{"id":5119,"date":"2018-08-16T16:24:45","date_gmt":"2018-08-17T00:24:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/?p=5119"},"modified":"2018-08-16T16:24:45","modified_gmt":"2018-08-17T00:24:45","slug":"the-screwtape-letters-six-through-twelve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2018\/08\/16\/the-screwtape-letters-six-through-twelve","title":{"rendered":"The Screwtape Letters: Six Through Twelve"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Screw\u00adtape Let\u00adters by C.S. Lewis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Blog read\u00aders: Chi Alpha @ Stan\u00adford is engag\u00ading in our annu\u00adal sum\u00admer read\u00ading project. As we read through three books by C. S. Lewis, I\u2019ll post my thoughts here (which will large\u00adly con\u00adsist of excerpts I found insight\u00adful). They are all tagged sum\u00admer-read\u00ading-project-2018<\/a>. The sched\u00adule is online<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

This week\u2019s read\u00ading (let\u00adters six through twelve) was simul\u00adta\u00adne\u00adous\u00adly short and full of insight\u00adful obser\u00adva\u00adtions.<\/p>\n

A few of Lewis\u2019s com\u00adments stood out to me:<\/p>\n

Nev\u00ader for\u00adget that when we are deal\u00ading with any plea\u00adsure in its healthy and nor\u00admal and sat\u00adis\u00adfy\u00ading form, we are, in a sense, on the Ene\u00admy\u2019s ground. I know we have won many a soul through plea\u00adsure. All the same, it is His inven\u00adtion, not ours. He made the plea\u00adsures: all our research so far has not enabled us to pro\u00adduce one. All we can do is to encour\u00adage the humans to take the plea\u00adsures which our Ene\u00admy has pro\u00adduced, at times, or in ways, or in degrees, which He has for\u00adbid\u00adden. (Let\u00adter Nine, page 210)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Lewis is spot-on here. Plea\u00adsure is a gift from God. As James 1:27 reminds us, \u201cevery good and per\u00adfect gift is from above.\u201d Tru\u00adly inter\u00adnal\u00adiz\u00ading this is trans\u00adfor\u00adma\u00adtive. The plea\u00adsures of God are pre\u00admi\u00adum, grade A stuff. It is true that Satan is a skill\u00adful knock\u00adoff artist, and this means that the oppor\u00adtu\u00adni\u00adties he lures us with can seem as good as (or even supe\u00adri\u00ador to) God\u2019s plea\u00adsures at first, but at the end of the day they are still knock\u00adoffs. The plea\u00adsures they pro\u00adduce don\u2019t last. Hebrews 11:25 calls them \u201cthe fleet\u00ading plea\u00adsures of sin.\u201d<\/p>\n

The upshot: few things dis\u00adrupt Satan\u2019s schemes for your life like a fierce love of whole\u00adsome plea\u00adsure. One of the best ways to resist temp\u00adta\u00adtion is to be full of god\u00adly joy.<\/p>\n

Mov\u00ading on, let\u00adter ten seems espe\u00adcial\u00adly help\u00adful to Stan\u00adford stu\u00addents.<\/p>\n

[When try\u00ading to impress new, sophis\u00adti\u00adcat\u00aded friends] he will be silent when he ought to speak and laugh when he ought to be silent. He will assume, at first only by his man\u00adner, but present\u00adly by his words, all sorts of cyn\u00adi\u00adcal and scep\u00adti\u00adcal atti\u00adtudes which are not real\u00adly his. But if you play him well, they may become his. All mor\u00adtals tend to turn into the thing they are pre\u00adtend\u00ading to be. This is ele\u00admen\u00adtary. (Let\u00adter Ten, pages 212\u2013213)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Boom! Not much to add to that except pray for all the frosh head\u00ading to Stan\u00adford in a few weeks.<\/p>\n

Also of rel\u00ade\u00advance to the Stan\u00adford cul\u00adture:<\/p>\n

But flip\u00adpan\u00adcy is the best [source of laugh\u00adter] of all. In the first place it is very eco\u00adnom\u00adi\u00adcal. Only a clever human can make a real Joke about virtue, or indeed about any\u00adthing else; any of them can be trained to talk as if virtue were fun\u00adny. Among flip\u00adpant peo\u00adple the Joke is always assumed to have been made. No one actu\u00adal\u00adly makes it; but every seri\u00adous sub\u00adject is dis\u00adcussed in a man\u00adner which implies that they have already found a ridicu\u00adlous side to it. If pro\u00adlonged, the habit of Flip\u00adpan\u00adcy builds up around a man the finest armour-plat\u00ading against the Ene\u00admy that I know, and it is quite free from the dan\u00adgers inher\u00adent in the oth\u00ader sources of laugh\u00adter. (Let\u00adter Eleven, page 217)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Again, lit\u00adtle com\u00admen\u00adtary is need\u00aded. You will find it worth\u00adwhile, though, to pay atten\u00adtion to the things that are sim\u00adply assumed to be false by your com\u00admu\u00adni\u00adty. What Lewis calls flip\u00adpan\u00adcy is an indi\u00adca\u00adtion that there might not be sol\u00adid argu\u00adments against the opin\u00adion being mocked. Inter\u00adnet cul\u00adture is espe\u00adcial\u00adly prone to this sort of super\u00adfi\u00adcial com\u00admen\u00adtary. Social media, in par\u00adtic\u00adu\u00adlar, incen\u00adtivizes it. There may very well be good rea\u00adsons that your com\u00admu\u00adni\u00adty believes what it does about the good life, the prob\u00adlems fac\u00ading soci\u00adety, the true reli\u00adgion, and right-think\u00ading pol\u00adi\u00adtics\u2026 but per\u00adhaps there are not. Seek out the non-flip\u00adpant opin\u00adions before you allow the juve\u00adnile ban\u00adter to sway you undu\u00adly.<\/p>\n

Any\u00adway, I hope you derived as much ben\u00ade\u00adfit from this week\u2019s read\u00ading as I did. Enjoy the book!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blog read\u00aders: Chi Alpha @ Stan\u00adford is engag\u00ading in our annu\u00adal sum\u00admer read\u00ading project. As we read through three books by C. S. Lewis, I\u2019ll post my thoughts here (which will large\u00adly con\u00adsist of excerpts I found insight\u00adful). They are all tagged sum\u00admer-read\u00ad\u00ading-project-2018. The sched\u00adule is online. This week\u2019s read\u00ading (let\u00adters six through twelve) was \u2026 Con\u00adtin\u00adue read\u00ading \u201cThe Screw\u00adtape Let\u00adters: Six Through Twelve\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Some of C.S. Lewis's thoughts on pleasure, impressing one's friends, and flippancy.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[230,229,236],"class_list":["post-5119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-resources-reviews","tag-c-s-lewis","tag-summer-reading-project-2018","tag-the-screwtape-letters"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Ded-1kz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5119"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5122,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5119\/revisions\/5122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}