Pilgrims & Soldiers, 1

By faith, Abraham, when he was called, obeyed to go out to the place which he was to receive for an inheritance. He went out, not knowing where he went. By faith, he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a land not his own, dwelling in tents, with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked for the city which has the foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
(Hebrews 11:8-10 WEB)

God called Abraham to the life of a pilgrim. Christian economist & educator Gary North rejects this as a model for today's Christians:

This pilgrim motif stresses internal struggles over sin, rather than struggles with external enemies. The soldier motif is the opposite. The soldier gains his self-confidence and skills in boot camp; after this initial training, he is assumed to be ready for battle. He concerns himself with the enemy, who is a true threat to his life. The pilgrim is more like a newly reformed alcoholic, or a drug addict going "cold turkey." He wails, groans, struggles with inner horrors, writhes, and concentrates on what is going on inside him. He is at war with himself and his flesh, but not primarily at war with the external environment. The various allegorical characters in Pilgrim's Progress are external representations of internal enemies: vanity, doubt, despair, and so forth. The pilgrim does not bother much with his external environment, since he is only passing through. The soldier, on the other hand, is a conqueror, and he has to be concerned with what is going on around him. ("What Kind of Army?")

While Dr. North's article promotes a much-needed change of perspective, you must realize that he uses the term pilgrim in a particular historical context -- that of the pietism that has infected so much of contemporary Christian thought.

Are pilgrim and soldier mutually exclusive concepts from a biblical perspective? I want to explore that question in tomorrow's post.