Screwtape: Ruining the Race by Steven Lee 

This Sunday see the release of the fourth letter of Screwtape: Ruining the Race written by Steven Lee, who is one of our preaching team. It is being released one chapter at a time over a period of  ten weeks. This is designed to encourage people to think, reflect on and even discuss the points raised in each chapter - rather than galloping through the booklet in a single sitting.

The premise of the book is that Screwtape is an experienced devil. His nephew, Wormwood, has had a bumpy start to his demonic career but has been given a new opportunity with a group of recently retired Christians.   Screwtape’s advice as to how to plot the ruin of these humans is contained in a series of letters.

Steven does not claim to know the Devil’s mind but writes about the temptations, opportunities and challenges that he finds in retirement.
 
The fourth letter of the book is as follows....
 
4
 
My dear Wormwood,
I wonder, given some of the questions in your last letter, as to whether you may be in danger of losing sight of the bigger issues. Of these, one of the most important, is how your pathetic two-legged creatures see themselves. We previously touched on this when reflecting on the need to encourage in them a sense that their time, money, talents are somehow theirs rather than His. Although they irritatingly and incessantly call him Lord, Lord, it is gratifying how frequently they act as though they are the master and He is the servant.
Identity is of course a valuable weapon, especially amongst the young, in the wonderfully confused landscape our loyal forces have helped to cultivate. However, it can be an equally useful tool with the retired. Over many years we have engrained in them the idea that their sense of worth comes from what they do. It has become an integral part of identity. The frequency of “What do you do?” as a question shows the breadth of our success.
For years many of your current retirees have had an easy answer to this and have not really had to think much about their identity. But now that they are no longer in paid employment that easy answer has been removed and they are delightfully vulnerable to attack. As they grapple with their identity they may try out witty ripostes, such a “I am working on my handicap”. However, underneath this you may be able to teach them, with a growing sense of desperation, to hunt for meaning and significance in the activities that now fill their weekly schedules. All those years of linking identity and worth can now potentially reap sweet rewards for us in terms of depression, with people giving up and trying to deaden their thoughts.
The Enemy, however, is not weaponless in this particular battlefield skirmish. As you well know that most dangerous of books has a radical valuation of these hairless bipeds that is capable of totally transforming this war. It is shameful the way He wastefully bestows on them title after title even though they are surely the most underserving. Image of God, children of God, a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession and on and on such titles go. It is sickening, and an affront to our Infernal Majesty. Due to our strenuous efforts, they hear these words but the implications rarely sink in. They must not realise that their value and identity is a gift from God and not something they must achieve by their labours.  We must constantly reassert that they are human doings not human beings. For if we triumph, we can look forward to rejoicing in their sense of utter despair and worthlessness when they become housebound.
We often boast of our propaganda achievements but once again the other side has not been without its tawdry efforts. Particularly annoying to our cause has been the term ‘Frontline’. It has proved remarkably infectious and most unhelpful. I would not have you underestimate its potential implication should it gain a strong foothold in your particular group of retirees. It reminds people that they are involved in spiritual warfare, something we have been tasked to painstakingly avoid. Not only that, it immediately suggests that they have a vital, active role in this warfare requiring that they be on high alert and in constant touch with Enemy command. It gives an important role and purpose to every one of these insignificant ants and their pathetic struggles. Even the housebound receiving carers at home has a clear place among the ranks. It would be a severe threat to our cause to have so many focused on their daily opportunities to infect others with their vile beliefs. Thankfully very few of them are even near their Master’s expectation that their lives will bear much fruit with a harvest of thirty, sixty or a hundred souls. Strive to keep their expectation and achievements in this area to a minimum.
At the moment our propaganda team has yet to come up with something that would negate ‘Frontline’, though do not doubt that they will. Just remember some of their past successes. Think of how for many centuries we were tormented by that term witnesses but then came the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the exquisite turn off of their doorstep activities. Until we have successfully negated it as a term you need to be on maximum alert to distract people away from ‘Frontline’ both in conversations and personal reflections.
Thankfully our propaganda department is enjoying much greater success with a recent offering from the Enemy’s propaganda - the idea of pilgrims and pilgrimage. Yet, reading through the files on your group, I notice one enthusiast. It is of course not a new idea and can usefully be tarnished as ‘worthy’ or relegated to mere historical relevance. Our own side have also managed to foster a form of pilgrimage that although still having echoes of spirituality has almost nothing to do with the Enemy. It has become a journey about discovering yourself, and encounters with others. Sadly, there is nothing wrong with these things; they just require careful monitoring in case things get out of hand.  Yet, as we know, such activities lack any real power if not centred on Him.
However, I am sure you are aware of that annoying so called pilgrim’s charter with its trite statements of ‘I am not in control’, ‘I am not in a hurry’, ‘I walk in faith and hope’ and so on. Such statements in the hands of those retired can be incendiary. Particularly concerning is that Latin word, they love to bandy about, ‘peregrinatio’ – which they define as ‘wandering or adventuring with and for the love of God.’ Such foul thoughts need to be carefully contained. We have of course the great advantage that such ideas can seem so vague and disconnected with your patients’ daily lives. But have you seen their prayer:
Holy Spirit, I yield to your pace and your purpose for my life today.
I hoist my sails and surrender: blow me wherever you will.
I open my schedule and surrender: interrupt my carefully laid plans.
I yield my heart and surrender: surprise me today I pray.
Just imagine what might happen if your patients started regularly saying that and meaning in it. I have made myself ill by writing such profanities and need to retire to my chamber.
Yours disgusted,
SCREWTAPE
 
 
A limited number of printed copies of this letter will be available on Sunday and the booklet will appear chapter by chapter on the Running the Race pages of the Church Website. At the end of the ten weeks printed copies of the whole booklet will be available if you wish to give them to friends whom you think might find it helpful, or you can direst them to the church website.