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Holy War

John Bunyan

John Bunyan (1626-1688) a Puritan preacher and author whose writings achieved lasting influence and esteem throughout Protestantism and the English-speaking world. He was born in Elstow, near Bedford, and had only minimal education before joining the Parliamentary army of Cromwell. Bunyan describes his own “dissolute and profligate” youth in his autobiography, Grace Abounding, leading up to his conversion in 1653. He became a Baptist in 1655 and acted as a lay preacher both during and after the Commonwealth; this led to his imprisonment in 1660. He remained in prison, sometimes very loosely, for 12 years until he was finally released in 1672. He wrote extensively and preached, both in his confinement, and afterward as minister of a congregation in Bedford. Bunyan’s colorful spiritual allegories and theological writings appealed greatly to the lower and middle classes in England, in particular, with wonderfully direct and lively imagery expressing Protestant thought and teaching.

Bunyan’s timeless allegory of spiritual warfare and salvation.

This spiritual allegory, first published in 1682, but written some years earlier during Bunyan’s imprisonment at Bedford, is one of Bunyan’s best known and most esteemed works, of his allegories ranking only behind Pilgrim’s Progress. The book’s subtitle is given: (The Holy War) “Made by Shaddai upon Diabolus for the Regaining of the Metropolis of the World, or, The Losing and Taking Again of the Town of Mansoul.” This creative and powerful telling of ‘spiritual warfare’, the narrative of humanity’s salvation (collectively or individually), has many literary and mythic parallels: the human soul (Man-soul) is a city besieged by the enemy, and must be rescued by the divine hero. However, in this case the archetype is wholly Christian, dramatically narrating the same spiritual conflict presented in Bunyan’s own autobiographical book Grace Abounding.

Inspirational & Devotional

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