Screwtape reflections i
I’ve ‘taken up’ C S Lewis for Lent.
They’re a couple of books that I found when we moved, and thought ‘I must have another read of those one day’. Well in an effort to do something productive during Lent, ‘one day’ has come.
I’m starting with The Screwtape Letters (first published 1942, I’m reading a reprint from 1977 – though this is a third impression from 1982!). It must be about 25 years since I read it – and a lot of water has passed under this bridge since then.
Screwtape is writing to Wormwood. Screwtape is a senior demon. He is advising his nephew, Wormwood, a more junior demon, how to tempt ‘the Patient’ away from ‘The Enemy’ – ie God. So it’s an appropriate theme for the beginning of Lent. I’ll share just some of my random thoughts as I work my way through it – hoping they might spark some thought. Feel free to comment!
In Letter II Screwtape states that the church is one of their greatest allies. By that he means the people gathered together on a Sunday to worship. He runs through the many ways people gathered together in one place can annoy and disappoint each other. The bit that grabbed me was,
“If once they get through this initial dryness successfully, they become less dependent on emotion and therefore much harder to tempt.”
That got me thinking. How much are we at church to worship God? How often is our focus taken by what our neighbour is or isn’t doing? How much do we worry about what is or isn’t happening? We are in church to bring ourselves to God, to be challenged, taught, comforted, forgiven and renewed. We are not there to judge, assess, or sit in righteous smugness on others who are there; or to be so irritated we can hear nothing for the clamouring in our minds. We are there to offer ourselves, not worry about others. Are we wasting our emotions on those around us, rather than on what God is doing and saying?
Yes fellowship is vital. We need our fellow Christians. But we need them as they are, as fellow pilgrims on the journey towards being made new in God. We should accept what they are, and what they offer, as we expect them to do the same for us.
The church should not be an ally for the devil. We are called to be ambassadors for Christ – together.
Pam's Perambulation 
Excellent book and assessment. I, too, agree about the necessary posture of submission our hearts must take if we are to grow closer to God. Too many believers come to church to “take something away” from it, to be titillated by the music or amused by the anecdotal sermon; far too few come to give something away, namely their hearts and minds to Christ. If they were to do so (and I’m as guilty as the next guy), they would find that all those services that mere men performed for them and on which they depended would become quite superfluous, and all those things which annoyed them would no longer exist.