Rightly understood, travel, or pilgrimage as it used to be called,
is an important spiritual discipline that offers the opportunity for
a witness, ministry, and mission. It strengthens of one's own faith
and can help other Christians worldwide. This is because travel as pilgrimage,
rather than secular tourism, provides an opportunity for Christians
to explain their faith to unbelievers in a non-threatening manner and
brings together fellow believers throughout the world, thus providing
an opportunity for ministry and mission through developing a sense of
spiritual roots.
Understood Biblically, travel as pilgrimage is solidly
grounded in Biblical principles and examples. Most Evangelical Christians
are, however,very wary of the word "pilgrimage" because since
the Reformation it has fallen into disuse. Nevertheless, it remains
true that for over 1500 years pilgrimage was an unquestioned part of
Christian spirituality. Therefore, we do well to examine why the practice
fell into disuse and whether ignoring such an important spiritual practice
is justified by either the Bible or sound theology.
In his now classic The Chaos of the Cults [Grand
Rapids, Eerdmans,1956:366] argued that cults are "the unpaid bills
of the Church." He used this slogan to sensitize Christians to
the need to examine themselves and their failures before condemning
cults. This insight ought to cause us to reflect on the effect that
the neglect of travel as a spiritual discipline had on people in Protestant
lands. When this is done it seems quite clear that while Roman Catholics
felt a deep connection to the Christian past when they visited places
like Rome, Protestant visitors were drawn to Rome's pagan roots and
this attraction in turn led to a revival of paganism in the late eighteenth
an early nineteenth century. It also partially explains why so many
young people who traveled around Europe in the 1960's and early 1970's
found their own spiritual roots by moving on to India and Eastern religions
and not by returning to Christianity unless, by chance, they encountered
a place like the Swiss L'Abri.
Travel is an important social and cultural factor that
often deeply affects the traveler and shapes thier spiritual outlook.
Therefore, as Christians it must not be overlooked or ignored. Instead,
travel must be placed within a Biblical perspective and seen in the
context of Christian life and history. Anyone who doubts this has simply
to go on the Internet and visit sites like Pilgrim's Progress
which, despite its Christan sounding name, is devoted to Asian travel
tours and Eastern spirituality. Another way of recognizing the spiritual
dimensions of travel is to visit a New Age bookstore where you will
find a host of books like Janet and Colin Bord's Atlas of Magical
Britain [London, Chartwell, 1990], that shows people how to find
their spiritual roots in neo-paganism. These books and web sites show
that many people seek spiritual fulfillment through travel without considering
Christianity. Yet in reality the Christianity has a far richer cultural
heritage than most people recognise with deep spiritual roots that any
traveler can easily tap. It is this heritage this Web Site seeks to
bring alive.