Samuel Taylor Coleridge once wrote that John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress was ‘incomparably the best SUMMA THEOLOGIÆ Evangelicæ’ (1980, 802) Hailed as a spiritual classic and distributed widely in evangelical Christian education, formation, and missions, The Pilgrim’s Progress has been a deeply influential text for the cultural imagination, particularly for Nonconformist and liturgically non-creedal baptistic churches. As an Anglican committed to creedal orthodoxy, J.I. Packer was both an ardent fan of this work as well as a strong advocate for the place of catechesis in the life of the healthy local church. He called The Pilgrim’s Progress ‘a catechetical text [but] of a different sort’ (2010a, 193). This presentation brings to the fore the question of whether and how The Pilgrim’s Progress functions catechetically or lends itself to adaptation for such an end. I bring experience as a close reader of the text from co-editing and teaching. The work of this presentation is part of a larger exploration of theology in this spiritual classic, but I focus here on the Christology that the work presents. Attention is given to the narrative’s explicit, implicit, and allegorical christological claims and to the biblical authority called on to support these. The corresponding deficiency of anti-pilgrim, anti-Christ figures in the allegory is explored as a function of this larger framing. The roles that catechizing and pastoral instruction play in framing the doctrine of Part I from the perspective of Part II is also considered. Before concluding, I sample and expound the Christology articulated in select commentary, devotional use, and adaptation of the book for children, and in movies, music, or graphic novels. I close in judging the ways in which The Pilgrim’s Progress does and does not offer creedal Christological catechesis.
Select abbreviated bibliography:
Bunyan, John, The Pilgrim’s Progress (Norton Library), edited by Margaret Sönser Breen and Andy Draycott (2025, forthcoming)
Coleridge, S.T., ed. George Whalley, Marginalia, Collected Works 12.I (1980)
Draycott, Andy, Into the Pilgrimverse: Contemporary Reception of The Pilgrim’s Progress, (2025, forthcoming)
Draycott, Andy, “In Sight of the Cross: A Broad Variorum Commentary on The Pilgrim’s Progress, Part I” Bunyan Studies, 28 (2024)
Draycott, Andy, “Three Shining Ones at the Cross in The Pilgrim’s Progress: Angels, Trinity, or Church?” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 2023, 66.2, pp. 323-341
Draycott, Andy, “Iconoclasm, iconophobia, and graphic novel adaptations of John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress” Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 2021, 12:5, 964-992
Draycott, Andy, “Evangelical Devotionals and Bible Studies of The Pilgrim’s Progress: Fidelity or Bibliolatry?” Christian Education Journal, 2020, Vol. 17(2) 264–282
Green, Ian, The Christian’s ABC: Catechisms and Catechizing in England C.1530-1740 (1996)
Packer, J. I., and Gary A. Parrett, Grounded in the Gospel (2010a)
Packer, J.I., ‘The Pilgrim’s Principles: John Bunyan Revisited’ (2010b)
Palin, Harriet Anne, Learning and Living the Faith: The Network of Religious Education in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century England (PhD Diss. University of Newcastle) (2023)