parables of a prodigal world

In this second installment of this what-might-or-might-not-be-a-series-but-now-it-looks-likely-or-maybe-it'll-stop-at-just-two Series ( here's Part I , if you missed it), Screwtape, the guest of honor at the annual dinner of the Tempters' Training College for young devils, is addressing the new graduates. After a brief summary of the great strides that have been made at the meta-level over the last few centuries, he introduces the rookie tempters to their task: ...You, who are mere beginners, will not be entrusted with work of that kind. You will be attached as Tempters to private persons. Against them, or through them, our counterattack takes a different form. Democracy is the word with which you must lead them by the nose. The good work which our philological experts have already done in the corruption of human language makes it unnecessary to warn you that they should never be allowed to give this word a clear and definable meaning. They won't. It will never occur t...

The Screwtape Letters , as most of you already know, is a brilliant, mesmerizing, work of Christian satire by C. S. Lewis . Published in 1942, at the height of Britain's engagement in World War II, the story takes the form of a series of letters from a senior demon, Screwtape, to his nephew, a junior tempter named Wormwood, so as to advise him on methods of securing the damnation of an earthly man, known only as "the Patient." As I was reading Screwtape for the umpteenth time, some of Screwtape's letters to Wormwood struck me as especially appropriate in this hot political season, when factions abound and perspective is not an especially sexy concept. Here's one of them. More to come..or maybe not..I'm kind of getting burned out on this theme..gotta move forward, ya know? Anyhow: MY DEAR WORMWOOD, ...I had not forgotten my promise to consider whether we should make the patient an extreme patriot or an extreme pacifist. All extremes, except extreme devotion to...

C.S. Lewis was so instrumental in formulating my earliest understanding of Christianity that I still have a hundred or so C.S. Lewis quotes floating around my head (and on my computer). Although there is much I now disagree with Lewis about, I don't think I'd be able to arrive at that place of disagreement were it not for him (if you know what I mean). Well, then, here they are: "The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us; just as the roof of a sunhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it." "The Scotch catechism says that man's chief end is 'to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.' But we shall then know that these are the same thing. Fully to enjoy is to glorify. In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him." "We may note in passing that Jesus was never regarded as a mere moral teacher. He d...