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Shasta’s Meeting with Aslan in ‘The Horse and His Boy’ Helped Me Embrace God’s Sovereignty
Elijah David in Articles, Aug 5, 2022

100 Cupboards
Reviews, Aug 5, 2022

123. Which Fantastical Novels Won Big at the 2022 Realm Awards?
Fantastical Truth Podcast, Aug 2, 2022

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When Legends Rise, Daphne Self
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Shadow of Honor, Ronie Kendig
Lost Bits, Kerry Nietz
Rats of Dweltford, Matt Barron
Vivid, Ashley Bustamante
The Godot Orange, Bruce Roberts
My Soul to Take, Bryan Davis
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Deceived, Madisyn Carlin
Arena (2022 edition), Karen Hancock
Kurt Nickle-Dickle of Whiskers, N. J. McLagan
"In a city where debts are paid in blood, one young man will learn that everyone needs help sometimes if they want to survive." New in the Lorehaven library: A Matter of Blood, Lauren H Salisbury
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100 Cupboards
“With thoughtful narrative voice and emotional honesty, N. D. Wilson’s 100 Cupboards (2007) opens doors to worlds of mystery and adventure.”
—Lorehaven on Aug 5, 2022

Blood Secrets
“Blood Secrets charts a satisfying conclusion to the Skyworld duology, with dashing prose that draws readers into this world of steam and mystery.”
—Lorehaven on Jul 22, 2022

Jabberwock’s Curse
“In Jabberwock’s Curse, R.V. Bowman blends different elements from Lewis Carroll’s classic into a quick-paced coming-of age story whose three heroes must learn who they were created to be.”
—Lorehaven on Jul 8, 2022

The Governess of Greenmere
“Obscure Arthurian and Celtic references blend with biblical imagery and high heroism in this brief yet old-souled story.”
—Lorehaven on Jul 1, 2022

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123. Which Fantastical Novels Won Big at the 2022 Realm Awards?
Fantastical Truth, Aug 2, 2022

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Fantastical Truth, Jul 29, 2022

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The original SpecFaith: est. 2006

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Yes, Speculative Faith Is Closed, At Least For Now
E. Stephen Burnett, Dec 30

Last Stands, Custer, General Gordon, and Being a Christian Warrior
Travis Perry, Jul 2

How Christian Must Christian Fiction Be?
Rebecca LuElla Miller, May 24

Gender In Fiction: The Implication Of Failure
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Making a Story Visual UPDATE: Behind the Scenes of the Animal Eye Comic
Travis Perry, May 9

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Lorehaven helps Christian fans explore fantastical stories for Christ’s glory: fantasy, science fiction, and beyond. Articles, the library, reviews, podcasts, gifts, and the Lorehaven Guild community help fans discern and enjoy the best Christian-made fantastical stories, applying their meanings to the real world Jesus Christ calls us to serve. Subscribe free to get any updates you choose and to access the Lorehaven Guild.
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Screwtape on Redefining ‘Realism’

“Your patient, properly handled, will have no difficulty in regarding his emotion at the sight of human entrails as a revelation of Reality and his emotion at the sight of happy children or fair weather as mere sentiment.”
E. Stephen Burnett on Jan 22, 2013
4 comments

In this letter penned by His Abysmal Sublimity Screwtape, Under Secretary of the Satanic Lowerarchy, Screwtape (in C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters) advises Wormwood about how the junior temper can best stoke sin from a human during times of real war and horror.

For those who would also redefine “realism” in fiction as only showing the nasty effects of sin, and not also the wonder of God’s beauty, truth, Gospel, and creation — please take heed.

Probably the scenes he [the unnamed human “patient” of Screwtape’s demon nephew] is now witnessing will not provide material for an intellectual attack on his faith — your previous failures have put that out of your power. But there is a sort of attack on the emotions which can still be tried. It turns on making him feel, when first he sees human remains plastered on a wall, that this is “what the world is really like” and that all his religion has been a fantasy.

