The John Bunyan Experience

by Shawn Voigt

John Bunyan (1628-1688) is one of England’s most famous Christian writers.  His most notable work, The Pilgrim’s Progress  (1678), has been translated into 200 languages and is the most widely read Christian work other than the Bible.  Bunyan was an important part of our history classes as well as our literature English classes, since he fought in the English Civil War against the King and was later imprisoned for religious dissent as a founder of a nonconformist church.

We went to Bedford where Bunyan lived for most of his life.  We toured the Meeting House there, a Free Church which featured famous stained-glass windows depicting scenes from The Pilgrim’s Progress.  The Bunyan Museum next door featured, among other things, a life-sized, talking John Bunyan!  In the town and the surrounding countryside we saw landmarks which inspired various parts of The Pilgrim’s Progress.

We then traveled to nearby Elstow, the actual birthplace of Bunyan, where we toured the Moot Hall (or meeting hall).  Now a museum focused on Bunyan and life in the 1600s, it is a timbered building that has served many functions since the 14th century, including a meeting place for Bunyan’s congregation. 

From there, we traveled to the village of Blunham.  We toured the village church were John Donne was once the vicar.  Then we took a long circular walk around the village, through meadows and along the river where an old mill once stood.  These were the childhood stomping grounds of Dr. O’Shaughnessy, for this was the place that he grew up.