Review: The Left Used The Screwtape Letters as Instructions on How to Screw up America.

The Screwtape Letters is a novel written by Christian apologist and author C.S. Lewis (the same dude who wrote The Chronicles of Narnia) that showcases the temptations that humans struggle with through the view of the demons doing the tempting. When I read this book toward the end of my freshman year of highschool, the first thing I noticed was how a lot of what Screwtape says in his letters is the same as what people on the Left have been doing for years…and I have some thoughts.

First of all, Screwtape technically isn’t the main character. He is a main character, but the one we’re sorta supposed to be rooting for is Wormwood. While we never get to read any of Wormwood’s letters to his “affectionate uncle,” we can guess that Wormwood is – in a way – like an inexperienced child. Screwtape often chastises him in his letters for being too reckless and blatant in his tempations or for focusing on things other than the person he’s supposed to be tempting. Through his uncle’s guidance, Wormwood is supposed to grow as a character by becoming an expert demon who can worm his way into the hearts and souls of people to turn them away from God (he’s a dynamic villian). The plot centers around Wormwood needing to grow as Screwtape tries to help him.

This brings me to the advice Screwtape gives Wormwood throughout the text. Like I said in the intro, I could recognize a lot of this advice because it so reminded me of what the Left is doing. Now, I’m not saying that all Leftists are demons…but they sure do act like them. For example, Screwtape often tells Wormwood to distract his “client” with the things that are going on in the moment so that he doesn’t read his Bible. While in The Screwtape Letters, the distractions come from things like World War II (since it was written in the 1940’s), in today’s world, the distractions are much more frequent and much more potent. Today, we have phones, computers, social media, video games, etc. We have an endless stream of stimulation and entertainment that we can turn to. Studies have shown that ever since the smart phone came out in 2007, religion and marriage rates (just to name a few) have gone down exponentially. While the Internet has given a larger platform to churches, it has also given a larger platform to the world that people – by nature – are more eager to go to and listen to.

Another piece of advice given by Screwtape is to make the church seem boring and dull or full of hypocrites. For today’s generation of church-going youth, this is especially potent. According to Lifeway Research, 70% of Christians leave the church and about half of that percentage leaves the faith forever. On top of that, only 40% of Gen Z holds no religious affiliation, Christian or not. After all, why would you want to go to church where it’s just a bunch of old people with sticks up their butts when you can just play around on social media and watch girls dance around in their underwear or talk about their pronouns?

Or on the flipside, even if the church seems like fun, we’ve all seen the documentaries; we’ve all read the reports. We’ve all heard about the pastor who preaches against sin, but cheats on his wife. We’ve all heard about the emotional/spiritual/phsycological abuse that happened at Hillsong. We’ve all heard about the girl who claimed to be Christian but acted completely different when she got to college. We’ve all heard of the church that covered up the rape. We’ve all seen the person that converted to some form of Christianity and became a complete nutjob (like the people in Shiny Happy People). Unfortunately, while some of these accusations about the church aren’t completely without truth, it overshadows the fact that that is not what all churches are like. In today’s culture where we love to watch the chaos and the drama unfold, it’s easy for people to see this stuff and never want to give God or church a second thought and just turn their backs on the whole endeavor.

Lastly, at the very end of The Screwtape Letters, we get a bonus chapter called Screwtape Proposes a Toast. Originally published in The Saturday Evening Post, this chapter is about Screwtape giving the after-dinner speech to all the young demons who had graduated the Tempter’s Training College. In this toast, Screwtape talks about the school system and how to use it to further Hell’s agenda. He talks about how the schools should lower standards for everyone to make them dumb (and thus, controllable) and how they should become all about inclusion and not actually about a higher education. He goes on from here, but the main point still stands: Does this seem familiar? While C.S. Lewis was writing satire here, his words would sadly become prophetic.

In California, teachers were claiming that if they aren’t allowed to teach LGBTQ+ to your kids (i.e if they aren’t allowed to groom/prey on your children) then your kids won’t be able to learn math. In several other states, math has been deemed racist, grading standards have been lowered because grades are racist, and several universities will accept your application because you have dark skin, not because you did anything to deserve it. Heck, where I live, barely anyone can read at grade level. A recent survey showed that only 13% of 8th graders could understand history well; only 1% of 8th graders were proficient in history.

This leads me back to the title of this post, my thesis for this review. The Left must’ve read The Screwtape Letters and decided to use it as an instruction manual because there are so many parallels in it to what we see happening today. That is why I will end this by highly recommending this book. If you want to be able to fight back against what the Left is doing, I would suggest reading the Screwtape letters to have a bit more understanding of what they are doing.

Until next time,

M.J.