S4E17 – TSL 10 – “Friends in Low Places”

The patient has been making new friends of whom Screwtape very much approves…

S4E17: Letter #10 – “Friends in low places” (Download)

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Timestamps

00:00:00Entering “The Eagle & Child”…
00:00:10Welcome
00:11:02Song-of-the-week
00:11:43Quote-of-the-week
00:13:01 Drink-of-the-week
00:17:59 Patreon Toast
00:18:58 Chapter Summary
00:20:04 Discussion
00:56:04 Unscrewing Screwtape
01:03:56 “Last Call” Bell and Closing Remarks

YouTube Version

After Show Skype Session

David reacts to Andrew and Matt’s episode:

Show Notes

Opening Chit-Chat

  • Today’s episode was recorded on the anniversary of Lewis’ death, 22nd November. Andrew shared today’s Collect from the Episcopal Church:

“O God of searing truth and surpassing beauty, we give thee thanks for Clive Staples Lewis, whose sanctified imagination lighteth fires of faith in young and old alike; Surprise us also with thy joy and draw us into that new and abundant life which is ours in Christ Jesus, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen”

Collected of the Episcopal Church
  • Andrew shared about his new icon of C.S. Lewis, written by Christine Hales.
  • Andrew discussed about how romance came late to Lewis in life:

“…he almost never spoke about himself, in my hearing at least: though once, shortly after his marriage, when he brought his wife to lunch with me, he said…looking at her across the grassy quadrangle, ‘I never expected to have, in my sixties, the happiness that passed me by in my twenties.”

Jocelyn Gibb, Light on C. S. Lewis
  • A recent iTunes review prompted Matt to speak about our “spoilers” policy regarding other C.S. Lewis books:

I’m reallly happy I stumbled upon this show. I appreciate the personal connections the hosts make and the enthusiasm for a writer that congributes so much to sound thinking through beatuy. I do wish they were a bit better about spoiler warnings to other Lewis works being discussed! I am in the middle of Till We Have Faces while listening to Screwtape episodes and there are numerous mentions of TWHF; I have to yank out my earphones! No harm done, love the show guys!

Jcboyn

As a result of this, Andrew talked about Aristotle and The Sixth Sense. This prompted Matt to tell the story of when he met M. Night Shyamalan. Not to be outdone, Andrew recounted the his story of meeting the White Witch actress, Tilda Swinton.

Song-of-the-week

Cause I’ve got friends in low places
Where the whiskey drowns
And the beer chases my blues away
And I’ll be okay I’m not big on social graces
Think I’ll slip on down to the oasis
Oh, I’ve got friends in low places

Friends in Low Places, Garth Brooks

Andrew once served one of the composers of the song, Bud Lee many years ago.

Quote-of-the-week

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

“He will be silent when he ought to speak and laugh when he ought to be silent”

C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (Letter #10)

Drink-of-the-week

  • Matt bought an “advent calendar” of scotches which means he’s going to have a different scotch every episode. Today he was drinking Monkey Shoulder – Blended Malt Scotch which is made from single malts from 3 different distilleries. Matt found one description which said“Some say it tastes like riding bareback on the wild moors of Scotland with a flame haired maiden on Christmas morning. Others agree it tastes like 007 wearing a tuxedo wetsuit
    • Nose: cocoa / malt / vanilla / subtle spice (nutmeg / cinnamon)
    • Palate: very malty; creamy; berry flavor
    • Finish: medium length with spicy oak and hint of peppermint on the tail
  • Andrew was drinking Caol Ila. Seven years ago on this day Andrew stayed with Lewis author Malcolm Guite and shared a glass of Coal Ila then too.

Patreon Toast

  • One of the benefits for Gold-level supporters on Patreon is that we toast one of them each episode. Today we are toasting Jeff Booth:

Not you, but Christ through you

Patreon Toast for Jeff Booth

Chapter Summary

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

The patient has made new friends who are rich, skeptical and superficially intellectual. Screwtape says any open acknowledgement of the conflict between their respective worldviews must be postponed as long as possible. Since the Church has failed to prepare him adequately, in the meantime, He’ll adopt many of their attitudes. When he eventually realises the conflict, Screwtape offers three strategies:

(1) Have him only remember this in their absence
(2) Have him take pleasure in the incongruity
(3) Or have him imagine he’s doing them some good somehow

Screwtape signs off with instructions to encourage excess spending, and neglect of work and mother.

One-hundred word summary of Chapter 10

Andrew said that much of this chapter is applicable to Lewis’ character Mark Studdock from That Hideous Strength. He also connected the law of undulation to the seas of Perelandra and Letters to Malcom:

When the golden moments come, when God enables one really to pray without words, who but a fool would reject the gift? But He does not give it – anyway not to me – day in, day out. My mistake was what Pascal, if I remember rightly, calls “Error of Stoicism”: thinking we can do always what we can do sometimes.

