The Identifying Marks of Vanity Fair

John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress provides us with a portrait of the world we live in and the temptations that confront us every day as believers. One of the most vivid episodes is the arrival of Christian and Faithful at Vanity Fair. This fair, Bunyan says, has been around for five thousand years. It was set up by the devil himself to lure travelers off the King’s Highway.

Bunyan’s description is both imaginative and accurate. Vanity Fair is everywhere. It's the world’s spirit of greed, distraction, and false worship. Scripture warns us repeatedly not to love the world or the things in the world (1 John 2:15). How then can we recognize Vanity Fair when we see it? Let me offer five identifying marks.

1. Vanity Fair Is Obsessed with Buying and Selling

Bunyan tells us that everything at Vanity Fair is for sale. You can buy houses, lands, honors, titles, pleasures, positions, and even souls. The point is not simply economic exchange. It is that life itself has been reduced to a transaction. Value is measured only in terms of what can be bought and sold. As Paul Simon once said in a song, we often mistake "value for the price" (So Beautiful or So What).

That spirit is alive in our age. Everything becomes a product. Even our identities can be packaged and marketed. Relationships are sometimes treated as commodities to be used and discarded. But Jesus told us plainly, “One’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15). Paul warned of those who “desire to be rich” and “fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction” (1 Timothy 6:9). Vanity Fair thrives wherever consumerism defines the value of life.

2. Vanity Fair Promises Pleasure but Hides Pain

Every booth at the Fair shines with promises of joy, but hidden behind the bright lights is destruction. Bunyan knew what James teaches us in Scripture: “Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death” (James 1:14–15).

The Fair always advertises more than it delivers. It is the apple in Eden, pleasant to the eyes and promising wisdom, but poisoned at the core. Solomon confessed, “I said in my heart, ‘Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.’ But behold, this also was vanity” (Ecclesiastes 2:1). The pleasures of Vanity Fair may last for a moment, but they leave the soul empty and weighed down with guilt.

3. Vanity Fair Cannot Tolerate the Pilgrim’s Way

When Christian and Faithful walked through Vanity Fair, they refused to stop at the booths. They did not adopt the language of the crowd. They looked straight ahead toward the Celestial City. But their refusal to conform provoked hatred from the citizens of Vanity Fair.

Jesus told His disciples, “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:19). Paul said, “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12). Vanity Fair cannot stand the pilgrim’s way.

This is a reminder to us that if we always fit comfortably in the world, we may not be walking as pilgrims. Christian and Faithful were not trying to provoke trouble. They were simply faithful to their King. Yet their faithfulness exposed the world for what it was, and the world responded with hostility. What happened to Charlie Kirk is an example of this very thing.

4. Vanity Fair Blurs the Boundary Between Sacred and Profane

At the Fair, everything is mixed together. Religion stands beside revelry. Honor sits next to shame. Truth is treated as just one option among many. It is a picture of confusion, a world where nothing is holy and everything is up for grabs.

This is what Isaiah condemned when he said, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness” (Isaiah 5:20). When boundaries blur, truth is lost. Jeremiah spoke to a people who had forgotten how to blush (Jeremiah 6:15). That is the spirit of Vanity Fair.

We see it today whenever culture tries to sanctify sin, whenever people insist that God approves what he forbids. The line between sacred and profane is erased. But God does not change. “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy” (Leviticus 19:2). Vanity Fair thrives in a world that refuses to make that distinction.

5. Vanity Fair Ends in Judgment

In Bunyan’s story, Faithful is put on trial at Vanity Fair and condemned to death. He is martyred for his faith. Bunyan is reminding us that the Fair is not neutral ground. It is a place of testing.

The Bible warns us that all who cling to the Fair will face judgment. Revelation 18 describes the fall of Babylon, the great marketplace of idolatry: “The merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her, since no one buys their cargo anymore” (Revelation 18:11). The collapse is sudden and total. In one hour, the city is ruined (Revelation 18:10).

Faithful died at Vanity Fair, but he was immediately carried by chariot to the Celestial City. His death was gain. The Fair destroyed his body but could not touch his soul. Jesus said, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28). The end of Vanity Fair will come, and only those who belong to Christ will stand.

We do not overcome Vanity Fair by avoiding the world entirely. Christian and Faithful had to walk through it. We overcome by fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2). The Fair may glitter for a time, but the day is coming when the King will appear, and the Fair will be no more. Until then, let us walk as pilgrims, sober and joyful, pressing on toward the Celestial City.