Be Self-Controlled and Alert. Your Enemy the Devil Prowls Around Like a Roaring Lion Looking

Letter XIV

On Prayer

Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. I Peter 5:8-9

Like a good chess player he (Satan) is always trying to maneuver you into a position where you can save your castle only by losing your bishop.

Key words

Churchgoing

N this chapter churchgoing is addressed. Screwtape expands on why he wants wormwoods patient to be a critical church-shopper so that “the condition (most hostile to our whole policy) in which platitudes can become really audible to a human soul” is not created

Elderly: adversity or prosperity

prosperity

Questions for Discussion

What in Screwtapes eyes is the “next best thing” than to avoid his patient to go to church?
What are Screwtape’s best suggestions for doing this? Is this true in our church going community?
What are the positive points of becoming a “taster or connoisseur of churches”?
What are the dangers of criticizing the church?
Discuss: “ An attitude which may, indeed, be critical in the sense of rejecting what is false or unhelpful, but which is wholly uncritical in the sense that it does not appraise”
How can we become Open to “ any nourishment that is going on”
In your experience is the consequence: “condition in which platitudes can become really audible to a human soul”?
Discuss:“Expect to find the "low" churchman genuflecting and crossing himself lest the weak conscience of his "high" brother should be moved to irreverence, and the "high" one refraining from these exercises lest he should betray his "low" brother into idolatry. How would this affect my worship service?
Why is being lukewarm so bad for a Christian?(maybe you want to compare with the word “wholeheartedly” as used all trough the OT see for example Numbers 32:11)

For Further Reading and Reflection

The Screwtape Letters, CS Lewis

Letter XVI – Title: Church Shopping (Diversity and Unity for Eternity)

-Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching. Heb. 10:25

-To Him be the Glory in the Church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever, Amen. Eph. 3:21

-A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand. Mt. 12:25

-My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one." Jn 17:20,21

-Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters. Ro. 14:1

-The Church will outlive the universe.

-Disputations do more to aggravate schism than to heal it: united action, prayer, fortitude and united deaths for Christ: these will make us one.

-For the Church is not a human society of people united by their natural affinities, but the Body of Christ, in which all members, however different, must share the common life, complementing and helping one another precisely by their differences.

-The Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ… If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. CSL

Strategy Matrix

Area of Life

/ Devil’s Advice / God’s Way / Questions, Observations and Strategies
Church Shopping. / a. Cured of churchgoing
b.Fidelity to church out of indifference
c.Looking for the church that "suits"
d.Attack local church[1]
-make it a club, coterie or faction
d.Criticise the church / a.Attend church (communion of the saints) fidelity to the parish church because God has called you
b-Unity of local church
“unity of place and not of likings”
- #classes/psychology “together in the kind of unity the Enemy desires.”
-be a pupil (disciple)
d. Reject what is false or unhelpful (no waste of time) and be open and non-critical of any nourishment available / -I rejoice with those who said to me: Let us go to the house of the Lord. Ps 121:1
-John 17:21 “that all of them may be one”
Ephesians 4:3 “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit”
I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Ps 23:6
For the zeal of your house consumes me. Ps. 69:9
How to find a church / -watered down to unbelief
-let go of tradition
-repetitiveness
avoid new truths
Personal faults in preachers: such as hatred, dishonesty but:“I must warn you that he has one fatal defect: he really believes. And this may yet mar all”
c-be violently attached to some party within the church.
d-lukewarm about doctrinal issues
e-“working up hatred between those who say "mass" and those who say "holy communion"” when neither party could possibly state the difference” / Teaching: nourishing building up the faith
-hold on to what is good
-Search scripture
Openness to the whole word of God
-Believing preacher (he does not need to be perfect!)
Do not choose sides about indifferent issues
Concentrate on essentials Follow sound doctrine
“human without scruples should always give in to the human with scruples”
e. Be mindful of your weaker brother
“variety of usage within the Church of England might have become a positive hotbed of charity and humility” / Ephesians 4:12-13 “built up… reach unity In Him”
Ephesians 2:19-22 “building is joined together”
1Corinthians1:10, 3:1-14 “no divisions …united”
Revelation 3:16 “lukewarm… spit you out of my mouth.”
Romans14:13 “stop passing judgment…not to put any stumbling block”
1 Corinthians 8:11 “weak brother …is destroyed by your knowledge”

“Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” James 4:7

XVI

MY DEAR WORMWOOD,

You mentioned casually in your last letter that the patient has continued to attend one church, and one only, since he was converted, and that he is not wholly pleased with it. May I ask what you are about? Why have I no report on the causes of his fidelity to the parish church? Do you realise that unless it is due to indifference it is a very bad thing? Surely you know that if a man can't be cured of churchgoing, the next best thing is to send him all over the neighbourhood looking for the church that "suits" him until he becomes a taster or connoisseur of churches.

