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From the Associate…
SCREWTAPE DISCUSSES QUESTIONS OF WAR
Among the most popular books of English writer C. S. Lewis (author of The Chronicles of Narnia) has been The Screwtape Letters , a fanciful series of literally Hellish letters from an accomplished tempter, the formidable Screwtape, to his young and inexperienced nephew, Wormwood, on the ins and outs of the art of temptation. Screwtape counsels his nephew concerning how to win the soul he is working on for "Our Father Below," meaning the Devil, and how to keep him out of the clutches of the "Enemy," God. Lewis puts the exchange of letters during World War II, and so has the opportunity to address some of the temptations that arise in times of war. Let's listen in on the conversation:
My dear Wormwood,
I had not forgotten my promise to consider whether we should make the patient an extreme patriot or an extreme pacifist. All extremes except extreme devotion to the Enemy are to be encouraged. . . . Any small coterie, bound together by some interest which other men dislike or ignore, tends to develop inside itself a hothouse mutual admiration, and towards the outer world, a great deal of pride and hatred which is entertained without shame because the "Cause" is its sponsor and it is thought to be impersonal. Even when the little group exists originally for the Enemy's own purposes, this remains true. We want the Church to be small not only that fewer men may know the Enemy but also that those who do may acquire the uneasy intensity and the defensive self-righteousness of a secret society or a clique. . . .
Whichever he adopts, your main task will be the same. Let him begin by treating the Patriotism or the Pacifism as a part of his religion. Then let him, under the influence of partisan spirit, come to regard it as the most important part. Then quietly and gradually nurse him on to the stage at which the religion becomes merely part of the "Cause," in which Christianity is valued chiefly because of the excellent arguments it can produce in favor of the British war effort or of pacifism. The attitude which you want to guard against is that in which temporal affairs are treated primarily as material for obedience. Once you have made the World an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing. Provided that meetings, pamphlets, policies, movements, causes, and crusades, matter more to him than prayers and sacraments and charity, he is ours - and the more "religious" (on those terms), the more securely ours. I could show you a pretty cageful down here.
Your affectionate uncle,
SCREWTAPE
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