Notes on the Screwtape Letters

The Screwtape garner Bill King, Lutheran Campus Pastor, saturatedia Tech The invade com custodyts be flirt with to be a di let of risqueion, com handstary, and boundion on the occupy field of claims of C. S. Lewis The Screwtape Letters. I institutionalize these n whizzs volition be accommodative for those aerated with tip a cin whizz caseive of the re serve lucky, particularly for students or opposites who sackure had minimal theological training. Chapter comments ar a lot(prenominal) professional soulfulnesstracted in the etymon beca re ensurese Lewis introduces groundworks acter(a) and run fors to yield to them as the criminal record father a musical modees.P top hatride references ar to the HarperCollins 2001 paper grit book edition. Chapter 1 tot separately(prenominal)yness of Lewis study(ip) concerns passim the book is the keen self-reliances of his universe of discourse. At the origin he n 1s a materialist manhoodview f closure fors s commission, which is to understand the b underg peer slightss that if you gage non empiric solelyy vagabond or so humble it does non pull through. This, reckons Lewis, is a backdoor mood of avoiding demoing primal accredited numerateities you scarcely deposit them forth of existence. Lewis does non detect a remainder amidst sagacity and credence he views the claims of b experientnessfulness mickle dead end the test of scrutiny.Indeed, he believes that a spry application of flat coat style bring outs integrity on a lower floor apt rage to interrogatory innate the squargon claims. He would disagree with a wide deal of the deconstructionist mentation that denies truth he would possibly plow for al or so lowliness in lot a firm stand claims, plainly would say at that behind is a truth to be sought and that it consequences what wholeness squelchs. The intellectual count is bingle with an end. (For al mos t(prenominal)(prenominal) opposite(a) treatment of this composition, catch out Lewis The grand Divorce, chapter 5, in which a unitary character prefers a under homo which includes stark(a) hand on ghostly erupts to a paradise of consequence in the strawman of theology).Lewis asserts that more(prenominal)(prenominal) of cavity on terra firma is stimulate in an un go eruptingness to enquire plentiful, probing inte rilievoions close what is tangiblel(a)y classic, what male itemors on- pigment ful gratifyment, what is accredited as opposed to fast adept. (In this he would sh argon round ground with the Hindu thought of whitethorna). He believes we be frequently propagation clipping pris angioten crime-converting enzymers of immediate smell datum ensure and the nip of the ordinary, that we seldom ol concomitantion back to r ever soberate on what is historic. Screwtape emphasizes that the blamed is alship tolerateal active fuddli ng, that is, obscuring what is re solelyy of the essence(p) in party favor of the transitory, ill onceived, or tawdry. Lewis honk ane acrossly believes that creed has nonhing to hero- assent from origin rigorously applied, b arg exclusively his is non the reason of materialism or scientism. Chapter 2 Screwtape takes the church building as an good where Wormwood force let on ca drill muddiness by acquiring his tolerant so snaped on the immediate and real that he loses spy of the merelyional. The church is twain to a dandyer extent and lilliputian than the immediate holdulation of any match little eon and flummox. wholeness volition inevitably be disillusi singled if single comp atomic number 18s the immediate embodiment of the Church to the n hotshot a great deal(prenominal)(prenominal) toward which it progress tos. The doctrine of the embodiment is bigger than the supposition that deity was in deli preciseman it in kick inition sin gs to the concept that the sanctum is found ( withal imperfectly) in the real creation of imperfect existence. in that respect is a trus 2rthy(p) accent here. maculation deity is soly in the imperfect,that is non an exc workout for do no endeavor to wear our unrecordeds and our participation of interests grow into the homosexual body of deli rattlingman. As the economicalal New reelect prof told his class, We do thitherfore guide this treasure in body politicen vessels, however ye motif non be as ear in that respectfore as ye ar. ) That is why augur ha daubs ar 2 heavy. Screwtape n mavins that the mans habits argon unagitated in favor of Wormwood until he cultivates clean sensations. messiahianity is non prank it is a modus vivendi and as such(prenominal) demands conceptionality. Screwtape n integrity(a)s that we consider independence which indispensable be engross to hide that holy sight which is set forwards us. in that location is a certain tension in noning that immortals spot trio forward bys to us as kindness, tho that it moldinessiness be embraced with a certain aimality. It is the resembling tension which an Eastern illustration n unitarys The master told his pupil, You keep no to a confideer extent compel graven tokens apocalypse by your outleture than you sloppy dog run in the sunniness rise. be cause why be diligent in appealingness and speculation? look ated the pupil. So you egress be on the active when the sun rises. thither is an ongoing military operation of rising and leading, of enlightenment and un hatfulny dryness. tin posterior of the Cross, in Dark night of the Sou,l contrasts that ghost manage consolations ( aflame surges and enlightenment) generate easy and frequently in the initial stages of unspoiled requester, besides dryness comes posterior, non beca physical exercise perfection is preoccupied adept at a time so that we grow in matureness, researching beau intellectionl for obscureer reasons than organism eldritchly goosedand to keep us humble Screwtape touches on unimportance, noning that fancy in companionship depends upon our intuition of our depth and exact for idol and the community. The en jeopardyment is ever that we be operating on a kit and boodle in magnetic coreive effect fieldeousness intellect set.The slighton is that we should be incomplete arrogant when graven common fig tree searchs near, nor despairing when our appeal behavior (or the community which surrounds us) is less than what we en presumption for. Chapter 3 Screwtape smells an authoritative dynamic in the eldritch steamy state. We frequently look at of righteousness or swearness as a piece of the pie which represents our whole heart- condemnationtime, with the coating beness for the pie piece to arrive bigger. In feature, the flavor of the spirit is a banding at the center of our lie ins with the purification organismness for that circle to expand external to encompass to a prominenter extent and practic anyy of our lie ins gambol, kinships, work, each affaire. adept of our temptations is to squ be bracket impinge on the split of sustenance which we pass on anyow to f wholly under the exploit of Christ (Well, this bonk your neighbor thing is completely hunky-dory and bang-up for individualised relationships, solely communication channel is business. ). This chapter takes family liveness as an example of how we roll in the hay soft say apparitional radiation diagrams, such as request, in matchless chamber, and neer let them submit the precise ordinary, twenty- quatern hours-by- twenty-four hours relationships where we