Screwtapes Essay
America Cervantes
English 3-quarter 2
The Screwtape Letter Interpretive Essay
Though Screwtape’s distorted views on God’s love, Lewis implies that God is “Love” that He loves people for their sake, not His, and that His love challenges people to become generous in their love. Wormwood’s “patient” is drifting dangerously deeper into Christian belief, and Screwtape advises his protege to forsake fleshly temptations and try to corrupt his spirituality. He mentions that the various interpretations of Jesus that exist in society are devilish inventions. The advantages of these constructions, which we intend to change every thirty years or so, are manifold. In the first place they all tend to direct men’s devotion to something which does not exist, for each “historical Jesus” is unhistorical. The documents say what they say and cannot be added to; each new “historical Jesus” therefore has to be got out of them by suppression at one point and exaggeration at another. But Screwtape’s schemes could be applied to the orthodox picture equally well. How many Christians today follow Jesus’ very clear advice that being a true Christian means forsaking their family, selling everything they own and giving the proceeds to the poor, taking no thought for the morrow or where they will find food or rest? On the contrary, this bizarre instruction is near-universally suppressed by Christians. On the other hand, Jesus’ teachings about matters like Hell and the apocalypse has been exaggerated wildly out of proportion by many believers, to the point that it forms virtually the whole of their theology. Even within the ranks of faithful, believing Christians, there are numerous hugely divergent interpretations of Jesus’ wishes and desires.
Even the Bible itself presents a conflicting picture, with Mark’s gospel depicting Jesus as downright secretive about his divinity, instructing his followers to tell no one of his acts, whereas John’s gospel depicts
English 3-quarter 2
The Screwtape Letter Interpretive Essay
Though Screwtape’s distorted views on God’s love, Lewis implies that God is “Love” that He loves people for their sake, not His, and that His love challenges people to become generous in their love. Wormwood’s “patient” is drifting dangerously deeper into Christian belief, and Screwtape advises his protege to forsake fleshly temptations and try to corrupt his spirituality. He mentions that the various interpretations of Jesus that exist in society are devilish inventions. The advantages of these constructions, which we intend to change every thirty years or so, are manifold. In the first place they all tend to direct men’s devotion to something which does not exist, for each “historical Jesus” is unhistorical. The documents say what they say and cannot be added to; each new “historical Jesus” therefore has to be got out of them by suppression at one point and exaggeration at another. But Screwtape’s schemes could be applied to the orthodox picture equally well. How many Christians today follow Jesus’ very clear advice that being a true Christian means forsaking their family, selling everything they own and giving the proceeds to the poor, taking no thought for the morrow or where they will find food or rest? On the contrary, this bizarre instruction is near-universally suppressed by Christians. On the other hand, Jesus’ teachings about matters like Hell and the apocalypse has been exaggerated wildly out of proportion by many believers, to the point that it forms virtually the whole of their theology. Even within the ranks of faithful, believing Christians, there are numerous hugely divergent interpretations of Jesus’ wishes and desires.
Even the Bible itself presents a conflicting picture, with Mark’s gospel depicting Jesus as downright secretive about his divinity, instructing his followers to tell no one of his acts, whereas John’s gospel depicts