C.S. Lewis, Letters To Malcolm (Letter #2)

Discussion

New Friends

  • Screwtape has heard from the demon “Triptweeze” that Wormwood’s patient has made some new friends:

…the middle-aged married couple who called at his office are just the sort of people we want him to know — rich, smart, superficially intellectual, and brightly sceptical about everything in the world. I gather they are even vaguely pacifist, not on moral grounds but from an ingrained habit of belittling anything that concerns the great mass of their fellow men and from a dash of purely fashionable and literary communism.

C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (Letter #10)

In Reflections on the Psalms, Lewis writes:

I am inclined to think a Christian would be wise to avoid, where he decently can, any meeting with people who are bullies, lascivious, cruel, dishonest, spiteful and so forth. Not because we are “too good” for them. In a sense because we are not good enough. We are not good enough to cope with all the temptations, nor clever enough to cope with all the problems, which an evening spent in such society produces.

C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms
  • When referring to the prospering of the ungodly, Andrew referred Psalm 73. When speaking about skeptics, he also referred to the Steve Taylor song, It’s Harder to Believe Than Not To:

Commitment

  • Screwtape wants to know how deeply the patient has committed himself to these friends, not so much in words, but in subtle “looks and tones and laughs”. He wants this encouraged because the patient won’t realise what is happening until too late.

Did he commit himself deeply? I don’t mean in words. There is a subtle play of looks and tones and laughs by which a mortal can imply that he is of the same party as those to whom he is speaking. That is the kind of betrayal you should specially encourage, because the man does not fully realise it himself; and by the time he does you will have made withdrawal difficult.

C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (Letter #10)

Once again, Lewis writes in Reflections on the Psalms:

The temptation is to condone, to connive at; by our words, looks and laughter, to “consent”. The temptation was never greater than now when we are all (and very rightly) so afraid of priggery or “smugness”. And of course, even if we do not seek them out, we shall constantly be in such company whether we wish it or not. This is the real and unavoidable difficulty.

C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms

Postpone any recognition of the worldview conflict

  • Screwtape admits that the patient will realise the conflict between his faith and the philosophical foundation of his new friends, but seems to think that this can be postponed for quite some time.

No doubt he must very soon realise that his own faith is in direct opposition to the assumptions on which all the conversation of his new friends is based. I don’t think that matters much provided that you can persuade him to postpone any open acknowledgment of the fact, and this, with the aid of shame, pride, modesty and vanity, will be easy to do. As long as the postponement lasts he will be in a false position.

C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (Letter #10)

Andrew suggested that “shame, pride, modesty and vanity” are important because they turn us inward rather than outward, what he called a “cul-de-sac of self-referentially”. He contrasted this with the Bright Spirits in The Great Divorce:

We know nothing of religion here: we think only of Christ

The Great Divorce (Chapter 5)

Screwtape say that as long as he postpones any open acknowledgement it will cause him to absorb much from his new 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 manner, but presently by his words, all sorts of cynical and sceptical attitudes which are not really his. But if you play him well, they may become his. All mortals tend to turn into the thing they are pretending to be.

C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (Letter #10)

Andrew points out that this was one of Lewis’ main points in Mere Christianity, that we begin by imitation:

Do not waste time bothering whether you “love” your neighbour; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book III, Chapter 9)

He pointed to the epistle of James:

If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture,“Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right.

James 2:8

Fail to recognise the temptation

  • Screwtape wants to postpone the point at which the patient recognises what is happening:

The first thing is to delay as long as possible the moment at which he realises this new pleasure as a temptation.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book III, Chapter 9)

Fortunately, Screwtape says that the Church has really dropped the ball on this one, failing to equip the patient with the tools to recognise what’s happening:

Since the Enemy’s servants have been preaching about “the World” as one of the great standard temptations for two thousand years, this might seem difficult to do. But fortunately they have said very little about it for the last few decades. In modern Christian writings… I see few of the old warnings about Worldly Vanities, the Choice of Friends, and the Value of Time.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book III, Chapter 9)

Andrew spoke about distraction and referred to a poem by Malcom Guite to his iPhone called iOde.

  • Once again, Hell’s philology department has been hard at work, loading the word “Puritanism”:

All that, your patient would probably classify as “Puritanism” — and may I remark in passing that the value we have given to that word is one of the really solid triumphs of the last hundred years? By it we rescue annually thousands of humans from temperance, chastity, and sobriety of life.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book III, Chapter 9)

The Puritans were an English Protestant group in 16th/17th Century and has come to be used as a pejorative term. In relation to them, Andrew quoted The Four Loves:

“The human mind is generally far more eager to praise and dispraise than to describe and define”

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (Chapter 2)

He then quoted Sören Kierkegaard who said that Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing.

