Famous for The Scarlet Letter and his gothic short stories, American novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne is widely read and discussed in high school literature. But the piece he published in 1844 that was most beloved in his lifetime, many people today have never heard of: The Celestial Railroad is a poignant allegory of John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress.

The Celestial Railroad depicts pilgrims on a voyage to the much-anticipated Celestial City. Unlike Bunyan’s pilgrims, however, these are taking a train – a far more comfortable, swifter, and easier mode of transport than by foot. There are still wayfarers who walk the arduous path laid out to the City, but they are scorned by the cruising rail passengers. The villains glimpsed on the journey seem not nearly so threatening nor apparent as Bunyan’s bone-crushing giants.  And Transcendentalism has replaced Pope and Pagan in devouring believers, but his features are vague and nebulous.

Martyrddom is no longer to be dreaded at Vanity Fair, but the fact that Beelzebub openly shows his face there doesn’t alarm the journeyers as they stop to enjoy the pastimes, any more than the reality that visitors to Vanity Fair from time to time suddenly vanish into thin air like the pop of a bubble.

And the greatest contrast of all? No more cumbersome sin burdens rolled away for these passengers – their baggage travels with them, stowed out of sight but within easy reach!

Ease, convenience, and distraction lull a populous to sleep that fails to heed warnings. They are neither atheist, agnostic, nor heathen; rather, they assume – until too late – that they are securely Heavenward bound.

Industrial Revolution and the Information Age

I can’t remember a read in recent years that had quite such an effect on me as The Celestial Railroad. My heart pounded as I read.

The train embodies the industrial revolution, and Hawthorne’s insights are a scathing commentary on how this worldwide phenomenon altered for the worse man’s perceptions and activities.

Nearly two hundred years later, the story is a mirror held up to culture, and how much more might we see ourselves the pampered passengers rather than the scorned pilgrims – particularly in the face of the exponentially increasing power of technology and Artificial Intelligence to distract, dissuade, and dismember us from our Creator and that which is most important in life.

There’s a phrase in my spirit these last several months that I’ve been praying aloud to the Lord. “Pull the plug.”

Like some other words the Lord has given me, I’ve only a partial idea of what it implies. I know that I am praying it over systems and organizations that pretend humanity’s well-being while all the while, deserve all the confidence for their track record of compassion and care that Josef Mengele demonstrated.

I am praying it over the United Nations backed human trafficking operation and criminal take-down of the West known casually by the press as “migration.”

I am praying it over the push for a cashless, digital currency and environmental-social-governance (ESG) credit score that will guarantee the end of all privacy and the vise-grip of tyranny into every facet of the individual’s life.

In a broader sense, I am praying that the Lord in His wisdom and mercy will free us from the deadly detachment from Him that we’ve unwittingly fostered as a church and as a culture while we’ve worshiped the gods of comfort and convenience – and have nearly lost sight of what He requires for life and godliness.