1. Pam Halter says:

    Good thoughts, Becky! And Happy Birthday, again!

    • Thanks, Pam. So glad you stop over here as well as Facebook!

      “You’re a true speculative fiction fan when . . . ” One answer could be, when you go to every speculative fiction site you can find on the Internet. 😉

      Becky

  2. That quote is FANTASTIC. Time to re-read The Screwtape Letters, methinks…

    • It really is, R. J. But Stephen says it’s apocryphal. The friend who posted it clearly ascribed it to Lewis and to The Screwtape Letters, so I don’t know which is right. I re-read the book maybe two years ago, and the quote certainly sounds like something the mentor demon would say. But to verify, I’ll need to re-read.

      Becky

  3. OK, I downloaded a free copy of Screwtape available on line and did a word search. Provided it’s an unabridged version, and I have no reason to believe it is, then the quote in my article is not authentic. Here is one that reflects Lewis’s true thoughts:

    Certainly we do not want men to allow their Christianity to flow over into their political life, for the establishment of anything like a really just society would be a major disaster. On the other hand we do want, and want very much, to make men treat Christianity as a means; preferably, of course, as a means to their own
    advancement, but, failing that, as a means to anything—even to social justice. The thing to do is to get a man at first to value social justice as a thing which the Enemy demands, and then work him on to the stage at which he values Christianity because it may produce social justice. For the Enemy will not be used as a convenience. Men or nations who think they can revive the Faith in order to make a good society might just as well think they can use the stairs of Heaven as a short cut to the nearest chemist’s shop. Fortunately it is quite easy to coax humans round this little corner. Only today I have found a passage in a Christian writer where he recommends his own version of Christianity on the ground that “only such a faith can outlast the death of old cultures and the birth of new civilisations”. You see the little rift? “Believe this, not because it is true, but for some other reason.” That’s the game,

    Your affectionate uncle
    SCREWTAPE

    Becky

    • Alack! Once I would have enjoyed this quote mainly as a condemnation of “progressivist” Christians who end up swapping the faith’s means for ends, and wanting Jesus mainly because they want equality and racial justice first. But now I cannot do that, because it’s increasingly clear non-“progressivist” Christians favor their faith mainly as a means to making America into something. Truly tragic.

      Screwtape, in his own way, is ridiculously wise and prescient.

    • Roger Spendlove says:

      Unfortunately, that supposed quote from “The Screwtape Letters” is indeed bogus. Check out this article in which a Breakpoint blogger tracked it down: http://www.breakpoint.org/tp-home/blog-archives/blog-archives/entry/4/29996

      All I can say is, I was fooled too. It ~sounded~ so seemingly authentic.

What do you think?