| Steal a sneak peek at the other side’s playbook. C.S. Lewis has gotten his hands on a series of letters between a senior demon and his nephew in best temping practices. Each chapter represents one letter from Screwtape and addresses a specific issues surrounding Wormwood’s assigned human. The topics range from church attendance to dating to emotions. The goal of each letter is to draw the human closer to them for consumption. Some copies of the book include ‘Screwtape Proposes a Toast,’ an independent speech given at the school of young tempter’s graduation. |  |
Themes
While each chapter, or letter, addresses a certain problem a few repeated themes come up:
-Reason is God’s territory. Screwtape often encourages Wormwood to avoid reasoning with the human, since God can reason too. Instead, he should rely on jargon, disassociation, and holding contradicting ideas simultaneously.
-Pleasure is from God. ‘It’s His invention, not ours. We can only twist it,’ Screwtape laments. He also calls God a ‘hedonist ’ and is upset that so many of life’s necessities are also pleasant (sleeping, eating, intimacy, working).
-Focus on the daily. Screwtape advices steering the human away from ‘daily bread,’ and daily repentance as Jesus commands. Instead, he’d rather the human focus on the future and muster grace for that while ignoring his current trials (which God HAS given him grace for).
-Feeling vs doing. A weak faith doesn’t act. Screwtape wants to withhold the idea that faith is lived out. This also affects the human’s prayers; ‘if he’s praying for charity, let him feel charity’ in the hopes he won’t be charitable.
Screwtape Proposes a Toast: how these new tempters must use a redefined idea of ‘democracy.’ Societies will sabotage anyone who is advanced for the sake of ‘equality’ or better yet, the person will self-sabotage to fit in. The result is, though the demons can’t enjoy villainous souls, they aren’t bothered by mighty saints.
Religious/spiritual content
Screwtape and Wormwood are demons. Wormwood is on ‘the field’ (earth) in the hopes of keeping his assigned human out of God’s hands. Their goal, instead, is to bring the soul to ‘our father below,’ where the demons will consume him. Demons can hear human’s thoughts and may steer them in a direction or keep certain thoughts out.
They can’t hear God’s thoughts when He speaks to humans.
How angels operate is unclear. Whenever Wormwood meets spiritual opposition, it’s always ‘the enemy’ but later, a man seems to meet his guardian angels moments after his death. ‘The gods’ and ‘them’ Screwtape calls them, though ‘they’ may also refer to the three-person God. ‘They’ have been with him during his life when he thought he was alone, and when he meets them, he recognizes them and their work.
Since the entire book revolves around the spiritual life, a few key doctrines come up: the trinity, God’s vision transcends time and He is all powerful and creator. Jesus is God incarnate. While God desires us, he often is ‘hands-off’ to preserve free will.
Family structure/gender roles
Waiting for marriage (chastity) and finding a Christian spouse are virtues.
Men and women are different in their way of thinking: Tempt women by X but men will fall for Y.
Romance/sexual content
Several chapters are committed to sexual temptation as our human dates a young lady: Sex in the role in relationship, sexual jokes, and different perversions of sexual pleasures.
God created intimacy to be enjoyed in the confines of marriage. Until them, Christians must practice abstinence, or chastity. Wormwood is encouraged to pervert this pleasure.
The demon-core has been working to make arbitrary (and sometimes unnatural) traits attractive. Photographed n*de woman are staged to appear ‘desirable,’ directing men’s affections toward something that does not exist.
Drugs/alcohol
There are three references to cigarettes. A few letters discuss drinking, and the differences between celebration drinking and depressed drinking. Our human smokes excessively during a bomb raid.
Screwtape Proposes a Toast: during the toast, they drink a wine-like brew of several souls blended together.
Crude Language
Again, God as ‘the enemy.’ While describing God’s presence, Screwtape calls it ‘ghastly, stabbing, seizing glare.’
The word ‘d**n’ appears once and ‘h*ll’ appear several times.
Screwtape often throws insults at Wormwood. Humans are called two-legged-animals, lazy, foolish, gullible.
Violence
World War II starts during the book. When the human’s town is bombed, he is expected to help, putting him in danger. He witnesses the carnage left by the bombs and sees human entrails. (Spoiler) The young man is instantly killed during the second night of bombings.
Magic
If demons make themselves known to humans, they may terrorize them and produce sorcerers. However, ‘high command’ says they are to remain unnoticed for the time-being.
Other negative elements
Up is down and right is left in Screwtape: Everything he loves and honors, we must reject.
When a soul enters the dark world, he/she will be eaten. (Spoiler) after Wormwood’s failure, it is implied that Screwtape will eat him.
Screwtape Proposes a Toast: If a tempter fails to bring in his human soul, he is eaten instead.
Final thoughts
While re-reading this book, I commented to my husband that C.S. Lewis nails the human condition. Even though it was published in 1941 (and Screwtape Proposes a Toast in 1959), these writings are still relevant, sometimes feeling prophetic. This is a testament of C.S. Lewis’ insights.
