John M. Mulder

John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, a classic of Christian spirituality, has often been viewed as the archetypal struggle of the solitary Christian toward the goal of salvation. It is that, to be sure, but to see it that way may miss an equally important insight. No one makes the journey alone. John Bunyan was a Puritan who lived amidst the contentious and conflicted society of seventeenth-century England. He was a tinker--an itinerant worker who repaired pots, kettles, pans, etc.; the name…