Eventual Realization

  • Postponement will only last for so long. How Wormwood guides him will depend upon the patient’s intelligence…

Sooner or later, however, the real nature of his new friends must become clear to him, and then your tactics must depend on the patient’s intelligence.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book III, Chapter 9)

The first strategy depends on the patient being a bit of a fool. If this is the case, Wormwood can allow him to realise the character of his friends when they’re not around. This will lead him to lead a double-life:

If he is a big enough fool you can get him to realise the character of the friends only while they are absent; their presence can be made to sweep away all criticism. If this succeeds, he can be induced to live, as I have known many humans live, for quite long periods, two parallel lives; he will not only appear to be, but actually be, a different man in each of the circles he frequents.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book III, Chapter 9)

Andrew spoke about the origins of the word hypocrite. He emphaised that we must train ourselves in the habits of faith:

This rebellion of your moods against your real self is going to come anyway. That is why Faith is such a necessary virtue: unless you teach your moods “where they get off,” you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the state of its digestion. Consequently one must train the habit of Faith.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book III, Chapter 11)

The second strategy can be used if the patient is somewhat smarter and depends upon exploiting his vanity to take pleasure in the incongruity of the parts of his life:

Failing this, there is a subtler and more entertaining method. He can be made to take a positive pleasure in the perception that the two sides of his life are inconsistent. This is done by exploiting his vanity. He can be taught to enjoy kneeling beside the grocer on Sunday just because he remembers that the grocer could not possibly understand the urbane and mocking world which he inhabited on Saturday evening; and contrariwise, to enjoy the bawdy and blasphemy over the coffee with these admirable friends all the more because he is aware of a “deeper”, “spiritual” world within him which they cannot understand. You see the idea — the worldly friends touch him on one side and the grocer on the other, and he is the complete, balanced, complex man who sees round them all. Thus, while being permanently treacherous to at least two sets of people, he will feel, instead of shame, a continual undercurrent of self-satisfaction.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book III, Chapter 9)

Andrew referred to a section of Malcom’s poem:

I am half present in a hundred places,
But never present in the place I am.

Malcom Guite, iOde

The final strategy is to get the patient to tell himself that he’s doing his friends some good by being in their lives:

Finally, if all else fails, you can persuade him, in defiance of conscience, to continue the new acquaintance on the ground that he is, in some unspecified way, doing these people “good” by the mere fact of drinking their cocktails and laughing at their jokes, and that to cease to do so would be “priggish”, “intolerant”, and (of course) “Puritanical”.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book III, Chapter 9)

This reminded Andrew of missionary dating!

Hopeful Side-Effects

  • Screwtape ends the letter with some suggestions to capitalise on this new development in the patient’s life, wanting him to spend too much and neglect his mother.

Meanwhile you will of course take the obvious precaution of seeing that this new development induces him to spend more than he can afford and to neglect his work and his mother. Her jealousy, and alarm, and his increasing evasiveness or rudeness, will be invaluable for the aggravation of the domestic tension,

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book III, Chapter 9)

Screwtape is having the patient obey one commandment:

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

Matthew 5:16

…while neglecting another:

Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Matthew 19:19
  • Andrew referred to Lewis’ essay First Things which speaks about the right ordering of our lives.

Screwtape Unscrewed

  1. Do be conscious / intentional of who you spend the most time with.
  2. Don’t live two separate lives
  3. Don’t be silent when you should speak and laugh when you should be silent.
  • With regards to the first point, Andrew quoted St. Paul:

…making the most of the time, because the days are evil.

Ephesiahs 5:16
  • Regarding the second point, Matt points to another verse from Ephesians:

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,

Ephesians 4:15

Andrew quoted Mere Christianity:

If there are rats in a cellar you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats: it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man: it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book III, Chapter 7)

He also quoted Chesterton:

Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly

G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy ( “The Eternal Revolution”)

He also offered two quotations from Scripture:

I have said this to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.

John 16:33

For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison

2 Corinthians 4:17

Providence eLearning

Posted in Andrew, Audio Discussion, David, Podcast Episode, Season 4, The Screwtape Letters and tagged .

After working as a Software Engineer in England for several years, David moved to the United States in 2008, where he settled in San Diego. Then, in 2020 he married his wife, Marie, and moved to La Crosse, Wisconsin. Together they have a son, Alexander, who is adamant that Narnia should be read publication order.