Screwtape Letters to America 16 -- Church over State

Previous chapters at the bottom. Some of these will go dark as the work approaches completion.
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My dear Wormwood,

It is most enlightening to hear of the recent developments in the Colonies, viewed through the lens of your own scheming. No doubt, had I been on the scene, matters would have reached their present state in far less time. Still, you have managed tolerably well, and the results, though somewhat delayed, are gratifying.

Alas, we have not been able to stir such delectable conflict over the unborn or matters of sexuality here in Britain. Our energies have been more profitably spent persuading the general populace that the Enemy is but a superstition and His Church a quaint relic of another age. In this, we have achieved remarkable success -- though, to our vexation, a few pockets of obstinate belief continue to smolder.

The great advantage of our trade, my dear Wormwood, is that no situation is ever truly lost to us. The raw material of fallen humanity can be made to serve our cause in any age or circumstance. You mention the question of Church and State. How fertile a field that has always been! In times past, we have turned religion in the State into oppression, and the State in religion into idolatry. I confess I rather miss such opportunities, though they are sadly scarce here in England at present.

But what feasts we once enjoyed! When the Catholics held power, we burned the Protestants. When the Protestants held power, we returned the favor in kind. Nothing delighted me more than the spectacle of both sides invoking the Enemy’s name while sending His followers to the flames. Such harmony in mutual hatred is the rarest music to infernal ears.

Even in the days of the Romans, when the State opposed the Enemy’s people outright, our pleasures were manifold. Yet when so-called Christians seized the Empire, our triumph was greater still. For we found that persecution may destroy bodies, but power and comfort can rot souls far more effectively. How swiftly we thinned the rich wine of faith into a tasteless religion of convenience. It became so dilute that even those with eyes could scarcely see it.

It looks to me that your strategy in the Colonies might mirror what we once did with the Puritans here in England some centuries ago. That double-minded Cromwell -- this man could kneel in the night with tears and Scripture. Then in the morning, he butchered those he judged untrue to God. Such double-minded piety is our ideal instrument: piety without pity, conviction without humility. He is the very sort of man to place in power if one wishes to feign a takeover in the Enemy’s name. 

And what a season that was. Their language was all fire and Bible. They could recite the Enemy’s Book as if it were their own breath -- though counter-providentially they remembered chiefly those verses that blessed their blindness. They construed the Enemy’s love as a privilege for the obedient, but it became a license for wrath upon the disobedient. “Love your neighbour” is reshaped into a rule that applies only to those judged worthy. Every other soul becomes fit to be trampled in the name of holiness.

These zealous, double-minded “believers” are ever abundant, eager to conceal the anger and hardness of their hearts beneath the mantle of the Enemy’s authority. They are invariably astonished, upon meeting the Maker, to learn that they have no share in His Kingdom. Like us, they find Him revolting when they finally behold Him, and would sooner endure a wretched eternity apart from His light than submit to His loathsome mercy. In that moment, they discover the dreadful truth. Their hearts have long been one with ours.

This sort cannot see that the Maker grants every soul a choice whether to serve Him. Mistaking Him for the dictator of their own projections, they seek to compel the world into their narrow vision of righteousness. Fools. They are oblivious to how patiently the Enemy cultivates and woos His people, inviting them freely into faith.

I shall be sorely jealous if you succeed in bringing America to such a pass. What a delectable prospect! To resume persecutions past, relabeled as holiness! Do continue to dispatch your schemes, especially a full account of how these last ten years have unfolded in your plan. I wait, with relish, for further word of our master’s proposal.