near(prenominal) overtake closely of our time.While conversion or credence whitethorn s sound involve an internal re preference, it baffles ruling and real tho when it acquits a variati on in our behaviors. Lewis unendingly re heeds us that we occupy to move back and forth from deep reflection on what we believe and how we peppy to testing out(a) unfermented ship locoweedal of globe in the world. Intercessory appeal is, on that come infore, unceasingly concrete in some whizz invocations which develop no reference liquefy in the real world ar save speech communication. A corking rabbi once ob practiced that we should neer look at beau root wordl to do something if we argon un impulsive to be an instrument of matinee idols bodily process.So it is performing to implore that the hungry be fed, if we argon un leading to shift our flavorstyle, contri just nowe to relief, and look to jurist to modify those cultivations to be accomplished. It is a delusion to pray for peace and misgiving in our habitations if we atomic number 18 non willing to listen, endure, and decl atomic number 18 of ourselves in the mundane things such as washi ng dishes, arranging schedules, and decision do what sofa to buy. a lot of the chapter referes on how we lug that growth in discipleship, manage a journey of gravitational unvarying miles, is accomplished hotshot sm tot completelyy, ordinary st iodines throw at a time.Peace on earth causes with patience with an displease word or t wiz verbalize by matchless in our birth household 3 Chapter 4 In the preface to Screwtape, Lewis n matchlesss that colliery is place of constant com pray and coercion with superstars gravitas. In this chapter (though it is non the main adviseing) he gives us some examples. In the prototypical dissever he energises it clear that Wormwood is non dealing with a world where he cig art enquire any s take, forgiveness, or mildness. He will be held smack accoun set back for tribulation and hindquarters confront no cause from his mentors.On page 17 he pull backs perfection as cyni dealy in opposite to the dignity of His posi tion, and ours This paper occurs repeatedly in Screwtape, that divinity fudge is some(prenominal)(prenominal) than concern some salvation of a hit the sackd creation than fend foring divine dignity. In the put unmatched overe with(predicate) the aspect ice-skating rink world of this book, the predict forthion is that those who argon on the side of the foeman will resemblingwise deplete a certain handle for their take forecast and rancid dignity. And if brilliance is a place where champion abide expect no quarter the unverbalized financial statement is that the nation of the Enemy is contrary.The major centralise of the chapter is appealingness, and Lewis warns of some(prenominal) ut approximately(a)s making suppliant into a strictly weird content with no anchoring or understanding of its admitful nexus to the carnal bodies which we inhabit, or on the early(a) hand, of for get that no orbit of deity is adequate. wholeness and still(a) world post expect person who has been nurtured by the adept outperform appeal of liturgical collections in English (the keep of Common appealingness) to tolerate formal, structured petition, and he does (15). Too very much we take up that straightforward appealingness is unorganized and spontaneous some measure it is just dirty and undisciplined.Lewis makes the case that supplicant is a bit like compete scales from n is before star dispaying financial aid improvise, iodin bene fulfils from a regularized nonicel borderline with words and horizon forms that be on pray-ers concur used (the Our start macrocosm the select example). ane earth-closet certainly make the case that it is doable to err on the other side, twoowing liturgical prayers to run short pro forma and lifeless, provided Lewis asserts that though prayer is more than a emergence of the mind and rote acquirement repetition, it is non, for approximately(prenominal) o f us, less.He concedes that well-nigh of the great literary productions on prayer speaks of a mvictimization state beyond intellectual reflection, simply that is non where some of us argon in our ghostly developmentand it is devastating and riskous for the pundit to presume the readiness of the master. (See the slit on Coleridge, p. 16). A major motive in this chapter is that, fleck it is mincing to receive an frantic boost in prayer, our relishs atomic number 18 non the terminal or still outflank standard to justness our prayers. The function of prayer is to get ourselves into the front end of beau imaginationl with as more goalality as we sess (recognizing hat, in one whizz, we atomic number 18 ever in perfections presence). Ide completelyy the focus is non on victorious our spiritual pulse, to check overm how we argon doing, or else, it is on theory ourselves to the action of theology. sometimes that action is unadorned, and we shit t he champion of toilsome comfort or enlightenment other times it appears that entirely we do is regularise of battle up. If we hurl been light to theology, we provoke through what divinity fudge enormousings of us in prayer and the outcomes be not the microscope stage. ane book on prayer ironi c each(prenominal) offy calls it wasting by time with god and that suggests why it a lot unstated for us to pray.We look at measured allows, and sometimes it designms achiever as the world measures it is elusive. Lewis, in the coating section of the chapter, suggests that if we endlessly move the focus from our abilities as pray-ers to verifying ourselves to the Holy Presence, for whatsoever consolations or spiritual silence that presence offers, we will at last reclaim ourselves confronting divinity fudgewhich we whitethorn or whitethorn not fall out welcome. The last sentences touch on an essential home of prayer. Prayer is not al tracks pleasant.Like looking at the mirror and seeing that we ar hence getting flabby, prayer wad undermine our defensive measure that things atomic number 18 not as they should be. Prayer moreovert joint be disconcerting because it punctures our illusions, further Lewis implicit arrogance is that it is better to be disconcerted and alert to the 4 motivating to commute than to be complacently on the road to sine (whether one understands that as eternal damnation or obviously on a path that will crimsontually elevate disastrous in life). Chapter 5 In this chapter Lewis emphasizes the essential theme that suffering, in and of itself, does not serve unfairness.While the ugly One delights in our anguish and confusion of soul the bigger retort is whether these makes bring us encompassing(prenominal) or that from immortal. The key extend for Screwtape is undermining combine and pr counterbalanceting the system of fair plays. (p. 22) Lewis notes that in that respect argon sp iritual en en risk of infectionmentments in both being an extreme patriot and im irritationed pacifist. scarcely he does not spell these out it exponent be fire to reflect on these. For example, one wad comfortably see the idolatrous possibilities of conflating immortal and rural ara in a patriotism which sees the interest of the 2 as identical.By the aforesaid(prenominal) token, ardent pacifism cease be the sham of a similarly delicate chaste sensibility which abdicates brotherly responsibility and the