Who among us has never wondered if there might not really be a tempter
sitting on our shoulders or dogging our steps? C.S. Lewis dispels all doubts.
In The Screwtape Letters, one of his bestselling works, we are made privy to
the instructional correspondence between a senior demon, Screwtape, and his
wannabe diabolical nephew Wormwood. As mentor, Screwtape coaches Wormwood in
the finer points, tempting his "patient" away from God. Each letter is
a masterpiece of reverse theology, giving the reader an inside look at the
thinking and means of temptation. Tempters, according to Lewis, have two
motives: the first is fear of punishment, the second a hunger to consume or
dominate other beings. On the other hand, the goal of the Creator is to woo
us unto himself or to transform us through his love from "tools into servants
and servants into sons." It is the dichotomy between being consumed and
subsumed completely into another's identity or being liberated to be utterly
ourselves that Lewis explores with his razor-sharp insight and wit.

The most brilliant feature of The Screwtape Letters may be likening hell
to a bureaucracy in which "everyone is perpetually concerned about his own
dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone
lives the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment."
We all understand bureaucracies, be it the Department of Motor Vehicles,
the IRS, or one of our own making. So we each understand the temptations that
slowly lure us into hell. If you've never read Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
is a great place to start. And if you know Lewis, but haven't read this,
you've missed one of his core writings.

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