About time that I finally post to the 25 books archive. My only excuse, in honor of my first post, is that the devil made me delay. The Screwtape Letters is a correspondence between two devils, which C.S. Lewis claims he happened across during his various journeys and musings.
What it is in actuality, is a reverse indoctrination to Lewis' particular brand of Christianity. It was a book that had long sat neglected upon my shelf and was finally read as a stealthy addition to my British Literature curriculum. Ahh, the pleasure of a, in many ways, former Roman Catholic exploring his religious foundations and the very reasons religion can be abandoned with public school children. Separation of Church and State my foot!
As Screwtape, the primary narrator, instructed his nephew Wormwood on the various excellent ways of corrupting a patient (any one of us), I was surprised by how often my own excuses and reasons for abandoning a christian god came flowing from the mouths of devils. Suggested as the perfect methods of corruption over and again were distraction, a skewed perspective on reality, and an overconfidence in human intelligence and understanding.
Reading Cappy's reflection on The Unbearable Lightness of Being I am reminded of another of Screwtape's corrosive ways. The devil says that it is acceptable for us to read, even extensively, the thoughts of past philosophers, as long as we regard them as something to be classified, placed coldly in reference to their own time and place, but never regarded as a possible truth. Though in the case of Cappy's introduction, Screwtape would smile widely, even better than not viewing a reading a personally relevant is to view the works of the past or of the mind as an allergen, something to be given a wide berth.
Beyond the war against religion and religious thought, the subtext of the reading is that most dangerous (if you are a devil or a suspicious former Catholic) reality: god never gives up on us. No matter how far we may wander into darker territory, Lewis reminds us that all we need to do to throw off Screwtape and his treacherous ways is recognize the god who has been invisibly by our side all along and follow him home.
3 comments:
This is one I haven't yet read, despite glowing reviews from all corners. I'm putting it on the list.
For more 20th Century Irish Apologetics, pick up Lewis' _Mere Christianity_. Good stuff there, too!
Welcome aboard!
Mere Christianity is actually on my bookshelf as well. I have my brother old copy from DeMatha. There were two copies when I went pillaging; I grabbed the one sans electrical taped spine. Who know when the reading will happen but it will someday.
Wow, what a cool set of connections. Bear with me as I unpack some of them:
- I knew Andy's older brother Chris. He was a year older than me. Unlike him, I never got to read Mere Christianity at DM, because the senior religion class changed JUST before I took it.
- The curriculum change was instituted by a teacher named A. Turner. He taught at BMHS and DM, but eventually went to teach at Gonzaga, where he made a big impact on Cappy.
I may be the only person who is into these kind of coincidences, but I definitely think they are neat.
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