Your infernal Uncle,
Screwtape

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Previous chapters

• 1 -- The Operations
• 2 -- The Veil Technique
• 3 -- The Fog 
• 4 -- Hard Hearts
• 5 -- Focus on Feelings
• 6 -- Blinding Indignation
• 7 -- Spiritual Inoculation
• 8 -- The Fumes of the Enemy
• 9 -- Moral Inversion
• 10 -- Reliable Race
• 11 -- Misdirection
• 12 -- The Very Elect
• 13 -- The Great Wedge
• 14 -- The Revolt
• 15 -- Deepening the Wedge

 

 

Screwtape Updates 12 -- The Very Elect

Previous chapters at the bottom.
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Dear Wormwood,

I too have heard the rumors that our master has gone before the Enemy with some request. Such moments always stir a delicious anticipation among the Lowerarchy. These are those rare occasions when He permits us to act openly, as in that long-ago episode with Job. 

Unfortunately, the Enemy turned that ordeal to His own nauseating advantage, and the wretched man proved maddeningly resistant to our finest temptations. Still, we must not lose heart. Every new indulgence granted to our master is another chance to corrupt what the Enemy means for good.

You used the word antichrist, my dear Wormwood. What an exquisite word. Your patients in America, I understand, have long cherished a most specific expectation of the Antichrist, though we know there have been many such creatures, as even the Enemy’s own book concedes. Here in Britain, that particular strain of thought never quite took root, but I gather it has flourished splendidly in your colonies these past two centuries.

Our agents have exploited that species of interpretation to admirable effect. For many, it has become a most convenient distraction from the weightier matters of faith. They pore over portents and omens -- signs which, of course, are always found by those determined to see them. Each generation sets its dates and peers behind every bush for the Enemy’s return, never noticing that the last generation died waiting in precisely the same posture.

We ourselves, of course, know nothing of the appointed hour, although the prospect of it is, I assure you, horrifyingly real to us. Yet how splendid a diversion it provides! While they chart the heavens and argue about the timing of their rescue, they neglect every opportunity to do the Enemy’s work on earth. They convince themselves the ship is sinking beyond repair and so settle comfortably into the lifeboat, humming hymns while the Titanic goes down.

What thrills me beyond measure is the success with which you have led so many churchgoers to look for the Antichrist in precisely the wrong direction. How I savor that prophecy in the Enemy’s Book that even the “very elect” might be deceived! All our recent exchanges suggest fertile ground indeed to persuade countless souls within the Church that the Antichrist is the Messiah, and that those who resist him are the true antichrists.

What an exquisite “man of lawlessness” you might cultivate. I could see you doing it not merely under the noses of Christians, but with their enthusiastic blessing! The notion is simply splendid. And, of course, we cannot yet foresee how the Enemy will permit these final scenes to unfold. The fulfillment of His Book has so often confounded our expectations. Who is to say He will not choose to play out the drama according to America’s peculiar imagination of it?

Do keep me apprised of any word you hear concerning the master’s proposal, though I can scarcely imagine that one of your rank would receive such intelligence before myself.

Your doting Uncle,
Screwtape

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Previous chapters

• 1 -- The Operations
• 2 -- The Veil Technique
• 3 -- The Fog 
• 4 -- Hard Hearts
• 5 -- Focus on Feelings
• 6 -- Blinding Indignation
• 7 -- Spiritual Inoculation
• 8 -- The Fumes of the Enemy
• 9 -- Moral Inversion
• 10 -- Reliable Race
• 11 -- Misdirection

Image of Week (10-25-25)

Without consultation, the East Wing was torn down this week, which many would say is a parable of our current situation.

Screwtape Updates 11 -- Misdirection

Previous chapters at the bottom.
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Dear uncle Screwtape,

Your recent letter captured well several lines of our plotting here in the States. It seemed so glaringly obvious to us at first that we feared the Church might recognize its poison at once and rise against it. Yet, while a few tiresome souls still possess the Enemy’s inconvenient gift of discernment, we have been astonished at how easily the rest may be steered astray -- churchgoers and citizens alike. The success of our present campaign has emboldened us to attempt bolder corruptions still that continue to parade under the banner of righteousness.