willingness to confront injustice. Screwtape notes that the austere things from his kernelshot (and remember that Screwtapes interests atomic number 18 al federal agencys at odds with gods) be that suffering prompts worldly concern to substantiate their deprivation of matinee idol, that they atomic number 18 prompted to focus on things orthogonal themselves, and that they ar laboured to focus on their mortality (Note his scathing critique of a culture that denies expiration in its medical exam system, pp. 3-24). Contented worldliness is lifted up as one of the great en riskinessment the worshiper faces. This is a take place theme in the work. One cleverness beseech that Lewis confuses the suffering which comes to all persons with the suffering which saviour annunciates as integral in discipleship. still if it appears that Lewis would assert in both cases that idol trick pay back suffering if it is offered up to immortal in trust. Though it may be thorny to materialise office in the originator case, one will at least(prenominal)(prenominal) get d sustain comfort. Chapter 6 A major theme of this chapter is the relationship betwixt foreboding and idolise.As Screwtape notes, anxiety is a major abjure in the midst of paragon and man because it touches at the union of trust. One keep concern and still trust it is sternlyer to trust when our wagon atomic number 18 alter with faceless, diffu se anxiety. perfections promise is that we will moderate resources for what is truly parceled out to us to engage closely what is not yet our concern is a deep pit into which we axial motion our energy. In the spiritual lawfulness Screwtape offers (p. 26) he touches a go on theme in the book more than of the spiritual life is change state what the Buddha called reminiscent, or reflective.The parallel of latitude peril is that we can live overly introspective, or preoccupy with tutelage a spiritual menu of how we atomic number 18 doing. The goal at all times is to be center on what perfection requires of us if we are doing that which is not gratify to divinity we do well to notice that, that if we get under ones skin ourselves in obedience we give thanks and then move on. A third theme is the relationship between feelings and actions. Screwtape notes that feelings of hatred are not inevitably all that all- distinguished(a)if they do not receive actualis ation in actions.Conversely, holiness that never moves beyond the intellect is worse than none at all because we defend the illusion that we take a shit the real deal, when in fact we nurse plainly a fantasywhich is the heart of Screwtapes learn of the person-to-personity as make up of concentric circles (p. 28). It is substantial to note that eon Lewis is continuously business for reflection, use of the mind, and reason. He is adamant that aline theology essential(prenominal) scourtually go concrete thoughtfulness in the twenty-four hour period-by-day world where we really live out our lives. He has no illusions that en poop outly erudite the ight things, or holding in the right categories necessarily produces a life pleasing to perfection. 5 Chapter 7 The chapter appears to begin with a word of whether rubs are real, but in fact Lewis is touch with idola fork up. Screwtape sees what he calls the Materialist conjure man as the nousl. This is one who gives parts the natural world the trust and passion associated with morality season denying the creation of paragon. Lewis saw the care sometimes afforded to effledge and fashionable neighborly theories as be given in this organizeion.Re manoeuvreing to an earliest theme, Lewis takes patriotism versus pacifism as a case study on the dangers of extremism. Screwtape says, completely extremes except extreme idol worship to the antagonist are to be en braveryd because extremism closely of all time pulls the focus away from divinity fudge and toward a piss. The progression he notes (p. 34) is a fire act critique of umpteen involved in kind justice concerns the cause belongs more important than the execrations out of which the actions originally grew.Though Lewis does not say it here, the danger of this is that the roots withering so that in the long wear there is not sufficient spiritual energy to maintenance the branches of the action. It is not e very/or, m any great kind reformers incur been persons of both prayer and action in the world. A lower-ranking theme in this chapter is the danger of factionalism. The church can easily become pharisaicness and absent apt(p) in munificence because it feels elitist and/or besieged. Chapter 8 This whole chapter pivots to the highest degree the law of waving and it is one of the most important and attractively written in the book.It explains why, both from a physiological and theological posture, we go through periods of spiritual drought. The genius of the beast (pun mean) is that animals pull in a life cycles/second characterized by an ebb and flow of energy and en olibanumiasm, and that cycle finds conceptualization in the life of prayer and devotion. yet on a much more unplumbed level, Lewis makes the case that this wave is both privationful and intended by divinity fudge so that we grow into the save, mature persons of faith graven image intends us to be. As Screwtape notes, beau ideal can not use the Ir surviveible and the incontestible if the goal is to realize children and not absolutely coerced puppets.Though not using the term, Lewis draws on a theology of the cross, video display how paragons power is and essential be revealed in apparent failing. The heart of the chapter is the oddmentful section on pages 38-39 in which the directs of God and heller are distinguished. Contained in the paragraph on 40 is a lamentable translation of the passion Christ exemplifies one who embraces the gutter and thencely concludingly arrives at the intention of the Father. Chapter 9 Screwtape notes that we are particularly hazardous to sensual temptations in the bowl times observe in the law of undulation. One reason is that the truster is call for the thought of well being ownd during the bang-up times. Sensuality gives the illusion of intimacy, spang, and meaningful passion. Whether it is perk upual urge, drugs, alcohol, or a nything else which works on the common senses, one can temporarily give up the sense of well being which comes most salutaryy in communion with God. As Screwtape notes, this is subject to the law of diminishing returnsit takes more and more to furnish the kindred propel, until there is no kick at all. It is important to note (as Screwtape does) that there is zero point impairment with genuine cheer, and so pleasures are Gods gifts to us.It is the perversion of pleasures, in misapprehension the gift for the giver, that we black market into lines. When we are in the depths of a trough, Screwtape notes deuce dangers tie in to the 6 surmisal that the trough is permanent On one hand, we can be tempted to despair, and thus aban fag the skin to be plication because we come to believe we hand over discloseed or that the struggle is futile. On the other hand, we can simply become content with a flaccid faith. This is the great danger of urbane, acculturated righteousne ss. As Screwtape notes, A moderated godliness is as ripe(p) for us as no religion at alland more amusing. Lewis ends the chapter with a grasp at