I examine contemporary evangelical Bible studies and devotionals devoted to John Bunyan’s 1678 spiritual classic The Pilgrim’s Progress. Focusing on treatments of Bunyan’s Vanity Fair sequence, I ask whether these resources demonstrate fidelity to the text and to Scripture or whether they are instead examples of bibliolatry. Implications for the design of Bible studies in the ministry of Christian education are offered following theological analysis of the biblical imagination required for such tasks.
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HillC. (1989). A tinker and a poor man: John Bunyan and his church, 1628–1688. New York, NY: Alfred Knopf.
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JohnsonS. (2012). Strength for the journey: 52 devotions from John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. Port Colborne, ON, Canada: Gospel Folio Press.
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MilneK. (2015). At Vanity Fair: From Bunyan to Thackeray. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
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MyraH.with BunyanJ. (2018). The Pilgrim’s Progress: Experience the spiritual classic through 40 days of daily devotion. Grand Rapids, MI: Discovery House.
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SearleA. (2008). The eyes of your heart: Literary and theological trajectories of imagining biblically. Carlisle, UK: Paternoster Press.
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SearleA. (2018). Bunyan and the word. In DaviesM.OwensW. R. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of John Bunyan (pp. 86-100). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
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StottJ. (1992). The contemporary Christian: An urgent plea for double listening. Nottingham, UK: IVP.
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