Please refer to the introduction to this series on C. S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters: Letters from a Senior Devil to a Junior Devil for the gist on its conception and purpose.
Right, let’s start with a brief synopsis of the second letter: Screwtape, the senior devil writes to Wormwood, the junior devil, informing him that he would be punished for not having prevented his patient from becoming a Christian. All is not lost, though, Screwtape advices Wormwood. Because many who convert in Christianity do give up the faith. The church itself works against itself, continues Screwtape. Thus the second letter’s focus is the new Christian and the church.
As a current non-church going Christian, and a one who in the past refused God partly because of poor examples set by churches and Christians, the second letter speaks to me in many ways. Yet I feel Lewis’ treatment of the subject is merely a scratch on a surface. The letter brings around the question, is it absolutely necessary for the modern Christian to be part of a congregation? Especially now when it is quite common for a believer to practice faith without stepping outside of her apartment? One may also argue that perhaps the point of the second letter is not so much the church but rather the vulnerability of nurturing a new faith and maintaining a community that helps one stay motivated and encouraged. All the same, it’s worth mentioning that the church is not limited to an external structure and its congregation. One ought to consider as church, the body, heart and mind of the believer (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).
Lewis expresses in the second letter how ridiculously shallow the new Christian can be. Consider the following lines:
Your patient, thanks to Our Father Below, is a fool. Provided that any of those neighbors sing out of tune, or have boots that squeak, or double chins, or odd clothes, the patient will quite easily believe that their religion must therefore be somehow ridiculous. . . Never let it come to the surface; never let him ask what he expected them to look like. Keep everything hazy in his mind now, and you will have eternity wherein to amuse yourself by producing in him the peculiar kind of clarity which Hell affords. 6-7
We inhabit societies where presentation is highly valued, often more so than what’s below the surface. Judging a book by its cover is thus automatic and unconscious. Of course, I judge the people in the next pew––that hat is so ridiculous! But my favorite thing is arguing with the preacher, silently in my head––well, I don’t think that’s what the verse is saying. This is why I don’t go to church for the word of God. I go to church to remember how unChrist-like I’m and how much work I have to do in regards to loving God and neighbor. And it seems to me that is also Lewis point––to a certain extent:
All you then have to do is to keep out of his mind the question ‘If I, being what I am, can consider that I am in some sense a Christian, why should the different vices of those people in the next pew prove that their religion is mere hypocrisy and convention? 8
One’s endeavor to be Christ-like is solely ones’s responsibility and if one is not true to this and doesn’t understand the fundamental principles to guide one on their path, then insignificant things like terribly sung hymns can distract one.
But let’s be honest, some churches can be considered a devil’s hornet. The purpose of such an establishment is not to teach “love thy neighbor as thyself” but to justify hating those who appear different from you. Consider, for instance, Fredrick Douglass’ observation of his slave-holding Christian masters:
I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity. I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels. . . I am filled with unutterable loathing when I contemplate the religious pomp and show, together with the horrible inconsistencies, which every where surround me. We have men-stealers for ministers, women-whippers for missionaries, and cradle-plunderers for church members. The man who wields the blood-clotted cowskin during the week fills the pulpit on Sunday, and claims to be a minister of the meek and lowly Jesus. The man who robs me of my earnings at the end of each week meets me as a class-leader on Sunday morning, to show me the way of life and the path of salvation. 527
One must admit, just as there exist such a thing as faux fur––not a terrible thing––there also exist such a thing as fake Christians and churches––horrible things. And so there are churches established on a foundation that is the exact opposite of Christ’s teachings. Didn’t Christ himself discover in Jerusalem a church that was actually more of a market place and “a den of robbers”? (Mark 11:15-19). Thus to be disillusioned with the church and certain Christians is not always as simple a thing as pettiness.
Now, to my favorite lines in the second letter:
Work hard, then, on the disappointment or anticlimax which is certainly coming to the patient during his first few weeks as a churchman. The Enemy allows this disappointment to occur on the threshold of every human endeavor. . . In every department of life it marks the transition from dreaming aspiration to laborious doing. . . Desiring their freedom, He therefore refuses to carry them, by their mere affections and habits, to any goals which He sets before them: He leaves them to ‘do it on their own’. And there lies our opportunity. But also, remember, there lies our danger. If once they get through this initial dryness successfully, they become much less dependent on emotion and therefore much harder to tempt. 7-8
To not expect to be disappointed in an imperfect world is cray-cray. And yet many of us are guilty of extreme optimism. You’ve never eaten with chopsticks, yet, somehow, you’re convinced that at your first instance of doing so you will achieve the feat of one who has done it for several decades. Ok, maybe it ought not to be called optimism but hubris. Perhaps in all things, even the most mundane, one must expect to be thoroughly disappointed and to encounter difficulties. Thus one must go to all events with the mindset of the adventurer and with prayer that one would be given strength to endure, overcome, and to glean wisdom.
I am currently of the mind that the chief purpose of a human life is its unification with God. And Just as one does not eat to feed another’s hunger, one does not choose God for anyone but for oneself. So nothing should come between a being and her God, not even church.
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Jane A. Odartey
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+ Douglass, Fredrick. Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, An American Slave. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Martin Puchner et al. Shorter 4th ed. Vol. 2. New York: W.W. Norton, 2019. 527. Print.
+ Lewis, C. S. The Screwtape Letters: Letters from a Senior to a Junior Devil. London: William Collins, 2016. Print.
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