3/3/13 -‐ Lead Us Not into Temptation: The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis ...
Summary: Screwtape is critical of Wormwood's failed attempts to corrupt his ...
3/3/13 -‐ Lead Us Not into Temptation: The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis Assignment #3: Read Letters 16-‐20. Summary: Screwtape is critical of Wormwood’s failed attempts to corrupt his patient. Although Wormwood is doing his “devil” best, the patient is still going to the same church where he started and he is not giving into his lustful desires. Screwtape charts a different corruption course, leaving Wormwood’s past failures behind and focusing on the patient’s eventual marriage. He spends the bulk of his time talking about how to use marriage as a tool to get the patient off the Enemy’s track and onto his one way road to hell. Letter #19 diverges from the marriage conversation for a moment as Screwtape shares some paranoid thoughts (apparently, he doesn’t trust Wormwood) and recalls the falling out between Satan, aka “Our Father Below,” and God, aka “the Enemy,” that occurred long ago. Quotes and Questions: Letter #16 – Church Shopping: “In the first place the parochial organization 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.” When you’re shopping for a church what are you looking for? Read 1 Corinthians 2 & 3. According to these two chapters, what should we be looking for while trying to find a church home? Letter #17 – Gluttony: What is Screwtape’s definition of gluttony? What is the “All I Want” mentality? How does this “All I Want” mentality manifest itself in your life? Letter #18 – Messing with Marriage: Genesis says the “two become one flesh.” Contrast this statement with the notion that marriage is “being in love.” How are these ideas similar? How are they different? Letter #19 – God is Love?: “All His talk about Love must be a disguise for something else…” Have you ever struggled to believe or accept God’s love? If so, what makes it so difficult? Letter #20 – Deranged Marriage: What kind of woman would Screwtape have the patient marry?