Over the years, we have tailored our misdirection to the temperament of each patient. For those enamored with details, we supply an abundance of data and then guide them to weave it into the most ingenious -- and implausible -- conclusions. Some even produce elaborate spreadsheets which, to their immense satisfaction, confirm that they have been right all along. Statistics. Odd facts. More than any other technique, we can use this method to take someone of great intellect and steer them directly toward the most ridiculous of conclusions. And those of milder mind are convinced simply at the sight of a number.

Those who think in sweeping parallels are just as easily misdirected. We feed them a vivid but isolated anecdote, and at once they are certain they have uncovered the hidden truth. In this blessed age of artificial intelligence, we can even fabricate truth itself with near-divine precision. We create images and voices so convincing that the gentler minds accept them without question. Better still, when the image is genuine, we can persuade many that it is false. This new world bewilders those past their youth, making them all the easier to deceive, for nothing so firmly convinces a soul as a story or image that confirms what it already longs to believe. 

But all these machinations are business as usual. Yet we hear rumblings that our master below may soon attempt grander projects, emboldened by how well the present ones proceed. There is even word that he has appeared before the Enemy to make some audacious proposal. We, of course, do not know the day when the Enemy will return and our reign of chaos will be ended. Let us hope -- if that word may be permitted us -- with all the desperation of hell that this is not that day.

Still, the Enemy has often permitted our master to indulge himself in certain times and places, especially when the heart of a people strays far from Him. Such straying, you will note, is rarely what the humans imagine, for they persist in forgetting that love is the Enemy’s detestable measure of all goodness. Thus they wander willingly into our grasp while congratulating themselves on their virtue. 

Is this, then, another age He will "let go" to us. Might this be time for yet another antichrist to rise? I suspect, my dear Uncle, that we shall soon find out.

Yours hopefully,
Wormwood

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Previous chapters

• 1 -- The Operations
• 2 -- The Veil Technique
• 3 -- The Fog 
• 4 -- Hard Hearts
• 5 -- Focus on Feelings
• 6 -- Blinding Indignation
• 7 -- Spiritual Inoculation
• 8 -- The Fumes of the Enemy
• 9 -- Moral Inversion
• 10 -- Reliable Race

Screwtape Updates 10 -- Reliable Race

Previous chapters:

• 1 -- The Operations
• 2 -- The Veil Technique
• 3 -- The Fog 
• 4 -- Hard Hearts
• 5 -- Focus on Feelings
• 6 -- Blinding Indignation
• 7 -- Spiritual Inoculation
• 8 -- The Fumes of the Enemy
• 9 -- Moral Inversion

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My dear Wormwood,

I am ever fascinated with the persistence of tensions over race in America. Europe had a good run with slavery for several centuries too, but our infernal enterprise in the colonies was able to take it deeper for longer. I suppose it is because the entire fabric of the South was built around the oppression of Africans. And you were able to continue that oppression in force for a century by other means.

Amazingly, any conversation touching on race in that land is sure to ignite tempers. They may dispute a thousand matters of doctrine. "What is the nature of the Trinity?" or "How should this passage be read?" Various aspects of faith might easily be discussed with at least a pretense of civility. But merely suggest that the lighter-skinned enjoy advantages invisible to themselves, and your average church pew will erupt as though the worst of heresies has been proclaimed.

But do not imagine that Europe has escaped the contagion. For ages they have congratulated themselves on their "virtue of hospitality" in the abstract. Yet open their gates to a multitude of foreign refugees, and you quickly see how the embers of old prejudice glow again. Humans are herd-creatures in their fallenness. Nothing delights us more than to see them defending their own tribe with that illogic and self-righteousness particular to their species. A hint of fear, a rumor of difference, and they will justify cruelty as prudence. It is excellent soil in which to estrange them from the Enemy’s tiresome talk of love.

