Screwtape Letters Book Report

My Dearest Christian In The Screwtape Letters it is half of the conversation between two demons, Screwtape and Wormwood. Screwtape is helping Wormwood, Screwtape’s nephew, on how to tempt and keep a man form "the Enemy," being God. This book shows us the many different ways Satan has twisted and turned things for his benefit, like the church, how we pray and other things that we think are small. One of the first things brought up is the church, "Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean the Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes our boldest tempters uneasy" (The Screwtape Letters letter

First Screwtape tells Wormwood in his third letter, also bringing into the picture The Patient's mother, to make his prayers purely spiritual, so that he focuses only on her sins, and with time things that annoy him but are not really sins. Second, Screwtape tells Wormwood just have The Patient just "go through the motions," "Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts" (The Screwtape Letters letter 12) as many Christians know nowadays know "If you're not progressing you declining" this is because God wants us to be active, so why wouldn't the demons and the devil want us to do the opposite. Screwtape explains that the key to making one just go through the motions is you must be extremely subtle. Third, Screwtape tells Wormwood to use the "heads I win, tails you lose" method when The Patient prays. If he doesn't get what he prays for, then it is easy for Wormwood to turn him, but if The Patient does get what he desires, Screwtape says to have him see the physical implication so that he thinks that it would have happened anyway, whether he prayed or not. Nowhere in the book the real purpose of prayer mentioned, which is to communicate, to build a relationship and to seek guidance from the most high, supreme and omnipotent

One, our pleasures. "I know we have won many a soul through pleasure. All the same, it is His [God's] invention, not ours. He made the pleasures: all our research so far has not enabled us to produce one. All we can do is to encourage the humans to take the pleasures which our Enemy has produced, at times, or in ways, or in degrees, which He has forbidden" (The Screwtape Letters letter 9) Here Screwtape admits that they have to twist and turn our pleasures away from God's intention for them. Two, our unselfishness. Screwtape says that "A woman's view of unselfishness is doing things for others" whereas "A man's view of unselfishness not making trouble for others," it is easy to see that these views will conflict, and the demons will push this more and more. Three, our Time, Screwtape and other demons suggest that man is entitled to their time is their own and no other, thus building a sense of entitlement. "The man can neither make, nor retain, one moment of time; it all comes to him by pure gift; he might as well regard the sun and moon as his chattels" (The Screwtape Letters letter 21) So, when something happens that they don't plan for they feel it is a burden and a hindrance to something that belongs rightly to them. Four, the reasons we laugh, "Fun is closely related to Joy - a