Erin Reno- Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture #1

The Urge to Make Pilgrimage
It’s interesting reading about the history of Christian pilgrimage because this is a topic I am not extremely familiar with.  At all.  Ask me about Christian pilgrimage before taking this course and I would have spit out the Protestant Pilgrims of Plymouth Rock, and that would have been it.  But now it is interesting to look at how pilgrimage actually plays a big role in the history, culture, and faith of many of the most common religions in the world.  In each faith there is an element of pilgrimage in the narrative; Jesus Christ and his travels, Moses and the Israelites journey out of Egypt, the pilgrimage to Mecca that all Muslims aspire to make.  Historically looking back on travel, pilgrimage was one of the only pull factors available to many who without it wouldn’t have had a reason to leave their communities and therefore contribute to early globalization.  From both a theological and historical perspective, the importance of pilgrimage is great.

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