A Pilgrimage to Eternity

August 5, 2019
In this engaging but underdeveloped travelogue and exploration of European Christianity, journalist Egan (The Worst Hard Time) undertakes a 1,000-mile pilgrimage from Canterbury to Rome along the Via Francigena, a pilgrim’s trek well-known during medieval times. Egan’s reflections on faith, religion, and history are informed by his own scholarship, but mainly by the religious leaders, fellow pilgrims, and locals he meets along his journey. He encourages readers to confront uncomfortable truths about violence done in the name of Christianity and to consider the waning of Christian power worldwide. Unfortunately, Egan’s attempts at levity often miss, as when the Archbishop of Canterbury whimpers and is “so self-effacing you want to slap him” and that Martin Luther’s marriage to Katharina perplexes because she was younger “and much more attractive” than “jowly, raisin-eyed” Martin. The work also repeatedly fails to distinguish between Christianity and the wider world of religion and faith, as Egan makes sweeping generalizations that, in practice, only apply to Christian Europeans. For example, Egan implies that “literacy in the spiritual canon,” and the need to “understand religion” pertains only to Christian theology or Catholic history, and glaringly never includes a discussion of European Islam or Judaism. Readers will also question Egan’s declension narrative equating a thriving spiritual Europe with a hegemonically Christian one. While Egan’s loose writing style works well as a travel narrative, his narrow perspective limits this work as a meditation on 21st-century Christian faith and practice.