#218: Movie Review - The Pilgrim's Progress
"The Pilgrim's Progress - from the world to that which is to come" is a movie based on John Bunyan's book published in 1678 with the same title. It was written while he was inprisoned for sharing the gospel of Jesus. John lived in a little town in Bedfordshire called Bedford, England (1628 - 1688). This title is arguably the most popular print of all time in Christian literature besides the bible. It is commonly said that great heroes of the past like Charles Spurgeon binged this title.
The plot tells a story of a man named Christian who lived in a city called the City of Destruction with his wife Christiana and children under the tyranny of the Demon Dragon - Apollyon. During his daily routine, he stumbles upon a book; the more he read it, the more he felt the terror awaiting him in the city and the more he felt a burden on him and the more he felt the urge to do something about it as well as run as far away from the city. But run to where? He had been in the City of Destruction his whole life. Infact, there was a silent rule that no one was allowed to leave the city.
On came Evangelist, who showed Chritian the way. He told Christian to follow the Light. And the journey began. And the destination was the Celestial City.
In the course of his journey, Christian would come across many obstacle: Worldly Wise, Giant of Dispair, Doubting Castle, Demon of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, Ignorance, Flatterer, lady Wanton (lust) and Vanity Fair
There were also encouragements along the way at strategic points: Evangelist, the Interpreter, Hopeful, Faithful (who gets matyred), Promise and Help.
My Thoughts
The Pilgrim's Progress is the most classic illustration I have ever come across that depicts the life of the believer as a journey to heaven. The stand out feature of this masterpiece is the significance of all the names that you come across - from the cities, to the pilgrim, to the temptations, to the encouragement.
In this piece, we can see that just like Christian, we all are in a state of destruction though we live our day to day life ignorant and unbothered about it. The conviction of the coming destruction and our need for help comes from reading the bible (this was the book that Christian was reading). The bible makes us realise our true state - while everyon else was seeing a normal Christian, he was bearing a burden [of sin]. He could feel it, but everyone else thought he was fine. Our Christian journey begins at this point.
Another fascinating thing about this literary work is that burdens are lifted at Calvary. This was something I struggled with when I first saw the movie. I envisioned that the narrative would end at Calvary. But you could conclude that the second phase of the journey begins at the foot of the cross. We journey to the cross for salvation and we journey from the cross for glorification while undergoing daily sanctification.
The encouragements that I mentioned earlier is a take home for every believer that sees this movie. In this journey, we are not alone. Sometimes we loose sight of the Light, we get distracted and entangled with worldly affairs but we can rely on Psalm 34:17 in such times:
When the righteous cry for help, the LORD hears and delivers them out of all their troubles
In summation, The Pilgrim's Progress is a title that I highly recommend for personal viewing, family viewing, group viewing in discussion groups and churches/christian fellowships. There is also a sequel to this movie which tells the story of Chritiana and the children, together with other faithful pilgrims to the Celestial City. It is based off on the way the first part ended - after Christian arrived the Celestial City, Evangel visited Christiana and gave her an invitation to the Celestial City.
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