The Screwtape Letters

• Publisher:   HarperOne
• Number Of Pages:   209
• Publication Date:   2001-02
• ISBN-10 / ASIN:   0060652934
• ISBN-13 / EAN:   9780060652937

In this humorous and perceptive exchange between two devils, C. S. Lewis delves into moral questions about good vs. evil, temptation, repentance, and grace. Through this wonderful tale, the reader emerges with a better understanding of what it means to live a faithful life.

Who among us has never wondered if there might not really be a tempter sitting on our shoulders or dogging our steps? C.S. Lewis dispels all doubts. In The Screwtape Letters, one of his bestselling works, we are made privy to the instructional correspondence between a senior demon, Screwtape, and his wannabe diabolical nephew Wormwood. As mentor, Screwtape coaches Wormwood in the finer points, tempting his "patient" away from God.

Each letter is a masterpiece of reverse theology, giving the reader an inside look at the thinking and means of temptation. Tempters, according to Lewis, have two motives: the first is fear of punishment, the second a hunger to consume or dominate other beings. On the other hand, the goal of the Creator is to woo us unto himself or to transform us through his love from "tools into servants and servants into sons." It is the dichotomy between being consumed and subsumed completely into another's identity or being liberated to be utterly ourselves that Lewis explores with his razor-sharp insight and wit.

The most brilliant feature of The Screwtape Letters may be likening hell to a bureaucracy in which "everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment." We all understand bureaucracies, be it the Department of Motor Vehicles, the IRS, or one of our own making. So we each understand the temptations that slowly lure us into hell. If you've never read Lewis, The Screwtape Letters is a great place to start. And if you know Lewis, but haven't read this, you've missed one of his core writings. --Patricia Klein

This was tough to read. Scary, thought provoking and yes fire and brimstone. Makes one rethink daily living and what we are really here for every day. I recommend it especially to new Christians, but put your armour on first, you'll need it. We are always under attack and this unusual way of presenting that fact is highly readable.

C.S. Lewis might be best known for The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe but for adults, this book far surpasses that. The dripping sarcasm truly makes you stop and think about what type of person you really are.

Absolutely great. Not an every day read, but something to pick up on occasion and read through.

The book is every bit as entertaining and enlightening as when I first read it some fifty years ago.

The Screwtape Letters is unusual by its description of the process of demonic temptation in the life of a Christian from the point of view of a clinical learning experience from one tempter to another is a decidedly modern twist. Originally a series of columns in a church magazine, Lewis' hope was for modern people, especially believing Christians, to understand the spiritual dimension of thoughts and actions by way of a reverse description. Seeing Christianity as it ought to work by way of its converse reactions, Lewis showed that evil is not the opposite of good, but the corruption of good.
Influenced by Medieval thought, Lewis plays on much of the traditional view of subtle temptations that would most often afflict believers. But more importantly, Lewis writes for the modern ear. The letters to Screwtape from Wormwood are really an exercise in the doublespeak that has become all too common in modernity. By using this type of doublespeak, Lewis achieved a familiarity with modern readers that made this collection of essays on temptation acceptable and appreciated. As literature, the Screwtape Letters is unique in its class, but more importantly it is a modern presentation of the type of thinking that most Christians, especially during the early centuries of the church, were constantly aware of - that we live in a world where we only see dimly the present spiritual reality that makes up our universe. By presenting the issues of the unseen battle in a form modern man can understand, Lewis throws cold water on sluggish men to wake them from their slumber. The letters are contemporary to the time they were written. They take place within the confines of everyday life for an ordinary young English middle class man living in England during World War II. In a sense, he is the central character to the letters, though he plays no active part. Everything we learn of the man is based on one side of an exchange of letters from Screwtape, and even then it is all second hand from the tempter Wormwood. Because the events that are discussed in the letters occur almost exclusively based on the reactions and motivations of the young "patient's" psyche, Lewis places the illustrations of events wholly in the mind of the patient. For the contemporary church, the Letters warn of us the spiraling trap of the need for the spectacular, the need to out-do God in spiritual success. The patients early temptations to be frustrated with how little he has in common with the churchmen and how the church is at times slow and inefficient are there to play into the mind of the church and the individual within the organized church that her problems are so great that they show that the church needs something else besides being just the church, and relying on the Word of Christ.
Accompanying philosophy (church and social work), and outside activity (science) are there to show that the church is a failure and does not provide what the individual believer needs. This is a sophisticated way of acknowledging the unseen realm, while denying the Creator. For since the Church has no other option than to rely on its Unseen Author, its success is guaranteed, but it is attacked fiercely as well. Because of this, by opposition, the Letters call on the church to pray constantly and to be focused on the clear thinking of Screwtape's Enemy.

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