Screwtape Proposes a Toast

This encore by C.S. Lewis with a speech to the graduates of a new class of tempters covers many different topics and elaborates on the points that Screwtape wrote to his nephew about during his tempting.

One of the topics that I found interesting was about the number of "great sinners" growing fewer. I guess he sees this as being done by many powerful rulers of the world who did bad things in their countries being brought out of rule. But in place of these “great sinners” there are a number of shall we say “lesser sinners” who may impact people’s lives even more. These people include lower rulers who corrupt the areas they rule and more so movie stars and other celebrities. People see movie stars and really try to model their lives off of them. They watch every move they do and are obsessed with knowing what they are up to. They can have such a large influence on people, more so than they usually think. If all the people that watch them and attempt at modeling their lives off them influence the people close to them in their lives sooner rather that later we could have a world of sinners.

All in all this world is not getting rid of sin and temptation anytime soon and people need to evaluate what they are doing and seeing if it is really a good way to be acting.

Letter 28

I find it interesting Screwtape talking about not wanting the patient to die before their work is done on him. I never thought of it that way. I always pictured the devil wanting people dead, but really he wants them to act in immoral ways and get others to do the same, to make the world an unhappy place. Therefore one must be alive for the devil to be able to have an influence on you. The devil is apparently visible in many different forms these days, many people do not even know that they are portraying themselves or other things that can be seen in that light.

The people that you associate yourself with will definitely have an impact on what type of life you live. Falling in love with someone of strong faith and moral values is going to help you to do the same. This has already been talked about, but Screwtape is kind of recapping the failures of their mission on the patient. It is also true that thinking about your distractions away from God will bring you closer.

I like the quote that Screwtape uses “taken out of himself.” It is talking about not thinking about oneself, but instead worrying about the well being of others. It is his effort of helping others because of a moral obligation that he may feel all on his own, but in essence brings him closer to God because it keeps him from other distractions and helps those people to feel better about themselves.