If your child reads this, the hardest part will be understanding the unfamiliar vocabulary. Another book with the same format is ‘Lord Foulgrin’s Letters’ by Randy Alcorn. It follows a modern demon mentor and mentee. It also includes chapters from the human’s point-of-view, and one angelic correspondence.
While each chapter, or letter, addresses a certain problem a few repeated themes come up:
-Reason is God’s territory. Screwtape often encourages Wormwood to avoid reasoning with the human, since God can reason too. Instead, he should rely on jargon, disassociation, and holding contradicting ideas simultaneously.
-Pleasure is from God. ‘It’s His invention, not ours. We can only twist it,’ Screwtape laments. He also calls God a ‘hedonist ’ and is upset that so many of life’s necessities are also pleasant (sleeping, eating, intimacy, working).
-Focus on the daily. Screwtape advices steering the human away from ‘daily bread,’ and daily repentance as Jesus commands. Instead, he’d rather the human focus on the future and muster grace for that while ignoring his current trials (which God HAS given him grace for).
-Feeling vs doing. A weak faith doesn’t act. Screwtape wants to withhold the idea that faith is lived out. This also affects the human’s prayers; ‘if he’s praying for charity, let him feel charity’ in the hopes he won’t be charitable.
Screwtape Proposes a Toast: how these new tempters must use a redefined idea of ‘democracy.’ Societies will sabotage anyone who is advanced for the sake of ‘equality’ or better yet, the person will self-sabotage to fit in. The result is, though the demons can’t enjoy villainous souls, they aren’t bothered by mighty saints.
Religious/spiritual content
Screwtape and Wormwood are demons. Wormwood is on ‘the field’ (earth) in the hopes of keeping his assigned human out of God’s hands. Their goal, instead, is to bring the soul to ‘our father below,’ where the demons will consume him. Demons can hear human’s thoughts and may steer them in a direction or keep certain thoughts out.
They can’t hear God’s thoughts when He speaks to humans.
How angels operate is unclear. Whenever Wormwood meets spiritual opposition, it’s always ‘the enemy’ but later, a man seems to meet his guardian angels moments after his death. ‘The gods’ and ‘them’ Screwtape calls them, though ‘they’ may also refer to the three-person God. ‘They’ have been with him during his life when he thought he was alone, and when he meets them, he recognizes them and their work.
Since the entire book revolves around the spiritual life, a few key doctrines come up: the trinity, God’s vision transcends time and He is all powerful and creator. Jesus is God incarnate. While God desires us, he often is ‘hands-off’ to preserve free will.
Family structure/gender roles
Waiting for marriage (chastity) and finding a Christian spouse are virtues.
Men and women are different in their way of thinking: Tempt women by X but men will fall for Y.
Romance/sexual content
Several chapters are committed to sexual temptation as our human dates a young lady: Sex in the role in relationship, sexual jokes, and different perversions of sexual pleasures.
God created intimacy to be enjoyed in the confines of marriage. Until them, Christians must practice abstinence, or chastity. Wormwood is encouraged to pervert this pleasure.
The demon-core has been working to make arbitrary (and sometimes unnatural) traits attractive. Photographed n*de woman are staged to appear ‘desirable,’ directing men’s affections toward something that does not exist.
Drugs/alcohol
There are three references to cigarettes. A few letters discuss drinking, and the differences between celebration drinking and depressed drinking. Our human smokes excessively during a bomb raid.
Screwtape Proposes a Toast: during the toast, they drink a wine-like brew of several souls blended together.
Crude Language
Again, God as ‘the enemy.’ While describing God’s presence, Screwtape calls it ‘ghastly, stabbing, seizing glare.’
The word ‘d**n’ appears once and ‘h*ll’ appear several times.
Screwtape often throws insults at Wormwood. Humans are called two-legged-animals, lazy, foolish, gullible.
Violence
World War II starts during the book. When the human’s town is bombed, he is expected to help, putting him in danger. He witnesses the carnage left by the bombs and sees human entrails. (Spoiler) The young man is instantly killed during the second night of bombings.
Magic
If demons make themselves known to humans, they may terrorize them and produce sorcerers. However, ‘high command’ says they are to remain unnoticed for the time-being.
Other negative elements
Up is down and right is left in Screwtape: Everything he loves and honors, we must reject.
When a soul enters the dark world, he/she will be eaten. (Spoiler) after Wormwood’s failure, it is implied that Screwtape will eat him.
Screwtape Proposes a Toast: If a tempter fails to bring in his human soul, he is eaten instead.
Final thoughts
While re-reading this book, I commented to my husband that C.S. Lewis nails the human condition. Even though it was published in 1941 (and Screwtape Proposes a Toast in 1959), these writings are still relevant, sometimes feeling prophetic. This is a testament of C.S. Lewis’ insights.
If your child reads this, the hardest part will be understanding the unfamiliar vocabulary. Another book with the same format is ‘Lord Foulgrin’s Letters’ by Randy Alcorn. It follows a modern demon mentor and mentee. It also includes chapters from the human’s point-of-view, and one angelic correspondence.
