S4E9 – TSL 5 – “War (What is it good for?)”

Matt was joined by guest co-host Brenton Dickieson to discuss Letter #5 from Uncle Screwtape, where he outlines the uses of the upcoming war.

S4E9: Letter #5 – “War (What is it good for?)” (Download)

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Timestamps

00:00:00 – Entering “The Eagle & Child”…
00:00:17 – Welcome
00:00:46 – Song-of-the-week
00:03:12 – Today’s guest co-hosts!
00:05:58 – Quote-of-the-week
00:07:36 – Drink-of-the-week
00:12:32 – Patreon Toast
00:13:17 – Chapter Summary
00:14:09 – Discussion
01:14:03 – Unscrewing Screwtape
01:24:47 – “Last Call” Bell and Closing Remarks

YouTube Version

After Show Skype Session

After listening to Matt and Brenton’s episode, Andrew and I sat down to discuss it…

Also this week I interviewed Steven Elmore from the C.S. Lewis Foundation about an upcoming virtual conference:

Show Notes

Opening Chit-Chat

• Matt introduced the guest co-host, Brenton Dickieson:

Besides teaching in the literature department at Signum University, Brenton Dickieson is Adjunct Instructor in Literature at The King’s College in New York City, Sessional Professor in the Centre for the Study of Christianity and Culture at the University of Prince Edward Island, and Instructor in Spiritual Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, BC. He also does freelance speaking and writing and is the author of the popular Faith, Fiction, and Fantasy blog aPilgrimInNarnia.com. He lives with his wife Kerry and his son Nicolas in their native home in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island and he has recently completed his PhD at the University of Chester, focussing his work on C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Inklings.

Bio for Brenton Dickieson

• Matt then explained that the episode title and song-of-the-week is “War (what is it good for?)” by Edwin Starr:

This song was on the soundtrack to Jackie Chan’s classic movie, Rush Hour:

Here’s the scene where the protagonists actually talk about the song:

• The quote-of-the-week came from this letter:

“…do not allow any temporary excitement to distract you from the real business of undermining faith and preventing the formation of virtues”

C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (Letter #5)

• For the drink-of-the-week, Brenton was drinking some Bengal spice tea and a Suntory whiskey. Matt was enjoying a Glenfiddich 18. Brenton shared the whiskey woes of living in Canada.
• Next, Matt offered a toast to a Patreon supporter, Chelsea Miller:

“Chelsea, may Satan’s attempts to undermine your faith never stop you from the beautiful practice of forming virtues.”

Matt’s Patreon Toast

• Matt shared my one-hundred word summary of today’s letter:

Screwtape criticizes his underling for his last letter, which he says lacked necessary detail, saying that his nephew is distracted by the war. He gives him a stern reminder not to risk losing his prey as a result.

Screwtape asks for more information about the Patient so that they can decide whether to make him an extreme Patriot or Pacifist in their pursuit of his soul.

Screwtape concludes his epistle this week by enumerating the dangers of war: distracting people from self-absorption, driving some to faith, and reminding everyone of the inevitability of suffering and death.

One-hundred word summary of Chapter 5

Discussion

• Brenton spoke about Screwtapes utilitarianism and his willingness to use anything to get the patient to Hell.

Wormwood’s First Taste

• War has broken out and Screwtape criticizes Wormwood for his enthusiasm:

It is a little bit disappointing to expect a detailed report on your work and to receive instead such a vague rhapsody as your last letter. You say you are “delirious with joy” because the European humans have started another of their wars. I see very well what has happened to you. You are not delirious; you are only drunk… For the first time in your career you have tasted that wine which is the reward of all our labours — the anguish and bewilderment of a human soul — and it has gone to your head.

C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (Letter #5)

• Brenton spoke about pairing The Screwtape Letters with The Great Divorce.
• Matt asked about the differences between the “devouring” of Satan and God’s “devouring”.

The Long-Term Goal

• Screwtape makes the goal clear:

If, on the other hand, by steady and cool-headed application here and now you can finally secure his soul, he will then be yours forever — a brim-full living chalice of despair and horror and astonishment which you can raise to your lips as often as you please. So do not allow any temporary excitement to distract you from the real business of undermining faith and preventing the formation of virtues.

C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (Letter #5)

Extremism

• Screwtape wants the man at some extreme, so he tells Wormwood to find out more information so that they can decide what to do with him in this war:

Give me without fail in your next letter a full account of the patient’s reactions to the war, so that we can consider whether you are likely to do more good by making him an extreme patriot or an ardent pacifist. There are all sorts of possibilities.

