The Screwtape Letters

The Screwtape Letters give a unique perspective of human temptation and sin.  As Screwtape teaches Wormwood how to trick a human into sin he says, “We know that we have introduced a change of direction in his course which is already carrying him out of his orbit around the Enemy; but he must be made to imagine that all the choices which have effected this change of course are trivial and revocable”.  I really appreciated the class discussion we had about the decisions we make affecting us.  I really liked the cookie example.  Every decision we make shows who we are, what we care about, and what type of decisions we will make in the future.  Each decision we make trains for how we will react in the future.  When we practice good habits it makes us easier for us to make good decisions in the future.  However, when we get in a pattern of sin, it gets harder for us to stop sinning because we start resenting the idea of repentance, and therefore it becomes a cycle of sinning and feeling guilty, yet begrudging atonement for our sins. 

Screwtape then goes on to explain that we are easily susceptible when we don’t take our Christianity seriously.  He goes on to say that Wormwood needs to make him feel like becoming a Christian doesn’t really change his life that much.  However, as Christians we should be continually be sanctified and become better imitators of Christ.  Our faith needs to impact every part of our lives.  We can’t be lukewarm Christians. 

My Favorite quote in this letter is this: “The Christians describe the Enemy as one “without whom Nothing is strong”.  And Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man’s best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and know not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, in drumming of fingers and kicking of heels, in whistling tunes that he does not like, or in the long, dim labyrinth of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish, but which, once chance association has started them, the creature is too weak and fuddled to shake off”.  I hope this description because although it is so gloomy and yet so realistic.  Even though it seems so miserable in seems so easy that we fall into this ambitionless and unmotivated vegetation state.  I think this leads back to the idea of being far too easily pleased.  If we have the goals of Christ and Shalom at heart than we cannot stand idle and waste our time on things like TV and videogames.  I think this is important because part of being a Christian is being a Christian all the time and having our goals match up with God’s goals, our will with His will.  When we are doing our best to serve God and carry out his will we won’t want to do Nothing, we want be active in our faith and service to His will.