The reasons are obvious. In the first place the parochial organisation should always be attacked, because, being a unity of place and not of likings, it brings people of different classes and psychology together in the kind of unity the Enemy desires. The congregational principle, on the other hand, makes each church into a kind of club, and finally, if all goes well, into a coterie or faction. In the second place, the search for a "suitable" church makes the man a critic where the Enemy wants him to be a pupil. What He wants of the layman in church is an attitude which may, indeed, be critical in the sense of rejecting what is false or unhelpful, but which is wholly uncritical in the sense that it does not appraise—does not waste time in thinking about what it rejects, but lays itself open in uncommenting, humble receptivity to any nourishment that is going. (You see how grovelling, how unspiritual, how irredeemably vulgar He is!) This attitude, especially during sermons, creates the condition (most hostile to our whole policy) in which platitudes can become really audible to a human soul. There is hardly any sermon, or any book, which may not be dangerous to us if it is received in this temper. So pray bestir yourself and send this fool the round of the neighbouring churches as soon as possible. Your record up to date has not given us much satisfaction.

The two churches nearest to him, I have looked up in the office. Both have certain claims. At the first of these the Vicar is a man who has been so long engaged in watering down the faith to make it easier for supposedly incredulous and hard-headed congregation that it is now he who shocks his parishioners with his unbelief, not vice versa. He has undermined many a soul's Christianity. His conduct of the services is also admirable. In order to spare the laity all "difficulties" he has deserted both the lectionary and the appointed psalms and now, without noticing it, revolves endlessly round the little treadmill of his fifteen favourite psalms and twenty favourite lessons. We are thus safe from the danger that any truth not already familiar to him and to his flock should over reach them through Scripture. But perhaps bur patient is not quite silly enough for this church—or not yet?

At the other church we have Fr. Spike. The humans are often puzzled to understand the range of his opinions—why he is one day almost a Communist and the next not far from some kind of theocratic Fascism—one day a scholastic, and the next prepared to deny human reason altogether—one day immersed in politics, and, the day after, declaring that all states of us world are equally "under judgment". We, of course, see the connecting link, which is Hatred. The man cannot bring himself to teach anything which is not calculated to mock, grieve, puzzle, or humiliate his parents and their friends. A sermon which such people would accept would be to him as insipid as a poem which they could scan. There is also a promising streak of dishonesty in him; we are teaching him to say "The teaching of the Church is" when he really means "I'm almost sure I read recently in Maritain or someone of that sort". But I must warn you that he has one fatal defect: he really believes. And this may yet mar all.

But there is one good point which both these churches have in common—they are both party churches. I think I warned you before that if your patient can't be kept out of the Church, he ought at least to be violently attached to some party within it. I don't mean on really doctrinal issues; about those, the more lukewarm he is the better. And it isn't the doctrines on which we chiefly depend for producing malice. The real fun is working up hatred between those who say "mass" and those who say "holy communion" when neither party could possibly state the difference between, say, Hooker's doctrine and Thomas Aquinas', in any form which would hold water for five minutes. And all the purely indifferent things—candles and clothes and what not—are an admirable ground for our activities. We have quite removed from men's minds what that pestilent fellow Paul used to teach about food and other unessentials—namely, that the human without scruples should always give in to the human with scruples. You would think they could not fail to see the application. You would expect to find the "low" churchman genuflecting and crossing himself lest the weak conscience of his "high" brother should be moved to irreverence, and the "high" one refraining from these exercises lest he should betray his "low" brother into idolatry. And so it would have been but for our ceaseless labour. Without that the variety of usage within the Church of England might have become a positive hotbed of charity and humility,

Your affectionate uncle

SCREWTAPE

[1]An administrative part of a diocese that has its own church in the church of England