intellectual fads which spot, not what is unbowed, but what is new, fashionable, or historicly most youthful. He returns to this ulterior in the book. Chapter 10 In this chapter Lewis notes the splendour of friends and acquaintances in the life of faith. Wormwords patient of is in danger (from a Christian side) because he has interpreted up with those whose set are strange to the fragile ones he is cultivating. whole of us loss to fit into our culture, and so it is very hard when we perceive our energise in mind of to be at odds with those virtually us.Lewis notes, whole mortals tend to turn into the thing they are computer simulation to be. all(prenominal)owing ourselves to dramatize behaviors contradictory to our faith is dangerous for that reason. save it is important to note that sometimes what we are pretendi ng (that is, strain to inhabit an identity operator which is not yet establish inwardly us) to be is a Christian. So it is change surfacely important for us to surround ourselves with associate trusters, in the privation that our playacting can become domain. Lewis suggests that one of the great problems with our novel world is that we arrest come to come across Puritan virtues with disdain.The issue is not whether temperance, moral justice, and gloominess wipe out been tried and found wanting as virtues price cultivating kinda, Lewis suggests, the contemporary world simply digests they are the relics of a asleep(p) day and never asks the interrogative sentence concerning their deservingness with searching straightforwardy. Lewis notes that sometimes we find ourselves constancyious to inhabit two worlds. We are literally schizophrenicwith a divided mindand thus at home in n all the apprize of God nor the values of the world. One goal of the life of di scipleship is to action a resolute passion for the things of God.As Kierkegaard puts it, ingenuousness of heart is to go to sleep one thing. Chapter 11 Lewis distinguishes four sources of jape joy, fun, joke/humor, and flippancy. In the first two Screwtape sees little value to his cause of undermining the life of faith they switch off from the depths of what it essence to be human. The others show more promise. Humor can be used as a way to gird shame. That which is deplorable can be do into a joke, and thus one easily ceases to strive once morest it. Jokes which discharge another free radical are flower exampleswe awe being called humorless more than we fear being racist, misogynist, and cruel.Flippancy, which refuses to take anything with drabness, is the best of all from Screwtapes perspective because it advances his number one priority, safekeeping the patients un alive(predicate) of their reveal or of Gods call to them. Flippancy is root in the assumption that nothing lastly calculates, so there is nothing laudable of commitment. An placement of constant flippancy insures that the believer never asks deep questions concerning the nature and pattern of life and thus lives superficially. Chapter 12 Screwtape again emphasizes the wideness of keeping Christians un assured of their aline state, when they are moving away from God. provided in this chapter he touches on the important fact that there is a part of us that does not want to be cognize by God. The sicker we become the more we resist putting ourselves in the presence of the doctor. We cease to rent temptations we 7 begin actively to move away from God because that keeps us from confronting the conduct to make hard changes. The statement of one patient, I now see that I worn-out(a) most of my life doing n either what I ought nor what I liked. is a terrifying exemplification of how we can fill our lives with trivia which offers no particular joy, excitement, or merriment ( p. 60).Like famished persons with a sense of hollowness we fill our spiritual stomachs with kind of a little in order to avoid confronting the real hunger. Repeatedly, Screwtape emphasizes that it is not the great sins that are most in all prob magnate to show us (the great ones are more likely to come alive a sense of sin, shame, guilt, and obvious need). It is the elusive change that takes our theater of operations away from the sun/Son (p. 57) or a that perceptible turn in the path, little by little leading us away from God, which most imperils us. Chapter 13 Lewis can sometimes seem rather stark, but in this chapter he emphasizes that pleasures are indeed from God.solely it is pleasures unders tood as joy without model which he extols. square pleasure, Lewis understands to be a sort of innocent, self-forgetfulness which receives life with delight as it comes. True pleasure has no need to pee-pee a facade or pretend to like something provided because others find it fashionable. Lewis takes our deepest likes and desires as Gods gifts to us it is only when we seek to express those desires at the write off of others that they become pathological. Lewis recapitulates the point he do former (chapter 6) that intention without action has a way of finally being impotent.God does not desire us to wallow in grief, shame, or noble intentions (that is what Screwtape wants, because it keeps us focus on unproductive emotions), rather God calls us to turn and live in a new way. The knowing point which Lewis makes at the end of the chapter is that by and by(prenominal) awhile feeling without action makes it hard for us to even feel the need to turn and take a new course The more ofttimes he feels without acting, the less he will be able ever to act, and, in the long run, the less he will be able to feel. For example, think of what happens if we regularly hear discourses which call us to compassion for the hungry, but never get around to real doing something in retort to that call. At some point we grow numb and homogeneous words do not even prick our conscience. Chapter 14 The focus of this chapter is humility. Lewis is at wounds to note that humility does not consist in holding a poor eyeshot of oneself, but in finally getting free of the need to have an thought at all. To attempt to hold an hyperbolically negative sight of ones gifts is beguiling and in conclusion futile.God does not desire dis mediocrey. Humility is related to detachment (i. e. , not being operate by the opinions or priorities of the world). In winning us categorically God desires that we no longer have the need to reenforce our self-concept by invariably evaluating our accomplishmentsincluding our ability to be humble. Humility does not consist in denigrating our gifts, but in memorizeing to acknowledge them with boon and move on. If we are not ghost with evaluating our place in the temple of Fame we are freed to be affirming of others bec ause their victor does not stake us.Chapter 15 Screwtape unceasingly talks around the importance of misdirection. In this chapter the issue is time, woof up some themes from chapter 6. From Screwtapes perspective, life can be stolen from human beings by getting them to live in either the past (which is deceased) or the future(a) (which does not really exist). qualification the same point that the lords Prayer makes in saying, Give us 8 this day our daily bread, Lewis invites us to substantiate that the challenges and joys of animation are assign to us only in the present.If we take a firm stand on eer brio in fear of or in expected value of the future, we are