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I am scribbling away at a book on The Pilgrim’s Progress<\/em>.\u00a0 Here is an excerpt: Bunyan\u2019s understanding of progress is not at all like our modern version.\u00a0 Progress for Bunyan was anchored to ancient traditions which had stood the test of time.\u00a0 Wise people believe these ancient paths are the only ones which offer \u201crest for the soul.\u201d (Jer. 6:16)[1]<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Fools in the modern age blithely discard the old for the new.\u00a0 Of course, the new never stays new so the discarding never stops.\u00a0 It is why people in the modern age not only flit from one fad to another; it is also why we feel the compulsion to keep reinventing ourselves.\u00a0 Even we are getting old (a very bad thing in our culture) and the only way we have for dealing with it is to try some newfangled gimmick which gives the impression that we are not so old after all.\u00a0 It is why cosmetics, plastic surgery, and adultery with more youthful partners are big in America.\u00a0 And it is why suicide, depression, and various addictions also exist.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n We modern folk view progress as anything which helps us do a desired task faster and more efficiently.\u00a0 This is the only way<\/i> \u201cforward.\u201d\u00a0 Bunyan believed the way forward might be slow at times.\u00a0 He also knew it could be fraught with all kinds of challenges which need ample time for preparation.\u00a0 Going too fast may cause one to make serious mistakes.\u00a0 Our fast-paced culture typically finds such methodical preparation a liability.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n It matters a lot who is defining progress.\u00a0 Joe Sobran said, \u201cIf termites could talk, they would call what they do to a huge house \u201cprogress.\u201d[2]<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n [1]<\/a>One cultural historian says giving up long-standing categories of right and wrong has led to \u201cinarticulate dread.\u201d\u00a0 See Andrew Delbanco, The Death of Satan: How Americans Have Lost the Sense of Evil<\/i> (New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995), 9.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n [2]<\/a>Accessed on www.dougwils.com<\/a>, Dec. 8, 2008.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I am scribbling away at a book on The Pilgrim’s Progress.\u00a0 Here is an excerpt: Bunyan\u2019s understanding of progress is not at all like our modern version.\u00a0 Progress for Bunyan was anchored to ancient traditions which had stood the test of time.\u00a0 Wise people believe these ancient paths are the only ones which offer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spiritual-life"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1135"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1197,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135\/revisions\/1197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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