S1: Theology and Imagination

E7: Godly Imagination in a Culture of Feculence

It’s 1642…the king of England wants to rule without the counsel of Parliament. His name is Charles, the first of his namesake to occupy the throne. The royalist “Cavaliers” rally to his wanton rule. The “Roundheads” resist his outrageous rejection of parliament. People take sides, and civil war breaks out. The king is overthrown, and for the first time in English history, a monarch is sentenced to death. James, his son and future king is imprisoned. 

The tide of cultural feculence (mud, filth, and foul matter) is rising to unprecedented levels.

During the height of the English Civil War, a young man called John Bunyan joins the Roundheads. He was 16 at the time and a member of the Church of England. In 1647 he marries at the age of 20. On April 20, 1648 James escapes his imprisonment disguised as a woman in the pouring rain. Death would have been less humiliating.   

 It is a cold morning on January 30, 1649. King Charles is paraded in front of the parliamentarian mob. The king is beheaded, and the Knights of the Realm are put to death in hideous ways. On September 11, 1649 Sir Arthur Aston is beaten to death with his own wooden leg. 

The culture of feculence viciously spreads.

Meanwhile, Oliver Cromwell is appointed as Lord Protector over the Commonwealth. His first act is to ban Christmas. Too many shenanigans. With Cromwell, the Church of England finds a new seat of power. Together they enforce the Conventicle Act of 1664. Anyone over the age of 16 not attending the Church of England is arrested. Preaching outside the Church was guaranteed imprisonment…

More layers of religious feculence here.

Back to Bunyan. His wife dies in 1658. A year later he remarries. His brood of children increases to six. After reading Martin Luther’s commentary on the Book of Galatians, Bunyan becomes inwardly convicted about the Christian faith. The Church of England insist and enforce an outward appearance of Christianity. The Conventicle Act is practically swimming in a culture of feculence.  

Bunyan becomes a Non-Conformist and begins preaching. In January 1661 Bunyan is arrested and put on trial. He spends the next 12 years in prison. During these foul years, Bunyan writes The Pilgrim’s Progress. In 17th century English, he writes the first line, 

“As I walked through the wilderness of this world,

I lighted on a certain place where was a den,

and I laid me down in that place to sleep; and as I slept,

I dreamed a dream.”

It is a story within a story using allegory. I shall come to this momentarily.   

Whether you have read The Pilgrim’s Progress or not is unimportant. The singular point I want to make is that Bunyan’s imagination became fully alive while up to his neck in a culture of feculence. Not only was the country in open conflict with itself, Bunyan himself was inwardly conflicted concerning the Christian faith. 

The endurance of Pilgrim’s Progress supports my point. The story has never been out of print since it was first published in 1678. Literary historians believe it is the second most published book after the Bible.

 Widely recognized by many authors, elements of Pilgrim can be clearly seen in Oliver Twist (Charles Dickens); Vanity Fair (William Thackery); The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain); The Enormous Room (E. E. Cummings); The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne); The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Alan Moore); Little Women (Louisa May Alcott); The Pilgrim’s Regress (C. S. Lewis); Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte), and many more.

Charles Hadden Spurgeon, known as the 19th century Prince of Preachers said, 

“Next to the Bible, the book I value most is John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.

I believe I have read it through at least a hundred times.

It is a volume of which I never seem to tire;

and the secret of its freshness is that it is so largely compiled from the Scriptures.”

 Who would have thought, least of all Bunyan, that his story would reach over 340 years into the future influencing others along the way?

Bunyan’s story is written is allegory. The protagonist, other characters, the circumstances of each scene, naming of certain places, and even physical objects have a double meaning. The obvious is what Bunyan wants you to see, but the hidden meaning is what he wants you to comprehend about the Christian faith. This is where theology rises from the feculence through imagination.  

For example, the Wicket Gate is not just a gate, it is Jesus saying, “I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved” (John 10:9 NIV); the

 Burden carried by the Protagonist is not just a heavy load, it is sin, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23 NIV); and, 

The Giant of Despair in Doubting Castle is not just a fantastical scene of disbelief, it is the state we find ourselves in when we wander from the Christian faith.

Does God talk to us through allegory?

What I mean is, does God talk to us through people in our lives, the circumstances of each day, the places we frequent, and even the objects we use? I believe the answer is undoubtedly yes! God speaks through a lived-experience. We are deaf to thesis and theory.

What I’m suggesting is any lived-experience, like Bunyan, needs the culture of feculence to bring about the best of our imagination. Remove the events that led to Bunyan’s imprisonment, and Pilgrim’s Progress would never have been written.

Jesus promised there would always be a culture of feculence. 

“In this world you will have trouble” (John 16:33a NIV).

The word “trouble” in its original Greek language is thlipsis.

It means constricting internal pressure that causes someone to feel they are without options,

coping with stress feeling hemmed in. Precisely what Bunyan felt.    

What does this look like in framed as theology, or more precisely Christology (the study of Christ) and Hamartiology (the study of sin)? 

 Jesus said the devil was “the prince of this world” (John 14:20 NIV). He also refers to the devil as the “ruler of the kingdom of the air” (Ephesians 2:2 NIV). He continued, “But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33b NIV). He overcame through his death and resurrection. Before he ascended, Jesus promised the Holy Spirit. “When he [Holy Spirit] comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because people do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned” (John 16:8-11 NIV).

Framed in theology, the world is always a culture of feculence. Jesus has overcome it.

He has also sent the Holy Spirit to empower us to overcome it. So, imagination looks for theology, and when it finds concrete truth, life becomes counter-cultural. We begin to see what King David longed for, “the beauty of the Lord” (Psalm 24:4 NIV).  

Imagination rooted in theology provides a sense of completeness that is missing in the culture of feculence. 

Imagination takes no offense at impossible odds because theology embraces miracles as possibilities. Imagination and theology are like parallel rivers that empty in the sea of soteriology (study of salvation) arriving at the shores of eschatology (how it will end). So, no matter how foul the culture becomes, imagination intuitively knows the resurrection of Jesus is the eucatastrophe (joyful ending).

Bunyan sought God through his imagination firmly grounded in concrete theology free from the religious rules of the Conventicle Act. 

What is stopping you?