C.S. Lewis writes an interesting, fictional story with lessons for this mortal coil with eternal implications. And I'm so glad we read The Screwtape Letters this month. Add your comments and thoughts about Lewis, Screwtape, and the like. I'm still processing, but I'll share soon.
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I think Lewis has to be one of the most misunderstood Christian authors in recent history. Fundamentalists condemn him for using fiction to portray Christian truths, and Evangelicals interpret him as being non-denominational when he was clearly a staunch Anglican.
ReplyDeleteI find it unfortunate, therefore, that such persons cannot appreciate the value of a work like the Screwtape Letters. It is a kind of modern Pilgrim's Progress -- a metaphor for what every Christian inevitably experiences on that hard road to the Celestial City. In Scripture we only get glimpses into how Satan and his minions work, but few concrete details beyond the tales of Job and Christ's temptation. Yet Lewis imagines something close to what it must be like, and something close to what it feels like: a kingdom ruled by fear and overwhelming punishment.
My favorite chapter is 23 (pp. 363 in my Harper San Francisco edition). Friedrich von Hayek once said that the way that corruption always begins in an form of human society is when certain factions begin redefining words. And in chapter 23 we see the devil's strategy of redefining the Faith itself. I'm heartbroken to listen to Luke Walkup's many stories relating what has happened to InterVarsity: Always about social justice and helping the financially poor, as though this were what Christ came to do. And the converse: Those who act as though the center of the Christian faith is the eschatalogical redemption of the modern Israeli state. Every social class and political entity seems to want Jesus to side specifically with them, whereas Paul teaches us, Gal. iii.26, that we are ALL sons of God through faith. And this little game of Screwtape's, "Christ + ????", leads more Christians astray than any other article in his bag of tricks.