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Copywork
About This Passage
Here Screwtape names the devils' actual strategy, and the irony rewards close copying. The malice he prizes does not come from real disagreement about doctrine — the quarrelers 'could' not 'state the difference' if asked — but from 'party' feeling worked up over 'purely indifferent things' like candles and clothes. Copying this passage shows a writer how a single sentence can puncture a pretension: Lewis lets the combatants' own ignorance ('hold water for five minutes') expose that their heat has nothing to do with truth and everything to do with belonging to a side.
And it isn’t the doctrines on which we chiefly depend for producing malice. The real fun is working up hatred between those who say ‘mass’ and those who say ‘holy communion’ when neither party could p...
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Reconstruct Screwtape's sixteenth letter to Wormwood in sequence — his alarm at the man's fidelity, the two reasons for attacking it, the two clergymen he has scouted, and the party trick. Then name the central claim: that the devils win by replacing a unity given by place with a division chosen by taste.
Discussion Questions
- Screwtape wants the man to keep hunting for a church that 'suits' him until he is a 'connoisseur of churches,' while the Enemy wants him to remain in one parish as a 'pupil.' What is genuinely appealing about seeking the church that fits you best, and why does Screwtape covet that search so much? Use Screwtape's words to Wormwood to defend your reading.
- Screwtape says the right attitude in church 'does not appraise,' but lays itself open in 'humble receptivity to any nourishment that is going.' What might make the appraising critic's stance feel wiser or more honest, and why might the humble listener actually receive more from the very same sermon? Use Screwtape's words to Wormwood to develop your answer.
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
To judge and assess the worth or quality of something.
Item 2
Openness and readiness to take in or receive something.
Item 3
Dull and flavorless; lacking any sharpness or interest.
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Critical Thinking
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