C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (Letter #5)

Brenton offered some really interesting comments on the current social climate. He alluded to Romans 12:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Romans 12:1-2

The Pros and Cons of War

• Screwtape explains that he’s not too hopeful for the war because, while it’s entertaining, it has some less desirous side-effects:

In the meantime, I must warn you not to hope too much from a war. Of course a war is entertaining…. But what permanent good does it do us unless we make use of it for bringing souls to Our Father Below?

…We may hope for a good deal of cruelty and unchastity.…

…But, if we are not careful, we shall see thousands turning in this tribulation to the Enemy, while tens of thousands who do not go so far as that will nevertheless have their attention diverted from themselves to values and causes which they believe to be higher than the self...

C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (Letter #5)

• Screwtape is immensely frustrated by the fact that God will even look past a person’s misguided cause to their motivation:

I know that the Enemy disapproves many of these causes. But that is where He is so unfair. He often makes prizes of humans who have given their lives for causes He thinks bad on the monstrously sophistical ground that the humans thought them good and were following the best they knew.

C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (Letter #5)

• Another drawback is that death makes us remember that death is inevitable, as exemplified by the Latin phrase “memento mori”.

Consider too what undesirable deaths occur in wartime. Men are killed in places where they knew they might be killed and to which they go, if they are at all of the Enemy’s party, prepared. How much better for us if all humans died in costly nursing homes amid doctors who lie, nurses who lie, friends who lie, as we have trained them, promising life to the dying, encouraging the belief that sickness excuses every indulgence, and even, if our workers know their job, withholding all suggestion of a priest lest it should betray to the sick man his true condition! And how disastrous for us is the continual remembrance of death which war enforces. One of our best weapons, contented worldliness, is rendered useless. In wartime not even a human can believe that he is going to live forever.

C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (Letter #5)

God’s Presence

• When speaking about the presence of God, Brenton alluded to the Kevin Smith movie, Dogma:

In this irreverent movie, one of the fallen angels (although distinct from demons) speaks about the pain he feels concerning his separation from God:

My eyes are open. For the first time I get it. When that little innocent girl let her mission slip, I had an epiphany. See, in the beginning it was just us and him, angels and God. Then he created humans. Ours was designed to be a life of servitude and worship and bowing and scraping and adoration.

He gave them more than he ever gave us. He gave them a choice. They choose to acknowledge God or choose to ignore him. All this time we’ve been down here l’ve felt the absence of the divine presence and it’s pained me, as I’m sure it must have pained you. And why? Because of the way he made us. Had we been given free will, we could choose to ignore the pain like they do. But no, we’re servants.

Bartleby, Dogma

The theology is a little off here, but I do love the way Bartleby (Ben Affleck) expresses the absence of God.

Sacrifice and Evil

• Matt spoke about St. Maximillian Kolbe‘s sacrifice and Brenton spoke about Elie Wiesel and Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.

Call upon the name of the Lord

• Screwtape wraps up the letter by speaking about redemptive suffering and help from God:

I know that Scabtree and others have seen in wars a great opportunity for attacks on faith, but I think that view was exaggerated. The Enemy’s human partisans have all been plainly told by Him that suffering is an essential part of what He calls Redemption; so that a faith which is destroyed by a war or a pestilence cannot really have been worth the trouble of destroying. I am speaking now of diffused suffering over a long period such as the war will produce. Of course, at the precise moment of terror, bereavement, or physical pain, you may catch your man when his reason is temporarily suspended. But even then, if he applies to Enemy headquarters, I have found that the post is nearly always defended,

C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (Letter #5)

• Matt and Brenton then chatted about the effects of COVID.
• Brenton referred to the book, The Most Reluctant Convert by David Downing.

Screwtape Unscrewed

1. Do: Turn to God and ask for help
2. Do: Offer up your suffering to our Heavenly Father and the Cross
3. Do: Strive to live for something beyond yourself
4. Do: Remember “memento mori”
5. Do: Focus on the formation of virtue
6. Don’t: Allow times of temporary struggle to create permanent, negative habits
7. Do: Remember that the ends do not justify the means

Brenton Dickieson

• You can find out more about Brenton on his website, A Pilgrim In Narnia. In particular, he mentioned a recent Screwtape-related blog post entitled A Cosmic Shift. He is also on Twitter.

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