Uncle Screwtape

In The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, Uncle Screwtape, a senior demon, gives advice to Wormwood, a junior demon, on how to tempt his patient and secure the damnation of the young man.   Using the persona of Screwtape, Lewis is able to flip common wisdom upside down and guide his readers to consider the threats to their own relationship to God.

There’s much that Screwtape does not understand about God. Screwtape puzzles over the inexplicable appeal God has to humans and can’t fathom His motives in loving

them. 

But Screwtape is adept at temptation. For example, Screwtape knows that direct assaults on the logic of salvation are not as effective as subtle distractions from worship.  And he recognizes that war (the setting of the piece is WWII) brings many opportunities to secure the damnation of humans but even more opportunities for humans to turn to God and be saved. 

This semester I had my freshman class read The Screwtape Letters. As a writing assignment, I had my students take on the persona of Screwtape to write how to tempt a college freshman.  I wasn’t sure what to expect.  But my students understood both the persona of  Screwtape and  the real  temptations they face. 

In their essays, they talked about how college is a prime time for temptation because they are vulnerable; they are separated from the foundations they grew up with—home, school, and church.  They want to make new friends, to succeed in school, to continue their walk with God, but each of these desires comes with opportunities to fail.

I learned from my students that one way to tempt a young man away from his studies was to distract him during class by having him notice how the young women are dressed.  A way to tempt young women is with the attraction of a male, so that she will trust the words of her date more than the words of her Lord.  Others wrote about parties that put social life ahead of schoolwork until assignments are due and then to tempt the student with ideas about how to cheat. Students wrote about how easy it is to sleep in on Sunday mornings and drift away from a close walk with God. I was proud of my students for their insights and ability to articulate these temptations.

In reflecting on this assignment, I realized that self-awareness is the necessary first armor of protection against temptation. C.S. Lewis was clever to use the character of Screwtape to bring his readers to an awareness of temptation.  If we aren’t aware of our temptations, how can we resist them?

Our second armor of protection comes in the admonition Paul gave to the Corinthians: temptation is real, but God provides the escape.  I Corinthians 10:13 says, “The only temptation that has come to you is that which everyone has. But you can trust God, who will not permit you to be tempted more than you can stand. But when you are tempted, he will also give you a way to escape so that you will be able to stand it” (New Century Version).

Nancy Shankle

Abilene Christian University