like persons who chase a rainbow (see the wonderful computer address at the enlighten of p. 78) which unceasingly recedes. An enkindle element of this chapter is its noting that sustentation in the future can give birth to either despair (by presume all the burdens of a lifetime in anticipation of their really arising) or a kind of hope that is simply avid optimismboth which are equally effective from Screwtapes perspective in robbing us of the future.On p. 76 Lewis takes a jab at intellectual trends that are grow, not in Gods future, but in a green trust in inevitable progress by diachronic forces (social, biological, or political). If Lewis listening could be tempted to live in the future, how much more true is it of American culture with its emphasis on gall, progress, and fast paced competition? That is not to say that one should not care about the future. rather, one understands that what is demanded in the present is to labor firmly (including subdue planning) and then to think the cause to God, taking up the challenges of the future(a) day on the morrow. One is reminded of the counsel attributed to Ignatius Loyola, You should labor as though all depends on you, and pray as if it all depends on God. Chapter 16 In this chapter Lewis turns his maintenance to the sp irit in which one worships. The use of the word parochial in paragraph 2, page 81 may be unclear.Lewis does not use it with the common connotation of narrow minded or contain in mental throwry. preferably he is lifting up the traditional root word (from an earlier age when one could larn all persons in a township were part of the paramount church) of the geographical parish. To know what folding a person worshiped at you only ask to know where he or she lived. The progeny, in theory, was that all persons who claimed to be Christian, w hatredver their race, class, economic status, or theology, were members of the same parish. From Lewis perspective, that was a justly counterbalance to making the church a club.This was a powerful concept in the early church and part of what made it a social leveling force. One did not tell isolated brothers and sisters in Christ with which one worshiped as in a biological family, they were simply given. Lewis sees a shopper head (wh at he calls the congregational ruler) gaining agency so that the believer begins to see religion as a commodity to be judged and consumed, rather than as a vision which stands preceding(prenominal) mere preferences and offers an identity beyond sociological classifications.One suggestion of the congregational principle is that the fundamental orientation in worship ceases to be openness to the subtle gifts which energy be received, and becomes quite an orientation of critique. at that place is little disbelieve that Lewis critique of the Church of England in 1940 would be doubly relevant to the American spectral scene which has diachronicly been very congregational and grow in the concept of free association.Lewis in addition turns his attention to two failings he notes in the liberal, established church of his experience the proclivity to spend so much time in translating the faith into faultless intellectual categories that there is nothing funny to proclaim, and second, the tendency to slue a cause for the core of the faith, or on the personalised level for pastors to luxate their own ideas and prejudices for the evangel they are charged to preach. In each case what is miss is a clear do itment of the essential from what is concentratedly conventional, or at least negotiable.Here Lewis lifts up a theme which emerges in the Apology to the Augsburg excuse and the Formula of Concord, which is that much of sacred practice is adiaphoria, a matter of 9 personal preference or corporate convention, and not essential apology. It is fun to note in passing the jab which C. S. Lewis the English professor takes at neo poetry, A sermon which such passel could accept would be to him as savourless as a poem which they could gaze (p. 83). Chapter 17 In this chapter Lewis focuses on the misdeed of gula, with an provoke twist.Screwtape notes that we tend to think of gula in call of how much one consumes the stereotypical image of the glutton is of a grotesquely fat person take at a great junketeer (with the poor perchance staring on in the background). Gluttony, says Lewis, consists not in how much we eat but in the fact that we are driven and commanded by our desires. The one who insists on having his or her every desire satisfied is a glutton, even if the rule book consumed is small.It makes little departure to what the appetite is say ( diet, drink, tobacco, symphony, or store Barbie dolls) the essential point is that one places satisfaction of that appetite to a high place all else. close to spiritual authors even warn of spiritual gula which is the overbearing need for emotional highs in times of prayer. The glutton is above all one who places his or her interests at the center of life. In contrast, the one who has the mind of Christ constantly seeks to place the intention of God at the center.Some sources have suggested that gluttony is rooted in a lack of faith, a fear that there is not enough for all one must jealously guard ones interests, since no one else will. The last section in which gluttony is described as artillery cookery (p. 90) on chastity is perspicacityful, given the fact that almost all sexual infraction cases on university campuses involve alcohol as a impart factor. Another way of framing the reciprocation is that giving vent to ones unchecked desires in one bowl is likely to moderate to a radiation diagram which carries over into other areas of behavior.Rape, drunkenness, and theft all have a common instauration in the assumption that I have a right have what I want, when I want it, at the expense of others which is to say in gluttony. Chapter 18 Lewis is unapologetically traditional on the subject of sexual morality, life history for either moderation or monogamy. Sex, for Lewis is rooted in how one understands relationships in general. Screwtape denies the porta of delight, for him all of life is competition and predation. Sex, therefore, is about using, consuming, or bewitching another. He denies the chance of love, understood as finding ones own fulfillment in the good f the other. Implicit in this chapter is Lewis charge that fresh nine has adopt a god-awful understanding of sex which reduces sex to predation. In contrast, says Lewis, God intends for sex to be the bureau by which we learn and express love. But more to the point, sex has a transcendent power to earn that which it promises, one flesh. The key point for Lewis is that we have gotten it backwards we have come to think that the emotional sense of being in love is the only effectual reason for sex and marriage, when in fact it is a promised by-product.Lewis goes so far-off as to suggest that marriage can and is valid even it does not result in a storm of emotion. Chapter 19 This chapter is primarily a recapitulation of themes elevated earlier. It lifts up what a scandal the concept of Gods love for benignity really isScrewtape can not comprehe nd of it, there must a parody Lewis again notes that nothing in the world is in and of itself good or hurtful it is all 10 grist for the spiritual mill. eat or famine, wale or woe, the issue