The Screwtape Letters (Mentor) Review
I first read this book when I was 12, and it helped to guide me on my own spiritual journey. It touched my very soul as very few other books have done. Especially in today's society, guidance, with a touch of humor, is necessary in order to cope. For the young, Screwtape will help you to begin your live with the Lord. For those of us who are more "seasoned", it will carry you along in your journey and bring you closer to the goal we all have.
Along with this there is a wonderful companion book which I can't recommend highly enough. Where Screwtape leaves off, "The Michael Letters" takes over. It's almost as if the author has known me for years. I would recommend reading both, in conjunction with each other, as you will benefit from hearing "both sides" of the battle for our souls.
The Michael Letters: Heaven's answer to Screwtape
The Screwtape Letters (Mentor) Overview
Screwtape tries to teach his apprentice/nephew, Wormwood, how to win over the souls of humans.
The Screwtape Letters (Mentor) Specifications
Who among us has never wondered if there might not really be a tempter sitting on our shoulders or dogging our steps? C.S. Lewis dispels all doubts. In The Screwtape Letters, one of his bestselling works, we are made privy to the instructional correspondence between a senior demon, Screwtape, and his wannabe diabolical nephew Wormwood. As mentor, Screwtape coaches Wormwood in the finer points, tempting his "patient" away from God.
Each letter is a masterpiece of reverse theology, giving the reader an inside look at the thinking and means of temptation. Tempters, according to Lewis, have two motives: the first is fear of punishment, the second a hunger to consume or dominate other beings. On the other hand, the goal of the Creator is to woo us unto himself or to transform us through his love from "tools into servants and servants into sons." It is the dichotomy between being consumed and subsumed completely into another's identity or being liberated to be utterly ourselves that Lewis explores with his razor-sharp insight and wit.
The most brilliant feature of The Screwtape Letters may be likening hell to a bureaucracy in which "everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment." We all understand bureaucracies, be it the Department of Motor Vehicles, the IRS, or one of our own making. So we each understand the temptations that slowly lure us into hell. If you've never read Lewis, The Screwtape Letters is a great place to start. And if you know Lewis, but haven't read this, you've missed one of his core writings. --Patricia Klein
Available at Amazon Check Price Now!
Related Products
- Mere Christianity
- The American Patriot's Bible: The Word of God and the Shaping of America
- The Genesee Diary
- The Problem of Pain
- The Great Divorce
Customer Reviews
A Life-Changing Read - k8inut -
I would like to give this far more than five stars! I can't say enough about the impact this book has had on me, and this is, without a doubt, my favorite book. This is the sort of rare book that has the power to change the way you view the world without beating you over the head with any ideology or preaching to you. C.S. Lewis had a gift for being able to see human nature, and he is at his peak with this book. It is a fairly short book, and an easy read, but it has so much power in its approximately 150 pages. It is a fascinating view of the Devil's playbook, and it is not to be missed.
Read and get ready to look into your own life after reading it. - Mario A. Martinez - USA
I blew through this book faster than any other book. One of the best for C.S. Lewis. but throughout this entire ready i kept looking at my own life trials. While reading something that is potentially evil, it gave me great hope. I would recommend this book to anyone. including those that do not share my faith.
A Pharisee's Fake Letters - David R. Fry - Albany, NY USA
I was going to give this book 1 star, but decided that really wouldn't be fair since the book is actually fairly well written, fun to read, and the logial shortcomings are at least partly excusable when you realize that he's a "born again" lapsed Christian turned atheist, turned back to Christianity. That kind of person almost always turns out to be the staunchest and most annoying type of True Believer. I have the same basic problem with this book that I had with Richard Dawkin's "The God Delusion". Both books were written in a way that was likely to titillate readers who share the authors beliefs and annoy people who disagree. I found it interesting that they were both products of Oxford. I wonder if that means anything. My biggest problem with this book comes from a Christian point of view, not an atheist or agnostic one. In Lewis's cosmology not only do you have to believe in Christ the Redeemer but you have to live an uncompromisingly saintly life or your going to end up as dinner for some demon, which Lewis obviously believes in literally. Lewis is just the Pharisees he condemns to Hell. He can see the speck in everybody else's eye but he can't see the log in his own. He swallows a camel and chokes on a gnat. If there is a Hell I wouldn't say he deserves to go there, but if there is a Hell there is a Purgatory and he deserves to spend at least a few decades there.
*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Sep 01, 2010 20:25:05
No comments:
Post a Comment