His Abysmal Sublimity Screwtape (Max McLean, from The Screwtape Letters stage production)

His Abysmal Sublimity Screwtape (Max McLean, from The Screwtape Letters stage production)

You will notice that we have got them completely fogged about the meaning of the word “real”. They tell each other, of some great spiritual experience, “All that really happened was that you heard some music in a lighted building”; here “Real” means the bare physical facts, separated from the other elements in the experience they actually had. On the other hand, they will also say “It’s all very well discussing that high dive as you sit here in an armchair, but wait till you get up there and see what it’s really like”: here “real” is being used in the opposite sense to mean, not the physical facts (which they know already while discussing the matter in armchairs) but the emotional effect those facts will have on a human consciousness. Either application of the word could be defended; but our business is to keep the two going at once so that the emotional value of the word “real” can be placed now on one side of the account, now on the other, as it happens to suit us.

The general rule which we have now pretty well established among them is that in all experiences which can make them happier or better only the physical facts are “Real” while the spiritual elements are “subjective”; in all experiences which can discourage or corrupt them the spiritual elements are the main reality and to ignore them is to be an escapist.

Thus in birth the blood and pain are “real”, the rejoicing a mere subjective point of view; in death, the terror and ugliness reveal what death “really means”. The hatefulness of a hated person is “real” — in hatred you see men as they are, you are disillusioned; but the loveliness of a loved person is merely a subjective haze concealing a “real” core of sexual appetite or economic association. Wars and poverty are “really” horrible; peace and plenty are mere physical facts about which men happen to have certain sentiments. The creatures are always accusing one another of wanting “to eat the cake and have it”; but thanks to our labours they are more often in the predicament of paying for the cake and not eating it.

Your patient, properly handled, will have no difficulty in regarding his emotion at the sight of human entrails as a revelation of Reality and his emotion at the sight of happy children or fair weather as mere sentiment[.]

— C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (boldface emphases added)

E. Stephen Burnett
E. Stephen Burnett creates sci-fi and fantasy novels as well as nonfiction, exploring fantastical stories for God’s glory as publisher of Lorehaven.com and cohost of the Fantastical Truth podcast. As the oldest of six, he enjoys connecting with his homeschool roots by speaking at conferences for Christian families and creators. Stephen is coauthor of The Pop Culture Parent: Helping Kids Engage Their World for Christ from New Growth Press (2020, with Ted Turnau and Dr. Jared Moore). Stephen and his wife, Lacy, live in the Austin area, where they help with foster parenting and serve as members of Southern Hills Baptist Church.
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  1. Galadriel says:
    January 22, 2013 at 4:31 pm

    I love the Screwtape Letters, and this seems a timely post. Also, has anyone here read  As One Devil to Another(…) by Richard Platt? It’s in the same style and tradition, but with contemporary characters. I really think the author combined Lewis’s style and his own writing in a fresh, new way.

    Reply
  2. Michelle R. Wood says:
    January 22, 2013 at 9:43 pm

    Thanks for including a pic of the stage production. I’ve seen it twice now and highly recommend it (also, if you go, stay for the Q & A afterwards). It’s currently on a national tour, so there’s a great possibility of seeing it in a city near you.

    Reply
  3. SpecFaith Blog — But ‘Game of Thrones’ Still Has Porn In It says:
    April 24, 2014 at 8:31 am

    […] from The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. Read more from the book and further thoughts at Screwtape on Redefining ‘Realism,’ E. Stephen Burnett, SpecFaith, Jan. 27, 2013. […]

    Reply
  4. E. Stephen Burnett | Screwtape Wants You to Think Only Horror is Real, but Joy is Sentimental | E. Stephen Burnett says:
    February 28, 2019 at 8:00 am

    […] of this story is adapted from my original 2013 article on SpecFaith, “Screwtape on Redefining ‘Realism’.” […]

    Reply

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Lorehaven helps Christian fans explore fantastical stories for Christ’s glory: fantasy, science fiction, and beyond. Articles, the library, reviews, podcasts, gifts, and the Lorehaven Guild community help fans discern and enjoy the best Christian-made fantastical stories, applying their meanings to the real world Jesus Christ calls us to serve. Subscribe free to get any updates you choose and to access the Lorehaven Guild.