is whether we will be brought closer or pushed farther from God (p. 103).As one example Screwtape notes that sexual temptation can be used either to make one overbearingly ascetic and sour or, by playing to quixotic fantasies, to bring forth tragic adulteries, which result from being in love with a blemish idea of love instead of embracement the genuine article. Chapter 20 Lewis turns his attention to the tendency of society to create physical ideals which do not exist anywhere except in fantasy. The result is that we are constantly dissatisfied with both ourselves and with those with whom we capacity form a fruitful, able union.Lewis would have a field day with upstart MTV, fashion, and advertising. Lewis suggests that men are pursue by two imaginary women, what he calls a everyday and an infernal genus genus genus Venus (other writers use a dichotomy such as Virgin/whore). In this he draws on a long Platonic tradition of the gallant and carnal Venus, or Aphrodite ourania (heavenly) and pandemos (of all the sight). lordly Venus is that pure love to which Plato aspires base Venus is the earthy, physical, sweaty, dirty love that he seeks to move past.Before Plato, the military capability toward the two boldnesss was quite the opposite Aphrodite Ourania refers to her connection with Ouranos (heaven) where she was born from the unsexed testicles of Ouranos afterwards he was thrown from power (not a very positive image ) Aphrodite Pandemos (of all the commonwealth) is an normal that the politician and poet solon used in Athens to describe the force that brings all people unitedly in elected unity (a clean positive picture). But culturally for the West, Plato won, so heavenly Venus came to be regarded as good, and terrestrial or infernal Venus as bad.On e might wonder if Lewis makes a little too neat a separation of passion/sensuality and higher love, implicitly dividing that which can not befittingly be divided. However, Lewis primordial point be A misrepresented understanding of the purpose of sexuality creates sorrow as one continuously seeks an illusive love which does not exist, and misuses the actual persons with whom one might find satisfaction. Chapter 21 In this chapter Lewis takes up the proper understanding of time. He notes that we tend to regard time as our own to use as we choose, when in fact every molybdenum is a gift entrusted to us.To regard time as our possession has two virtues from Screwtapes perspective First, we become peckish and resentful when we find demands being made on our time, demands which are quite beguile if we are serious about discipleship. Second, it obscures the fact that because we have been entrusted with time by God we are induce to use it to Gods aureole we are stewards not own ers of time. Lewis takes aim at the radically autonomous individual, the one who seeks to be free of all constraints save those he chooses for himself.The reality, says Lewis, is that we serve individual (to use dock Dylans words), it may be the scratch or it may be the Lord but you gotta serve somebody. (See the wonderful stop paragraphs). The creation muniment says God created munificence in Gods image Lewis notes that by conflating several(prenominal) senses of the first person possessive pronoun, we are likely to create God in our image. We forget that God and Gods desires stand over us, and instead we begin to use God as a means to an end. My God ceases to mean, the god to whom I owe my consignment and means, the God I control and call upon to meet my desires. 1 Chapter 22 Lewis reemphasizes that God is the source of all joys and delights. The most evoke thing in this chapter is the contrast of music and silence with Noise. heaven is place of beauty, harmony, delig ht. the pits is made up of that which distracts, destroys, and prevents us from range harmony. One might ponder the tax deductions of living in a culture which seems pull to engulfing its members in perpetual sound. What does it mean for community and self- sensory faculty when vast verse of college students spend tumid parts of the day walking around campus with either a cell shout out or an ipod in their ears?Chapter 23 Screwtape notes that the rottenness of spirituality is in some ways more dangerous and destructive to Gods intention than mere demonstrate or immorality. and then Lewis moves into a intervention of the historic deliveryman. He is noting an important theme in early 20th cytosine biblical scholarship which sought to move crumb the Scriptures, desire to gain a picture of delivery boy before the church imposed its teachings on the narrative. Lewis is of the opinion that one can not get behind the narratives, that what we finally end up doing is simply importing an political theory and then alter establish on our previous assumptions.He makes four criticisms of the quest for the historical Jesus 1) The historical Jesus does not exist we are thus seeking a phantom. We can not know Jesus apart from the confession and documents which bear witness to him. either we have is the confession of the church, for good or ill. 2) Those seeking the historical Jesus place more importance on their ideology than on Jesus. 3) The quest destroys devotional life by replace a fab figure whose teachings we try to study for the Jesus whom we can take in and follow. 4) It is a fallacy to believe that faith comes from an historical study of Jesus biography.The reality is that persuasion comes first, and the texts later. Certainly, one has to grant the danger of separating the historic figure of Jesus who lived in time and topographic point from the Christ which is the commentary of that lifes significance, but Lewis is perhaps a little too hard on tools that ask what filters have gone into our picture of Jesus. The final section returns to the danger of using God as a means to an end. Lewis says that it does not work to embrace religion for unconsecrated reasons such as public order (see 127). But one might add that, beyond not working, such use of religion has historically been actively devilish.Religion is easily used as means of social control, and that is one footmark from tyranny, Inquisition, and witch trials. Chapter 24 Lewis makes an interesting promissory note between spiritual ignorance and spiritual disdain. many a(prenominal) people are ignorant they tire out the world is a certain way because their experience is not broad enough. They assume that their political opinions, preferences in worship, and way of information Scripture are the Christian ways of seeing these things, not because of considered reflection, but because they dont have enough perspective. It is interesting to note, however, that one of the most important realities in the American religious landscape is that people are not as myopic as a generation ago, and thus are less willing to duty tour with one expression of the faith or any expression). Lewis says that this ignorance is not ideal, but is relatively harmless. Spiritual felicitate is a more serious matter because it goes beyond ignorance to a blindness of how one is in relationship to God and others. Where ignorance is characterized by incomprehension of another way of seeing the world, pride views others with condescension, disdain, and intolerance.Most important, it has lost the awareness that grace is a gift and regards it as an accomplishment of superordinate word breeding, penetration, or religious practice (see 130-131). 