"The Screwtape Letters" by C.S. Lewis

Posted by J.

http://www.amazon.com/Screwtape-Letters-C-S-Lewis/dp/0684831171/sr=8-3/qid=1161908600/ref=pd_bbs_3/102-1762748-7350520?ie=UTF8&s=books

I loved C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia as a child, but this was his first theological work which I have read. For those unfamiliar, The Screwtape Letters is Lewis' pretending to write a series of letters from a senior devil to a junior devil who has been tasked with tempting a newly converted Christian in WW2 England. While Lewis' attempt to get inside the head of a devil does show a few of the prejudices and peculiarities of his era and his specific views of Christianity, all in all it's a very thought-provoking work which cuts right to the heart of so many of the evils which dwell in our heads. Like Lewis, I do believe in angels and devils, but I also take a view more akin to Lewis' that evil generally works in mundane and subtle ways which are far more dangerous to our spiritual and eternal well being than most of the obvious evils of the world. It is in this way that The Screwtape Letters really challenges: he presents these devils as cool, calculating bureaucrats, who understand the slow ways to work inside our minds. Of course Lewis' goal - and in this for me at least he largely succeeds - is to use these perspectives of the devil to show us what the real threats to our spiritual well being are, and that with that awareness we can try to counter it. Pride, complacency, group-think, and boredom figure heavily in Screwtape's lessons and hit home with me as well.