SPX Adult Education Excerpts from The Screwtape Letters – By C. S. Lewis

4 week Book Study Sunday 9:15-10:30am beginning Nov. 26 Monday 7-8:15pm beginning Nov. 27

Only the letters (chapters) below will be discussed: Week 1 Characters:  Wormwood – nephew of Screwtape  Screwtape -- a mature demon instructing Wormwood in the craft of capturing human souls  The Patent – a young Englishman who is Wormwood’s first prey  The Enemy – God Letter 1: Reason and Reality “The trouble about argument is that it moves the whole struggle onto the Enemy’s own ground” Screwtape Sample question: What is the connection between “thinking and doing”, and how does this impact our daily lives? Letter 2: Distracting the Christian mind “The Enemy allows this disappointment to occur on the threshold of every human endeavor.” Screwtape Sample question: Screwtape claims, “One of our great allies at present is the Church itself.” What strategies might tempters employ with new Christians to create dissatisfaction with the Church? Letter 3: Relationships “You must bring him to a condition in which he can practice self-examination without discovering any of those facts about himself which are perfectly clear to anyone who has ever lived in the same house with him or worked in the same office.” Screwtape Sample question: What annoying habits of others irritate you? Which of your annoying habits do you think irritate others? Week 2 Letter 4: Sincere Prayer “It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out.” Screwtape Sample question: What does Screwtape mean when he writes that humans don’t “start from a direct perception of Him”? Letter 5: War “You have tasted the wine which is the reward of all our labors – the anguish and bewilderment of a human soul” Screwtape Sample question: What is Screwtape’s attitude toward war? Does it surprise you? Letter 6: Focus “He wants men to be concerned with what they do; our business is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them.” Screwtape Sample question: Why does Screwtape write “It is your business tosee that the patient never thinks of the present fear as his appointed cross? Week 3 Letter 7: Extremism “Once you have made the world an end, and faith a means, you have almost won you man” Screwtape Letter 8: Troughs and Peaks “Our cause is never in more danger than when a human,….asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys” Screwtape Letter 9: Pleasures “Never forget that when we are dealing with any pleasure in its healthy and normal and satisfying form, we are, in a sense, on the Enemy’s ground.” Screwtape Week 4 Letter 10: Bad Fiends “All mortals tend to turn into the thing they are pretending to be.” Screwtape Letter 11: Laughter “Only a clever human can make a real joke about virtue” Screwtape Letter 12: Nothing “The safest road to Hell is the gradual one – the gentle slope” Screwtape