The Protestant relationship to pilgrimage has often been driven by an anti-Catholic identity. Yet, Protestants owe it to themselves to rethink pilgrimage, especially in light of its biblical imagery and its significant, if largely untapped, potential for spiritual formation. In short, I approach pilgrimage as a normative, Protestant-friendly expression of the Christian faith. My work focuses upon its positive aspects, giving limited attention to traditional critiques while recognizing Catholic and Orthodox contributions to pilgrim spirituality.5
Pilgrim Readers
Jerusalem Bound invites Christian travelers into a conversation on pilgrimage and the Holy Land experience. Espousing an ecumenical vision of the pilgrim life, the book offers a pilgrim spirituality for Protestants but not a Protestant spirituality per se. Jerusalem Bound resources Christians of various backgrounds while challenging readers to encounter traditions other than their own. Although the discussion often assumes a Western perspective, the material speaks to Christians around the world.
The book’s attention to group experience reflects the fact that organized programs—either as trips originating from home or as courses run through Holy Land institutions—are the dominant form of Jerusalem travel. The book likewise equips individuals, couples, and small groups who want their Holy Land experience to be a pilgrimage independent of an organized course.
Jerusalem Bound is a valuable resource for those giving pastoral care and spiritual guidance to pilgrims and for anyone working in the pilgrim industry, including guides, scholars, institutional staff, and tour operators. The material can be used for promoting a trip, recruiting participants, and helping would-be pilgrims discern a calling to “come and see” the Holy Land. Much of the book applies to Christian travel to other destinations.
Pilgrims should read Jerusalem Bound as part of their pre-trip preparations, familiarizing themselves with the concepts, themes, and images of the pilgrim life. Throughout the journey itself, Holy Land travelers can use the book to review knowledge-based information, consult concepts for spiritual reflection, and integrate practical ideas. The actual themes of the trip will emerge along the way, and what actually happens will determine which concepts best apply.
Holy Land Programs
While Jerusalem Bound is geared for traditional programs on the holy sites, pilgrimage is always contextual. Local context, living communities, and engaging the Other are pilgrim values. Christian pilgrims are encouraged to dedicate at least 20 percent of their time to interacting with the Living Stones, or the local residents of the Holy Land, with attention given to the Palestinian church and the Palestinian–Israeli conflict. Programs should include both Jewish and Muslim voices, while engaging traditions of the Orthodox church.
The book’s themes are not meant to replace, diminish, or compete against the biblical, historical/archeological, and contemporary emphases of Holy Land programs. Rather, pilgrimage powerfully frames these subjects and fills in the gaps. Merging biblical story with personal narrative brings us directly into the realm of pilgrimage. Engaging the Other is pilgrimage by any other name. The pilgrim material supports biblical approaches, ecumenical encounters, and initiatives of peace and reconciliation.
Summary of Contents
Jerusalem Bound is implicitly divided into three parts. Chapters 2–4 focus upon the image of pilgrimage. Chapter 2 offers a fresh, definitional approach to pilgrimage. Chapter 3 explores biblical expressions of pilgrimage. Looking at the pilgrim–tourist dichotomy, chapter 4 addresses the question of pilgrim identity.
Chapters 5–10 focus on the Holy Land itself. Chapter 5 discusses the reasons, past and present, why Christians travel to Jerusalem. Chapter 6 surveys the history of the Christian Holy Land from the New Testament to the present day. Addressing a number of seldom-addressed questions, chapter 7 offers an original discussion on the holy sites. How do they function? How should we think about them, and what terms and concepts can we use to describe them? What tendencies should we be aware of? Are there alternative sites? Do places ever move? While exploring the concepts of commemoration, religious imagination, and commemorative credibility, the chapter presents the Holy Land as a unified, though expansive, landscape. Chapter 8 discusses pilgrim practices, or the ways in which pilgrims reenact biblical stories and engage the physical settings of the holy sites. The chapter looks at the Holy Land as an open-eyed encounter and explores concepts of pilgrim spirituality that pertain to observation, perception, discernment, and memory. Chapter 9 explores the blessings of pilgrimage, or the material takeaways of religious travel. Material objects—mementos and souvenirs—are physical reminders of spiritual experience, and Christians of all backgrounds desire a tangible connection to the Holy Land. Chapter 10 looks at the challenges of Holy Land travel, its risks, temptations, noise, and fatigue. Pilgrims respond by practicing perseverance, navigating emotions, managing expectations, and focusing on others.
The book concludes with the before and after of Holy Land travel. Chapter 11 discusses pre-trip preparations, including spiritual and educational resources. Taking the reader from home to the Holy Land, the chapter offers perspectives on departure, the outbound journey, and Holy Land arrival. Chapter 12 looks at the aftermath of Holy Land pilgrimage: one’s final hours in the Holy Land, the homebound journey, and the celebration of return. The lessons of Emmaus remind us that the pilgrim’s ultimate destination is not Jerusalem but the sacred landscapes of home, where, on familiar ground, one discerns God’s call to Christian service. What happens in Jerusalem can’t stay in Jerusalem, and the object of Holy Land travel is to translate the gospel back home.
Terminology
While the book covers a number of concepts (see appendix 1), a few terms should be explained from the start. Pilgrimage, pilgrim spirituality, pilgrim theology, and the pilgrim life, along with the Christian life and the Christian journey, are used interchangeably. Pilgrim instead of pilgrimage is commonly used to modify phrases, such as pilgrim spirituality (instead of pilgrimage spirituality). The Other, which denotes other people, particularly strangers and foreigners, God as mystery, and, more generally, the unknown, is capitalized. While the concept of a Christian Holy Land emerged during the Byzantine period, the term is used throughout the book, despite the occasional anachronism.6 Unless the context is specified, Jerusalem and the Holy Land are used as synonymous terms, e.g., Jerusalem/Holy Land travel and Jerusalem/Holy Land pilgrimage. The Holy Sepulchre denotes the entire complex of buildings that covers the traditional sites of Jesus’ death and resurrection. It is never used as a specific reference to the tomb of Christ. Calvary and Golgotha are used interchangeably for the place of Jesus’ crucifixion. The spelling, Sion, which reflects the historical usage of the pilgrim sources, will be used throughout the book, except for biblical quotations, e.g., Mount Sion, Holy Sion (a church on Mount Sion), and Sion Gate. Biblical quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version.
1. Fosdick, A Pilgrimage to Palestine, 23.
2. See Aist, Voices in the Wind and Journey of Faith.
3. See Aist, The Christian Topography and From Topography to Text. On Celtic pilgrimage, see Aist, “Pilgrim Traditions.”
4. Wynn, Faith and Place, 138.
5. Pilgrimage critiques include the practice of indulgences, superstitious piety, the tendency of emotion to subvert rational judgment, the moral behavior of pilgrims, and the omnipresence of God. For a summary of common objections to pilgrimage, see Brown, God and Enchantment, 154–63 and Inge, A Christian Theology, 98–101. Also see Wynn, Faith and Place, 139.
6. On the historical development of the Christian Holy Land, see Wilken, The Land Called Holy.
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Defining