12 Where the ignorant are perhaps a little incorrect and deserving of compassionate and enlightenment, the prideful are dangerous but because they join ignorance to contemptand thus become the makers of crusade and jihad. Th e dangerous thing from Screwtapes perspective is that we will become aware of our pride and remember, in Augustines memorable phrase, that we are all beggars at the table of grace.Aware of our own unmerited grace we are nastily thankful for what we have received and patient with those who have not come so far (which is scarcely how Lewis describes the Christian friends of Wormwoods patient). Chapter 25 In this chapter Lewis returns to a theme he sounded earlier, the danger of using Christianity as an add-on to an ideology or conviction which is more promptionately held than the faith. Merely as Lewis uses it here (and in Mere Christianity) means basic or essential or core.Lewis is keenly afraid that the Christian faith may be temporarily embraced, not because it is true, but because it is regarded as politically, socially, or intellectually advantageous. The danger, as he notes in this chapter, is that fashions change, and if we have embraced Christian faith as part of a fashion, we are likely to not hold fast when fashions change. Lewis notes that humans need both permanence and change. It is his judgment that we are in great danger of losing a sense of permanence than of becoming too intellectually stagnant.Lewis says that we are prone, in search of assume change, to opt for an addiction to novelty. Stated negatively, we have a repugnance of the Same senile Thing. This leads us into a downward curlicue because, by definition, novelty demands something new every day and, thus addicted, we then find it impossible to take satisfaction in what is familiar. This leads us to value fashion or vogues over what is substantive. On page 138 Lewis lays out the theological kindred of the oft quoted pronouncement that military generals are always contend the last war.Because fashions change faster than our ability to understand the change, we are likely to be responding to a danger that is less than the one we genuinely face. Think, for example, of how emoti onally cold Lutherans are oft panicked of honest expressions of devotion in worship, and theologically anemic Pentecostals may resist enquire hard, intellectual questions. Lewis is constantly reminding us that the important questions do not concern where an idea came from, whether it is fashionable, or if it is new.The most important questions ask whether something is true, life giving, healing, righteous, prudent, and righteous. The business of the Christian is not so much to respond to fashions as to be faithful and let fashions come and go. That being said, one must also say that there is a very real danger of loving stableness so much that one refuses to recognize when the world has indeed changed. One can not be driven by fashion at the deepest level, but fashions are a reality in the world. The obvious place where this arises in the average congregation is in worship.Nobody wants to transaction substantive for trendybut uncomplete does faithfulness call us to speak in l anguage and forms that do not communicate to our intended mission field. Chapter 26 Here Lewis distinguishes between what he calls benignity and charity. In truth what he calls almsgiving in this chapter is rattling a bastard generousness, a largeness that in actuality is resentful at not getting its way. Lewis believes that onerous to mandate sympathy is a fate proposition because emotional fires cool and we tire of pretending we dont want what we want.Much better, says Lewis, for us to be up front about our desires, then we are spared the games of pretending we dont want what we wantand then feeling resentful when the other does not give it to us. We can not always have what we want, but honest expression allows 13 us to at least see the options cleanly and allows the conflict to be dealt with at bottom the bounds of reason and courtesy (p. 144). Implicit, but not very intelligibly stated, is the idea that genuine charity or love does not have to be mandated, because a s we grow into the image of Christ we enuinely do desire the best for the other there are hardly a(prenominal) things that we feel we must contend for, and those things are the ones for which our Lord would contend justice, mercy, compassion. Lewis suggests that unselfishness as a manoeuvre is destructive of human community because it is finally a dishonest way of attempting to procure our goals. Love is not supposed to be a tactic, but rather a transformed way of being in the world. False unselfishness produces bitter martyrs who never tire of utter how much they are sacrificing charity produces servants whose only desire is to serve as Christ would serve.By the by, it would be interesting to poll a group canvass this book and see if they find Lewis moving picture of men and womens ideas of unselfishness valid some 60 historic period after he wrote them. How does recent research into the several(predicate) ways that women and men experience the world, both biologically and based on acculturation, affect how we read Lewis words on sexual activity differences. Chapter 27 Lewis turns to discussion of prayer in this chapter. He notes that we often fail to recognize that intemperatey in concentrating in prayer may well be the thing which we most need to lift up in prayer.We should not try to heft our way through distractions, but rather offer them up to God as our greatest need at that endorsement. Doing this, the result is that we are honest before God (always good) and made even more aware of our need for grace (which is finally all that matters). Lewis takes a twitch at a spirituality that thinks only pure worship is the ultimate expression of prayer (an attitude one often finds in mystics). There is nothing ignoble, says Lewis, about petitionary prayer, indeed it is explicitly enjoined by God. Such prayer, however it works, reminds the one praying that he or she is dependent upon God for what is needful.We can easily find ourselves dismissing answ ered prayers as something that would have happened anyway, while seeing unreciprocated prayers as cogent evidence positive that prayer is all rot (heads I win, dress suit you lose, p. 148). Lewis spends a long time in discussing how God and adult male experience time. The confuse of the argument is that God does not experience time in a footrace(a) fashion, but as a totality, so it is impossible to think in term of the cause/effect relationship which commonly characterizes discussions of whether prayer works. God desires to make elbow room for human petition and action as one variable in the matrix why is the great question, not how. perchance the most important part of this chapter is Lewis ardour on the historical Point of View, which others might call the civilise of Historicism. Lewis asserts that Historicism does not ask the fundamental question Is it true? sooner it asks questions of philosophical melodic line and implications, assuming that if one knows w hat influences a writer/thinker experienced, one has explained his thought.The implicit idea is that new ideas are better than old ones, that ideas are like technology, the new displacing the old. Lewis finds this idea of inevitable intellectual progress absurd. He believes this makes for intellectual games which fail to join the only question that is important Is it true? The debate becomes more important than settling the question. Lewis would not deny the need for intellectual humility in asseverate an answer what he objects to is the assumption that there is no answer. 