IRP #5

[Alannah]

My book for this IRP was “The Screwtape Letters” by C.S. Lewis. .The characters are a senior demon named Screwtape, a junior demon named Wormwood, Wormwood’s assigned human (Lewis refers to him as his patient), the patient’s mother, The Enemy (also known as God), and Our Father (the devil). The book doesn’t say the patient or the patient’s mom’s names.In the very beginning of the book, the writer has a preface that says that Screwtape is a demon, so everything he says shouldn't be taken as truth, and that demons are liars. A brief summary would be that the senior demon, Screwtape, is mentoring his nephew, Wormwood with letters on how to tempt his assigned human to make him go to hell when he dies, not heaven. The patient didn’t have faith in the beginning of the book, but by the second letter, Screwtape tells Wormwood that because his patient is now a Christian, he would have to work overtime to tempt him. The man finds a Christian woman, falls in love, and she has a Christian family. Screwtape tells Wormwood how terrible it is that he fell in love with a Christian woman and a Christian family. Then something awful happens and Wormwood will have to answer to his uncle, Screwtape.
My experience with this book was sort of weird. For this IRP, I was planning on reading a different book, but my mom asked me to read this book. It is a pretty short book, so I decided to read it. Lewis is British, and this book was written in the 40’s, so it was very hard to read, and I had to ask my mom for help with many words. It was also kind of confusing because Screwtape refers to God as “The Enemy”, and the devil as “Our Father Below”, so it got really confusing at times and I would have to backtrack. As I was reading the book, I kept thinking to myself that if we all supposedly have a guardian angel (it doesn’t say in the Bible but we just assume), do we all have a demon that fights against our guardian angel and tries to tempt us to die and go to hell instead of heaven? I had many times reading it as it would get boring from time to time, but overall, an okay book.
My Big Idea word for this book is Spiritual Warfare. So often we think about how much God loves us and what he did for us, but we never really stop and think about how much the devil hates us and wants us to be in hell rather than in Heaven with God. The devil and his demons want to tempt us in doing things we know we shouldn’t do or things that God has forbidden. Demons don't care if they hurt you in the process of tempting you, they just want to tempt you and make you not believe that there is a God who loves you more than anything. In the book, Screwtape told Wormwood many options of how to get the patient’s mind off of God and on the things of this world. “But whatever the nature of the composite object, you must keep him praying to it-- to the thing he has made, not to the Person who made him” (Lewis, 18). Screwtape is saying that when Wormwood wants to tempt the patient, he has to use material things. The two demons also want the patient to stop praying for good. “The best thing, where it is possible, is to keep the patient from the serious intention of praying altogether” (Lewis, 15)
***SPOILERS*** Towards the end of the book, Screwtape turns into a centipede. (I thought that part was kind of weird and creepy). The patient has been in the war for some time and dies in combat, but he had faith, so his soul was taken to heaven. We, as Christians, should think this is good news, but for Screwtape and Wormwood, they lost a soul and a chance of that soul going to hell. At the end, Screwtape told Wormwood he failed. Screwtapes then tells Wormwood that he will have fun eating him because of his failure. Before every letter, Screwtape writes as an introduction, “My dear Wormwood,” and closes with, “Your affectionate uncle, Screwtape.” But for the last letter, Screwtape started with, “My dear, my very dear Wormwood, my poppet, my pigsnie,” and ends the letters with, “Most truly do I sign myself, Your increasingly and ravenously affectionate uncle, Screwtape”