Study The Church

Where did John Bunyan write Pilgrim's Progress? (You will be amazed)

Englishman John Bunyan (1628 – 1688) is best known for his book, Pilgrim’s Progress. It has been translated into over 200 languages and has always been in print by some publication house since its completion in 1678. As spiritually uplifting as this book has been to millions, few are aware of Bunyan’s own life situation while writing it: He was in jail. Therefore, as spiritually uplifting as the book itself is, the fact that Bunyan wrote it while in prison (and for preaching!) is just as encouraging. After all, who among us would take the time out to write a Christian Spiritual Classics while in jail? Therefore, who was this preacher who wrote such a book at such as time in his life?

Like many famous people from the past, we do not know much of Bunyan’s early years. His father was tinker, meaning he repaired pots and pans; therefore, Bunyan grew up poor. He did receive some education, but he lived in a time when public education did not exist, so it must have been minimal. He joined the army at age 16 and, when he left three years later, he also became a tinker. By his own admission, he was the “ringleader [amongst his friends] in all manner of vice and ungodliness.”

While we do not know the exact extent of his wife’s influence, at age 21, Bunyan married a strong Christian woman who introduced Bunyan to two other spiritual classics (Arthur Dent's Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven and Lewis Bayly's Practice of Piety). He must have read these two, because he began to struggle with the state of his soul. His wife died after giving birth to four children, but the change she brought into Bunyan’s life remained.

Meanwhile, England was experiencing its own spiritual battle. Although King Henry VIII broke from the Roman Catholic Church 100 years before, many English Christians believed that too many Catholic doctrines and practices remained in the Church of England. They became known as “Puritans” since they wanted to purify the Church of England and remove them (those who left the Church of England became known as “Separatists”). Initially, the Church of England reluctantly accepted the Puritans in their midst, but that began to change with the restoration of the English monarchy (long story short: the English tried a commonwealth with no king for a while, but that failed in 1660 and the king was reestablished). With a new emphasis on the (also) restored Church of England, Puritan preaching was outlawed.

Tying these two together, eventually, Bunyan became a preacher, but not in the Church of England; he became a Puritan preacher. And this is when we find Bunyan arrested and placed in prison for refusing to cease preaching in the “separatist” or Puritan churches. Even more, he remained in prison for 12 years! All he had to do was agree not to preach and attend a Church of England church, but he refused. (Mention has to be made of his second wife: Bunyan remarried after his wife died, and his new wife became pregnant but gave birth to a stillborn child. It was she who raised the four children from Bunyan’s first marriage while Bunyan was in prison those many years.)

Coming full circle to the beginning of this article, that is why Bunyan found himself in prison for many years, and, while there, he decided to encourage others by writing an allegory of the Christian life, Pilgrim’s Progress. He was released from prison in 1672 along with many other Puritans after the new king released them. He published Pilgrim’s Progress six years later in 1678, and it has never gone out of print (meaning that somewhere in the world, some publishing company is printing it right now).