Well, no, Pilgrim, I’m not saying that the seventeenth-century author of The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678) had access to a computer and the Internet or lived with social media as we know it. He didn’t have a smart phone, either, and no one took his picture every time he went through a highway toll booth or entered a convenience store. But if he lived now…
What’s your opinion of ex-cons? Bunyan was one. He hadn’t committed some robbery or murder. He went to prison because in 1664 the English Parliament under Charles II made meetings among more than five laypeople outside an official church illegal. Called conventicles, the meetings of the laity were supposedly a threat to the High Church of England. The law primarily affected Nonconformists. The prohibition followed the Act of Uniformity passed in 1662. When we think of uniformity, Orwell’s 1984 comes to mind, and we look to our current plight with political correctness, invasions of privacy through technology, and social media. Through the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century we have seen the detrimental effects of “acts of uniformity” in totalitarian societies. But way back when…
Bunyan lived during a seventeenth-century version of 1984. That tells us a little about the so-called modern world. In western civilization from the Renaissance on, the mind was both liberated and imprisoned. Nonconformity has met an Orwellian fate for centuries. So, our current plight is nothing new.
In his introduction to Memoir of John Bunyan, editor George Offor offers:
“In proportion as a man becomes a public character, especially if eminent for talent and usefulness… so will his enemies increase. The envy of some and the malice of others will invent slanders, or, what is worse, put an evil construction upon the most innocent conduct, in the hope of throwing a shade over that brightness which reveals their own defects. In this they are aided by all the craft, and cunning…” p. 173).*
We might as well reconcile ourselves to this continuing way of the world. Nowadays, we don’t even have to have a government entity imposing “uniformity”; the loose conglomeration of minds in cyberspace continuously attempts to impose uniformity. We might, if we wish to maintain our individuality, follow the example of Bunyan, the religious and devout Dissenter.
Offor writes, “…for him to appear as a Dissenter and a public teacher, without going through the usual course of education and ordination, was an unpardonable offence. The opinions of man gave him no concern; all his anxiety was to have the approbation of his God, and then to walk accordingly, braving all the dangers, the obloquy, and contempt that might arise from his conscientious discharge of duties, for the performance of which he knew that he alone must give a solemn account at the great day” (p. 173).
Two questions: How many of us can truly say “the opinions of man” give us “no concern”? and How many of us have had insights that an establishment has rejected simply to protect an investment in uniformity?
As pilgrims on the road to freedom and individuality, we might consider whether or not we have made any progress.
*Offor, Esq. George, Editor. The Works of John Bunyan with an Introduction to Each Treatise, Notes, and a Sketch of His Life, Times, and Contemporaries. Online at http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/6049/pg6049-images.html
What’s your opinion of ex-cons? Bunyan was one. He hadn’t committed some robbery or murder. He went to prison because in 1664 the English Parliament under Charles II made meetings among more than five laypeople outside an official church illegal. Called conventicles, the meetings of the laity were supposedly a threat to the High Church of England. The law primarily affected Nonconformists. The prohibition followed the Act of Uniformity passed in 1662. When we think of uniformity, Orwell’s 1984 comes to mind, and we look to our current plight with political correctness, invasions of privacy through technology, and social media. Through the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century we have seen the detrimental effects of “acts of uniformity” in totalitarian societies. But way back when…
Bunyan lived during a seventeenth-century version of 1984. That tells us a little about the so-called modern world. In western civilization from the Renaissance on, the mind was both liberated and imprisoned. Nonconformity has met an Orwellian fate for centuries. So, our current plight is nothing new.
In his introduction to Memoir of John Bunyan, editor George Offor offers:
“In proportion as a man becomes a public character, especially if eminent for talent and usefulness… so will his enemies increase. The envy of some and the malice of others will invent slanders, or, what is worse, put an evil construction upon the most innocent conduct, in the hope of throwing a shade over that brightness which reveals their own defects. In this they are aided by all the craft, and cunning…” p. 173).*
We might as well reconcile ourselves to this continuing way of the world. Nowadays, we don’t even have to have a government entity imposing “uniformity”; the loose conglomeration of minds in cyberspace continuously attempts to impose uniformity. We might, if we wish to maintain our individuality, follow the example of Bunyan, the religious and devout Dissenter.
Offor writes, “…for him to appear as a Dissenter and a public teacher, without going through the usual course of education and ordination, was an unpardonable offence. The opinions of man gave him no concern; all his anxiety was to have the approbation of his God, and then to walk accordingly, braving all the dangers, the obloquy, and contempt that might arise from his conscientious discharge of duties, for the performance of which he knew that he alone must give a solemn account at the great day” (p. 173).
Two questions: How many of us can truly say “the opinions of man” give us “no concern”? and How many of us have had insights that an establishment has rejected simply to protect an investment in uniformity?
As pilgrims on the road to freedom and individuality, we might consider whether or not we have made any progress.
*Offor, Esq. George, Editor. The Works of John Bunyan with an Introduction to Each Treatise, Notes, and a Sketch of His Life, Times, and Contemporaries. Online at http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/6049/pg6049-images.html
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