Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Introduction

Course Notes and Study Format

The Abundance of Average Sinners

Christian Socialism and the Meaning of Democracy

I’m as Good as You

Modern Education

Government Democracies

The Screwtape Letters Study Guide Preview

Introduction

What is your favorite sequel? Is it one of the movie classics like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, or perhaps Lord of the Rings? Or was it a highly anticipated album from one of your favorite musicians as a teenager?

C.S. Lewis never intended to create a sequel to The Screwtape Letters. In fact, he never imagined the book would become a classic; moreover, he never dreamed that readers would enjoy the book so many years later. He just did not see what all the fuss was about.

However, to the delight of his fans, almost two decades later, Lewis published a short sequel, Screwtape Proposes a Toast, which first appeared in The Saturday Evening Post in 1959.

Much had changed since Lewis penned The Screwtape Letters in 1941. As with his apologetic classic Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters was written to the people of Britain during a time of war when their nation was engulfed in a battle with Hitler and the Nazi regime. It was a time of great struggle—morally, physically, and spiritually.

In 1959, Lewis chose to write to an American audience experiencing very different circumstances. America was enjoying a time of financial prosperity. Rock and roll and Elvis Presley were on the mind of every teenager, and the opposition between the West and the Communist world created a state of political and military tension defined as The Cold War.

The context of Lewis’ writing is also different. The original book contains a series of letters from Screwtape, an undersecretary in the lowerarchy of Hell, to his incompetent nephew Wormwood. These letters contain various methods to employ while tempting his “patient” closer to Hell.

In Screwtape Proposes a Toast, Screwtape is now the Supreme Strategist over a critical region of the world. This prestigious title has earned him the privilege of delivering the after-dinner speech at the annual graduation dinner of the Tempters’ Training College for young demons. Now instead of just influencing Wormwood on how to destroy the life of an individual human; Screwtape sets his goals much higher in an effort to teach legions of demons to corrupt human nature.

Screwtape’s speech is a public declaration of how best to corrupt education, democracy, social politics, and directly shift a cultural worldview. Although his speech is succinct, Screwtape lays out a compelling strategy for bypassing the “great sinners of the past” for the multitude of hapless fools who are easily led astray simply by altering the meaning of words.

Ironically, Lewis’ writings seem strangely prophetic today probably more so than in 1959. It is almost as if the demons took Screwtape Proposes a Toast and used it as their playbook for the next 50 years resulting in the destruction of democracy and individualism.

If Lewis were alive today would he have created a trilogy to The Screwtape Letters? How would it be different? What opportunities would tempters have today that were not available 50 years ago? How would Screwtape use the digital age as a megaphone to ensnare sinners?

Screwtape and the host of young demons exiting Tempters’ Training College will have to look elsewhere for good advice on how to best corrupt the next generation.