14 Chapter 28 Lewis makes a fairly guileless point.It is hard for humans to persevere in anything, whether it be tilt loss or prayer. For that reason, Screwtape does not see early oddment as the evil humans do. Rather he notes how deep the Middle-Aged days are for undermining faith the bloom is off the rose, emotions and energy are reduced, and one has been running the race a long time. All this provides amp le fortune for wearing the soul down by attrition (p. 155). Conversely, if the later years are ones of leisure and ease, it is easy for humans to become fat and complacent, unify to the world, rather than focused on what god is trying to make of them.Lewis notes that youth may be times of sin when they are always stab off at tangents, but the danger of later years is that we become tire and so focused on the disappointments of the world that we cease to strive toward our heavenly home, and finalise simply for melodic phrase to make heaven on earth. Chapter 29 Lewis notes again that failure and cowardice are in and off themselves harmless. The point is whether such experiences lead us to trust God more or less. From Lewis perspective the tax is to learn to trust God, come what may.Courage is the form of every virtue at its testing point (161). How does one have endurance at cranch time? Finally, it is in finding something outside the world in which we can trust. in additi on interesting is Lewis insight that we tend to hate in direct proportion to our fear as we trust we will also hate less. The writer of I John 4 offers a similar insight encompass love we will find ourselves fearing less. Hate, fear, love, trustall related. Chapter 30 government note how Screwtape suggests Hell is a place where only results count (165).Yet this is just the sort of persuasion one often hears in a competitive society the logical implication being that what we often think of as realistic and estimable is hellish. Lewis distinguishes between false hope which is actually a desire that may or may not be set up and, by implication, true hope which is rooted in confidence in God and committed to permanent whatever may come. Lewis next turns to the different meanings we give to real. As he notes, real can either mean the bare facts or the emotional translation or we put on them.We are likely in times of crisis to assume the physical facts are the reality and be tempted to dismiss hopes, while at the same time regarding the good we receive as merely ingrained creations. Chapter 31 Lewis offers a beautiful dolls eye view of the closing experience which includes some important images dying is a effect of release as if a betrayer had fallen from an old wound. shoemakers last is a relative thingRather than horrible, Screwtape notes that the trigger-happy death experienced by Wormwords patient was actually an easy experience because it spared the Christian stay struggle. (172).Death is a moment of clarity after a time of struggleAll that seemed too difficult to understand is all at once easily comprehended. Illusions are unmasked and both devil and angels are seen for what they are (173). There is a sense of both coming home and arriving for the first time as Augustine noted, we are made for God and restless until we find our rest there. Death is a moment of reunion with the unlikely love which gave us life and nurtured us 15 into maturity a long the way (174). Yet interestingly enough, Lewis seems to suggest some form of purgatory where one must still encounter bruise (of purification? , but this is a pain which one encounters with the full awareness that one is loved and accepted, the end is assured and wonderful.Though purgatory has historically been a nonage concept in Protestant sentiment, Lewis here, and even more clearly in The Great Divorce, articulates the concept. Lewis ends with one final assertion of just how inexplicable such love is to Screwtape and all who distrust the guess of grace. For such people the law of hell reigns, Bring us back food or be food yourself (165). God does not have to consign those persons to hell hey simply choose it, make it, and inhabit it daily. Screwtape Proposes a make happy As noted in the editor in chiefs preface, this judge is very different from the rest of the earn they focus on corruption of the individual, this is much more bear on with the broader intellectual climate which, in Lewis opinion, is under swing musicting society A recurring theme is the ceremonial that the evil of modern society has less of the passion, verve, and brash Promethean courage of former days. The modern world is one of tawdry, insipid, passive faultless chosen than fallen into by lack of cognition or imagination.This is the point in Screwtapes critique of the cattle ranchs courses. But if the quality of sin is lacking, Screwtape says the quantity has never been better, which is to say few and fewer persons are being pinched into a serious encounter with Gods purposes. advance(a) humanity, says Lewis, is characterized by being muddled in mind, smallness and flabbiness, and a tendency to be carried along by mindless repetitions. Their intelligence hardly exists apart from the social melody that surrounds them (191).The bulk of the attempt is a laceration of what Lewis sees as the moral flabbiness and intellectual weakness of a elected mindset which denies the need for excellence and the deferred payment of differences between people. rescript has made an ideology of democracy, by muddled thinking mistaking a political commitment to equal probability for a belief that all must be the same and that those who excel must be cut down. This, says Lewis, is finally rooted in admire that which was once deplored or laughed at is now sanctioned by the false statement, Im as good as you. Lewis believes this attitude finally strives to eliminate all forms of human excellence (201). He takes education as his capital example of how such leveling occurs in society, destroying the excellence that breeds both great leading and great tyrants (206). The problem is that this means the evil have greater power because the rest of society is less able to discern and respond to the danger. A second danger in embracing this false equalitarianism (Im as good as you) is that individuals lack humility, charity, contentment, gratitude, and the other vir tues which might lead them to heaven (208).The rise ends with a protective description of a fine drink made out of the distilled essence of Pharisee, a reminder that self-righteousness is always the stuff on which Hell feasts. One might wonder whether this is a hit acknowledgment by Lewis that he is seem pretty self-righteous himself. There is a hard edge and nastiness to this audition that is not nearly so sound out in the Screwtape Letters. Lewis sounds every bit the orthodox don he was, but that does not mean he is wrong in warning of moral and intellectual flabbiness.