abk4u: The Screwtape Letters

 

“I HAVE NO INTENTION OF EXPLAINING HOW THE CORRESPONDENCE WHICH I NOW OFFER TO THE PUBLIC FELL INTO MY HANDS…..”

 

Thus begins C.S.Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters.

   Perhaps, having read through the entirety of my previous post, you have heard more than enough for several lifetimes about the 20th Century writer and speaker, C.S. Lewis! I beg of you, humour me one more time and you will be excited and not a little curious to read the mysteriously titled The Screwtape Letters.

“I do not think you will have much difficulty in keeping the patient in the dark. The fact that ‘devils’ are predominately comic figures in the modern imagination will help you. If any faint suggestion of your existence begins to arise in his mind, suggest to him a picture of something in red tights, and persuade him that since he cannot believe in that (it is an old textbook method of confusing the) he therefore cannot believe in you.”

  It is with this “wise” advice that His Abysmal Sublimity Under Secretary Screwtape, TE, BS, etc. writes to his nephew and Junior Tempter, Wormwood. 

   The Screwtape Letters are simply that: the fictitious letters of the fictitious senior(ish)  devil, Screwtape. The evil creature is full of “tips” and “hints” for tempting humans away from God.

    At this point you may be asking (and justifiably) ‘Why would any Christian actually want to read this?’ The answer is simple: It reveals many of the strategies of the Devil, most of which are also described in the Scriptures. It can help a Christian be armed and watchful against the oncoming attacks. Lewis himself was aware of the dangers; he said that when he sat down to write he was entering a world that was ‘all dust, grit, thirst and itch. Every trace of beauty, freshness and geniality had to be excluded. It almost smothered me before I was done.’  Despite this, the book is a challenging and ‘hard-hitting’ read, which, at times, includes humour and irony to reinforce the lessons learnt.

    Having served most of his front-line duty “in the English Sector” Screwtape is well placed to advise his nephew who has been assigned (as tempter) to a young British man during the outbreak of the second World War. 

“As regards his more general attitude to the war, you must not rely too much on those feelings of hatred which the humans are so fond of discussing… it is usually a sort of melodramatic or mythical hatred directed against imaginary scapegoats…The results of such fanciful hatred are often most disappointing, and of all humans the English are in this respect the most deplorable milksops. They are creatures of that miserable sort who loudly proclaim that torture is too good for their enemies and then give tea and cigarettes to the first wounded German pilot who turns up at the back door.”

   Of course, as Lewis warns us in the Introduction, nothing Screwtape says can be relied on, and, reading between the lines, there is no love lost between Screwtape and Wormwood. Yet despite this, we do learn some interesting secrets from Screwtape’s pen….

“We have trained them to think of the Future as a promised land which favoured heroes attain- not as something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.”

“One of our great allies at present is the Church itself. Do not misunderstand me. I do not meant the Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes our boldest tempters uneasy. But fortunately it is quite invisible to these humans. All your patient sees is the half-finished, sham Gothic erection on the new building estate.”

One of the most startling and thought-provoking lessons we learn in the book is that of Worldliness. It seems that Screwtape treats the issue a lot more seriously than many Christians.  After his ‘patient’ is converted, Wormwood manages to dull his spirituality and relationship with God down through what they describe as ‘the gradual road to Hell.’

“…You will say that these are very small sins; and doubtless, like all young tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness. But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy*. It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into nothing…..

Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one- the gentle slop, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”

(*Of course, in Screwtape’s wretched mind the Lord God is “the Enemy.”)

    It is tempting (excuse the pun) to inundate you with quotes from the book, funny and yet challenging at the same time. However I must not give away all of the best parts, rather I would encourage you to read it yourselves. Few Christian books manage to highlight sin and temptation and to suggest defence against attack in such a witty, relevant and eye opening way. Having read Screwtape’s letters one cannot help but seek a different, alternative way to live than that which the devil advocates.

   I will leave you with one last, funny, quote, given to Wormwood by his uncle:

 

“MEN  OR  NATIONS  WHO  THINK  THEY  CAN  REVIVE  THE  FAITH  IN  ORDER  TO  MAKE  A  GOOD SOCEITY  MIGHT  JUST  AS  WELL  THINK  THEY  CAN  USE  THE  STAIRS  OF  HEAVEN  AS  A  SHORT CUT  TO  THE  NEAREST  CHEMIST’S  SHOP.”