

He distilled a number answers from his studies in the Scriptures, among them:

1. …for the propagation of the Gospel. Tson argues that the world is built on the foundation of the cross. In part this means that it is designed to be a place of suffering and resurrection. That is the pattern of the cross. A seed that goes into the ground and dies, and therefore produces a harvest (Jn.12:23-26). That is true of Jesus, but because we live in a world shaped by the cross, it is also true of any Christian who suffers and dies; there will be a harvest - other people become Christians. This is an integral part of evangelism, and an unwillingness to submit to this principle will hinder mission (e.g. Acts 9:16).

2. …the defeat of Satan. Our world is an arena of war. But how do we defeat our enemy? The answer in the Bible includes: by suffering and dying. We see a classic statement of this in Rev.12:11, where there is listed three weapons of our warfare: our participation in the Cross of Christ (the blood of lamb); our evangelism (the word of our testimony); and our willingness to suffer martyrdom (they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death). Satan seeks to compel us to live according to his will – i.e. faithless to Christ and characterised by sin - by intimidating us with the threat of suffering and rejection and death. But when we believe in the resurrection of and through Christ, so that we do not love our lives so much as to shrink from death, then Satan is defeated.

3. …the re-imaging of the Christian. The suffering of the Church is a refiner’s fire that, if engaged with faithfully, leads to the purging of sin and the re-forming of Christ’s image in us. Hence the Psalmist’s reflection: ‘Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word… It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees’ (Ps.119:67 & 71) We see the same sentiment in e.g. Rom.5:3-4, where Paul celebrates how God is at work in the midst of our suffering to restore the Character of Christ. There are things about being like Jesus - the Suffering Servant - that we can only learn in suffering service.

4. …the glorifying of God. In Ps.63:3 we read: ‘your love is better than life’. Suffering, and particularly the anticipation of martyrdom, gives us the opportunity to display that we value our relationship with God, and His honour and glory, more than we value even life itself. Martyrdom is the most eloquent sermon, in which we preach: I would rather die than dishonour my Lord. I would rather perish than sully His love. I would rather lay down my life, than deny Him who gave it to me. We are provided a pulpit like no other, from which we can declare to the watching world that infinite worth of the love of our God.

This is at least part of the reason why Bunyan includes the trials and testings of the Pilgrims, and the martyrdom of Faithful at the hands of Vanity Fair as part of their Progress. After all, ‘everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted’ (II Tim.3:12).

Questions to ponder:

Do you think the reasons Tson outlines are sufficiently compelling to help us in our experience of rejection and persecution?

How can we make sure we don’t waste our suffering?

On anticipating Martyrdom

So, it turns out there is a magazine actually called ‘Vanity Fair’. What is that all about? Grim irony? Unhappy coincidence? Studied defiance?

Anyway, back to Christian and Faithful’s plight… Although they ’behaved themselves yet more wisely … with so much meekness and patience that it won to their side … several of the men of the fair’, they learn ‘that the cage nor irons should serve their turn, but that they should die for the abuse they had done’. The two Pilgrims call again to mind what Evangelist had told them, and find strength and courage in their knowing that their suffering has been foretold.

There are clear echoes of Bunyan’s own experience, and the injustice of it, which lends the ring of truth to the behaviour of Christian and Faithful throughout this episode. In his autobiography (Grace abounding to the Chief of Sinners), he writes:

Before I came to prison, I saw what was a-coming, and had especially two considerations warm upon my heart; the first was how to be able to endure, should my imprisonment be long and tedious; the second was how to be able to encounter death, should that be here my portion; for the first of these, that Scripture (Colossians 1:11) was great information to me, namely, to pray to God to be "strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness." I could seldom go to prayer before I was imprisoned, but not for so little as a year together, this sentence, or sweet petition, would, as it were, thrust itself into my mind, and persuade me, that if ever I would go through long-suffering, I must have all patience, especially if I would endure it joyfully

[par. 324].

Christian and Faithful commit themselves to the providence of God, but in an interesting paragraph, we are told that while they comforted each other with the thought of martyrdom, each secretly hoped they might have ‘that preferment’. An eagerness to be counted amongst the martyrs may seem strange, even macabre, to us, but it is a common theme thorughout the history of the church.

During the years following the Apostles, as the Church suffered periodic persecutions under the Roman Empire, there was the temptation to think that you weren’t a ‘proper’ Christian unless you were martyred. The Bishops of that period had to work quite hard to convince people that it was possible to be a genuine Disciple without suffering at the very least, imprisonment and torture. They also had to remind their flock that martyrdom wasn’t really martyrdom if you went seeking it, and provoking the authorities to act against the Church.

We have a series of letters from Ignatius, the second Bishop of Antioch, written en route to the Colosseum in Rome at the turn of the second century (107 AD). He repeatedly asks the Christians not to intervene and do anything that might jeopardise his prospect of martyrdom. "I fear your kindness, which may harm me," he wrote to Roman Christians hoping to free him. "You may be able to achieve what you plan. But if you pay no heed to my request, it will be very difficult for me to attain unto God." And that was truly Ignatius's goal: to imitate "our God Jesus Christ" in death. If the Christians at Rome really wanted to do something, they should pray that he would remain faithful.

So the idea that Christian and Faithful both hoped they would be the one martyred isn’t so far from being a possibility. But with true meekness, they commit themselves ‘to the all-wise disposal of Him that ruleth all things…’. Their confidence in the sovereignty of God provides a basis for their hope, and their contentment of the condition they were in. Again, this might feel alien to us, but that might be because none of us have had to face the prospect of our own martyrdom. There is great comfort in knowing that nothing can happen to us that does not come from the hand of our Father. That includes suffering (I Pet.3:17). The truly terrifying thing would be the idea that suffering could come our way that wasn’t in the will of God. Such suffering would be without meaning or purpose.

Christian and Faithful know they are on the path to the Celestial City. They know that path runs through Vanity Fair. They know their experience here is foreknown, and their persecution and martyrdom fore-ordained. And they know that their perseverance to the end is ensured. And like the Apostles of old, they find themselves ‘rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name’ (Acts 5:41).

Questions to ponder:

How long do you think it will be before the Church in Britain is openly persecuted?

How do you think MIE can best prepare us to endure faithfully?