A few months back, I asked our adult Sunday School class for ideas on what they wanted to study. We were in the midst of a video series, and had a plan for ten lessons on Holy Week before and after Easter. So this was some medium-range planning. At that point, I asked the class to write down what they wanted to study in the coming year. Several people wrote “The Screwtape Letters”.

I wasn’t terribly happy at first. It wasn’t so long ago, maybe 15 years, that we studied this book by C.S. Lewis. It’s a great book, one of three books I would say that had the most influence on me in my Christian walk. But to study it again? But, if that’s what the class wanted, we would do it.

We finished the study we were in, had the Holy Week study, did one or two weeks of fill in stuff, and started the Screwtape study on June 18. I taught that week and got through the Introduction and Letter #1. The next week my co-teacher taught Letter #2.

That got us into a rhythm of one letter per week. Last Sunday, I taught Letter #7. What I’ve found, and I think my co-teacher has found, is that we can easily study at this pace without it being an overwhelming burden on us to prepare. But, with 31 letters in the series, plus that toast that Screwtape makes at the end, this study will take a long time.

Last weeks was quite interesting. World War 2 has broken out, and the new adult Christian that the junior devil, Wormwood, is tempting, is confused. Screwtape advises the young devil, who is his nephew, to work on that confusion. Keep confused if you can, or tempt him into becoming either an extreme patriot or an extreme pacifist. Screwtape wrote,

“All extremes, except extreme devotion to the Enemy, are to be encouraged.”

The Enemy is Screwtape’s word for God. He sees God as the enemy, wanting to see all men live in extreme devotion to Him.

That rang true to me, but only once it was combined with Screwtape’s next advice. The extremes give rise to the “Cause”, something that is extremely important to the man being tempted (called the Patient) that he begins to mix it in with his religion. It become Christianity and the Cause. Religion becomes the reason for the Cause. Then, the Cause and religion are on equal footing. Then the Cause becomes primary, and religion is what justifies the Cause.

This gives rise to factions and cliques. The Cause becomes so important that a small group forms around the cause. Believers in the Cause are freely admitted; non-believers are excluded and looked down upon. Even if the Cause is a godly thing, with just a little tempting on Wormwood’s part, the sequence that turns the godly cause into an evil Cause is not that big of a stretch.

This is something we need to watch out for in the church. Each denomination has its Cause, i.e. its own doctrine, its own reason to be. Once we begin to think we are the only ones who get it (Christianity) right and look down on all others, the Cause has supplanted God as our reason to be. That can happen with denominations, with individual congregations, or with any small group within a congregation. It is something for us to watch out for.

I think I’m going to like this Screwtape study. I have some study materials from last time, and I’ve found much more available on-line. This is at least my fourth time to read the book, and I have found much help in it for myself even on this re-read.