The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis is a fictional account of a senior devil advising a younger devil on how to divert his human target from following Christ. It addresses temptations, both personal and social, that prevent us from living an abundant and joyful Christian life.

When we grasp how Christians are deceived by false ideas and a false morality, we are enabled to live more faithfully.

Two opposing attitudes about the devil dominate the modern landscape. On the one hand are those who simply disregard his existence. On the other are those who are overly obsessed with the demonic. Both of these are errors. In reality, we are daily tempted to turn away from the fullness of life in Christ and to be what John Wesley referred to as “the almost Christian.”

Such temptations are seldom large and startling. They are rather subtle and disguised. “Did God really say …?” (Gen 3:1). From this crafty perspective, better than rejecting the faith outright is to live a diminished form of Christianity that is no different than the world. Yet God calls us to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. This means that we are to teach and learn how we can easily succumb to various temptations. In so doing, we can trust that God provides the grace to overcome these and so to live lives reflecting the divine light rather than demonic darkness.

In this summary, you will learn:

  • to be aware of and respond to temptation as a part of the Christian life;
  • that temptation is not so much a one-time event as it is a gradual and habitual turning away from God; and
  • that while evil is real, it is not more powerful than God.

A great temptation today is to regard the church as merely a human institution.

In earlier ages, reason turned people away from God. Today, however, it is more likely that the senses will distract us. Advertisements and other propaganda bombard our senses daily, creating needs that we believe we must fulfill. These daily distractions quickly become our life. Contemplation easily seems beside the point. Who has time for this anyway? We live in a culture of manufactured needs.

Despite these many distractions, at least some Christians are still in the habit of setting aside time for church. This fact alone, however, does not mean that when gathered as a body, we are not tempted. It can be easy to look around and see the flaws of the other members. We think, for example, “that mother has no idea how to parent children,” or “that member just wants to control others.” Who has not heard the cliché, “the church is full of hypocrites?” The temptation is to imagine that we are somehow better than other members, especially perhaps that member who seems always to be in need. We imagine their sin is greater than our own. To the extent this is true, the devil is winning; we are growing in the vice of pride rather than the virtue of humility.

One of the great temptations today is to imagine that the church is merely a human institution. True, one sees church members doing mean and hurtful things. It becomes easy to focus on both the pettiness and harmful actions of the church’s members. In all this, however, we are tempted to forget that the church, the body of Christ, is ultimately God’s creation, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail.

Many today claim to be “spiritual but not religious.” Exasperated or simply uninterested in church, they identify being Christian with being “spiritual.” Christianity becomes located in their inner minds or hearts. They might practice self-examination, but it is more like navel-gazing; they participate in no communal practices that help them make sense of being God’s people. When one becomes “spiritual” in this sense, one’s faith is more gnostic than Christian: an inner affair having little to do with the material world. A Christianity focused on “me and Jesus” diminishes the great call to embody a life together in and through Christ.

Focusing on our feelings, the fear of death or factious causes will lead us astray.

What is prayer? How are we supposed to pray? One is tempted to imagine that those prayers are the best that leave us with good feelings. We pray for courage, and we think such prayer is successful when we come away feeling brave. We pray for forgiveness, and unless we feel forgiven, we think that our prayers have failed. Satan tempts us to focus on moods and feelings. We become discouraged when our feelings do not cooperate. This is a disguised version, however, of trusting in ourselves rather than in God. We are not to trust in our own fleeting, subjective moods but in the ever-present mystery of One who knows us better than we know ourselves.

It might seem that in times of great disaster – war, for example – people are most likely to turn away from their faith. When faced with the immediate threat of death, however, disasters can cause people to turn to God. It is in ordinary times that we easily imagine death as a distant reality. We simultaneously sanitize death and fear it. The virtues that enable us to face dying and so to face living are easily ignored.

Many today think of the devil as a slightly absurd figure, a little man in “red tights.” Such a belief, however, is exactly what Satan desires. He works best by concealing himself and by redirecting our thoughts and attention. Lustful or angry thoughts focus our minds, for example, on that woman’s body or this rude man’s actions. Instead, in order to grow in virtue, we need to look at our own state of lust or anger. Conversely, we are tempted to extend charity to an organization at some distance from ourselves while withholding it from those close by. Another way our attention gets averted away from genuine faith is to reduce discipleship to working for “causes.” Whether the cause is patriotism or social justice, once a person becomes convinced that faith is only a means to some worldly end, then Satan has won.

Imagine three concentric circles: the imaginary on the outside, the intellect in the middle, and then the will as innermost. Satan wants our “virtues” to remain in the imaginary sphere while our inner wills are bound up in vice…

Join Holy Reads to read the rest of The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis book summary.

Download the App here and access 1,000+ bestselling Christian book summaries in written, audio, and video formats