The Screwtape Letters
by C. S. Lewis

Mentor (New York): 1988 (original printing 1942). Paperback: xxi, 134 pages. ISBN-10: 0-451-62821-7 Suggested retail price: $5.99 (US) Tags: demons; devil; god; redemption; Religious; sin; temptation Tactical strength: [6/10]

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So with all the contemporary discussion about angels, you have to wonder about the beings from the opposing side. What advice would a senior demon pass along to his younger protege? In The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis presents the views of temptation and redemption as seen from the perspective of demons who want to encourage such behaviors. Lewis really doesn't intend to present demons in a charitable light; instead, he uses the transcripts of demonic conversations as a satire to examine human nature. For example in modern discourse, you often hear people talk about what they will and will not do with their body, but Screwtape provides some interesting insights:

The humans are always putting up claims to ownership which sound equally funny in Heaven and in Hell, and we must keep them doing so. Much of the modern resistance to chastity comes from men's belief that they "own" their bodies -- those vast perilous estates, pulsating with the energy that made the worlds, in which they find themselves without their consent and from which they are ejected at the pleasure of Another! It is as if a royal child whom his father has placed, for love's sake, in titular command of some great province, under the real rule of wise counsellors, should come to fancy he really owns the cities, the forests, and the corn, in the same way as he owns the bricks on the nursery floor. (84)

Lewis, in similar fashion, addresses topics of human nature ranging from religious commitment to sexuality. Light reading on the surface, but worth pondering and reflecting on how we often fool ourselves into believing that we control more than we actually do.

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