Friday in the 4th Week of Lent: Letter 25
Today in Letter 25 we revisit several themes from previous Letters like TIME, PLEASURE, CONFUSION and how to use them to the benefit of effective tempting. We shall also hear of some new tactics, particularly corrupting CHANGE and PERMANENCE with NOVELTY and the horror of the SAME OLD THING.
First, there are a number of words and phrases that need to be defined.
1. First is the word “MERE” and the way it is used in the 1st paragraph in conjunction with Christianity. You will remember that one of my favorite C. S. Lewis books is Mere Christianity. When Screwtape uses the words “MERELY” or “MERE” he is referring to the basics or essentials of Christianity. More on that in a moment.
2. Hedonist – you will remember from Letter 22 refers to someone devoted to the pursuit of please as an ultimate end. A Hedonist is obsessed with personal pleasure.
3. Novelty – is the quality of being new and interesting.
4. Avarice – another of the “Deadly Sins” it refers to extreme greed – the love of money.
5. Low-brow and high-brow art – Low-brow art would be like pop art in today’s art culture while high-brow art is anything considered sophisticated or intellectual.
6. Lasciviousness – lustful or lecherous
7. Endemic – means occurring regularly.
8. Gunwale – full to overflowing.
9. Byronic – dark and romantically brooding.
10. Feckless – feeble or weak.
Second, I want to take a look at our first scripture reading for today from the Book of Wisdom because I think it illustrates a lot of what we hear in Letter 25.
Now the book of Wisdom is from the Apocrypha which are those books we consider holy and instructive but not quite on the same level as Scripture. This book is often called, the Wisdom of Solomon although it was written long after Solomon lived.
As you read this passage, think of how we might hear these same words today especially when it comes to the differences between different Christian denominations and groups. Remember, our religion is Christianity and our denomination is Episcopal. We are Christians who choose to worship in an Episcopal Church. Other family and friends may worship in a Baptist, Methodist, Catholic or some other denomination, but we are all Christians.
I am often asked what is the difference in beliefs between one church and another. Certainly, there are differences, but we have far more in common and that is what brings us together as the Body of Christ. We should always consider ourselves MERELY or BASICALLY CHRISTIAN.
This is the problem Screwtape sees with the community of Christians the Patient is now worshipping with since his 2nd conversion and meeting his girlfriend at Church. They all have individual interests, of course, but the bond remains mere Christianity.
What the demons want is Christianity defined in terms of some extraneous discipline. Look and online and you can find Christianity defined by any number of popular movements. Just as there is pop art, abstract art, Expressionism, Impressionism and on and on, the same is true for Christian belief.
Screwtape introduces Wormwood to the Horror of the Same Old Thing. A more contemporary way to put this would be FOMO or the Fear of Missing Out. What is the latest Christian Fad? Screwtape tells Wormwood:
The humans live in time, and experience reality successively. To experience much of it, therefore, they must experience many different things; in other words, they must experience change.
I first read this paragraph I was surprised especially when Screwtape says that we humans actually need change and that change is one of those God-given pleasures! But don’t we come to Church to be changed – for the BETTER. As I read further, Screwtape’s logic began to make sense.
Think about how much has changed in just the last 10 years. The other day, I used my IPhone and artificial intelligence to read the very small print on a medicine bottle. Phyllis’s car practically drives itself and will even parallel park automatically. I remember when power windows were a luxury.
We all want change when we want it and then we need some stability or as Screwtape calls it – some permanence – to get ready for this new way of living. Lots of things changed because of the Pandemic. You can now watch our 11:00 am worship service and Rich’s Bible Study online. You can study The Screwtape Letters online with me. Zoom Meetings are now a regular option. My daughter works remotely for a national company who has employees living all over the U.S. These are all changes that are now just part of everyday life. Screwtape tells Wormwood that when change and permanence work in harmony then we humans experience a RHYTHM of life.
This Rhythm is the opportunity for demons to twist and corrupt the pleasure of change. He says: “so we pick out this natural pleasantness of change and twist it into a demand for absolute novelty.”
Lewis uses NOVELTY to mean that we are constantly addicted to more and more new and exciting stuff. The Patient and all other humans should be addicted to the excitement of continual change so that we are never satisfied. Whether it is the British game of conkers popular during WWII or the latest and greatest new online video game, this need for something new is how demons can disrupt and corrupt the RHYTHM of change and permanence.
The way this works is that NOVELTY leads us to always seek the next new thing for the shear pleasure of being the first. Screwtape uses the newest latest Fashions as a perfect example. Why else would so many humans tune into see who was wearing WHAT at the Oscars or the Emmys. Screwtape gives Wormwood a good example:
Thus, by inflaming the horror of the Same Old Thing we have recently made the Arts, for example, less dangerous to us than perhaps, they have ever been, “low-brow” and “high-brow” artists alike being now drawn into fresh and still fresh, excesses of lasciviousness, unreason, cruelty, and pride. Finally, the desire for novelty is indispensable if we are to produce Fashions or Vogues.
Screwtape closes his letter with the other side of the coin, reminding Wormwood that the love of stability can also be a good temptation. In this case, the Patient can refuse to recognize that the world has changed and live solely in the past which is often little more than a figment of our imagination.
Our collect for today reminds us that each day brings the Good News of Christ and with it comes thankfulness for the present and the joy of a life changed through the redeeming work of our Savior. Let us pray:
O God, you have given us the Good News of your abounding love in your Son Jesus Christ: So fill our hearts with thankfulness that we may rejoice to proclaim the good tidings we have received; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.