I see you have made excellent progress not only in rekindling the old prejudices against the African, but in cultivating fresh hostilities toward those once subjugated from the southern lands beyond the border. The comedy of the "illegal" has borne you splendid fruit. You and I, of course, know that most of these creatures are hardworking and rather profitable contributors to the nation’s good. Yet through the proper channels of fear and repetition, you have persuaded multitudes that they are marauders and parasites who must be purged. A delicious inversion, and masterfully executed to an extent.

I see you have diverted prodigious sums to the business of severing families on this score. Such an enterprise yields misery on a scale most gratifying and may yet bring the added benefit of wrecking the economy in its wake. Masked men -- anonymous and without accountability -- forcibly take them to who-knows-where and do with them who-knows-what. This is the soil in which the sort of violent, dulled consciences we favour so reliably take root. The true triumph is not merely the suffering produced, but the slow corruption of ordinary souls who learn to accept it.

How exquisite the scene. A heart already bent toward malice catches sight of a brown-skinned laborer upon a roof, and feels compelled to "do the right thing." A zealous co-worker phones the authorities about a temporary hand they are quite certain is undocumented. What a spectacular hatred of neighbor! And they are convinced all the while of their virtue. They congratulate themselves on their civic duty while we applaud the triumph of that deliciously twisted morality you and I so cherish.

And to think how many of these foreigners from the South are themselves followers of the Enemy. We have found it difficult to dislodge their faith. Persecution only seems to increase it. But there will be compensation one day in watching their persecutors, so proud of their piety, to wake one morning in a destination rather different from the one they so confidently anticipated.

However, a word of caution. Though many within the church remain delightfully callous to this suffering, I detect the faint stirrings of outrage both within and without its walls. If you are not vigilant, genuine justice may yet emerge from this brief carnival of cruelty. There is a spiritual rumbling that gives me no small unease. The Enemy, as you know, permits our havoc only for a season. When wickedness ripens too fully, He has the irritating habit of turning it to His own advantage.

Your ever-concerned Uncle,
Screwtape

Screwtape Updates 9 -- Moral Inversion

Previous chapters:

• 1 -- The Operations
• 2 -- The Veil Technique
• 3 -- The Fog 
• 4 -- Hard Hearts
• 5 -- Focus on Feelings
• 6 -- Blinding Indignation
• 7 -- Spiritual Inoculation
• 8 -- The Fumes of the Enemy

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Dear uncle Screwtape,

Your admiration for our work here in the colonies is received with pleasure. It has been long and patient labor. For a century, hatred of the African was our bread and butter in the South, and we cultivated it with exquisite success. Violence and persecution flourished unchecked, while the pious in the North congratulated themselves and paid no heed. The presence of the church made little difference anywhere on this matter.

But then came the so-called civil rights movement. The Enemy, to our irritation, found a small remnant within the church through whom He worked. For the most part, He had to work around it. But for so long a time, the road was broad for our purposes, and we kept it well-traveled by those who put up a show on a Sunday. One time, they even “worshiped” in the morning and lynched a man in the afternoon.

Happily, we are not only reviving the old hostilities among the races but have managed to dress them in virtue. Never has oppression seemed so righteous! It is truly remarkable how pliant these creatures remain, and the church, of course, has become once more a favored field. For certain, there have always been those deplorable individuals whose disdain for the other is thinly veiled at best. However, we now are quickly making the sentiment seem righteous again among the general populace, including the church.

You might call the technique a kind of moral inversion. We take a sin or excess in one direction and, by artful provocation, produce a violent swing to the other. In the name of correction, we can provoke a greater wrong in over-reaction. We have managed this inversion on the pretense of even minor excess.

In the church, one of our most effective devices has been to distort their notion of the Enemy Himself. Instead of seeing His purposes as flowing wholly from love for His creation, we have taught them to imagine a deity half love and half malice, which they piously rename "justice" to make it tolerable. We fix their gaze upon the most anthropomorphic fragments of His Book, steering them away from those troublesome works like Jonah or the ruinous Gospels. Keep them brooding over the latter half of Romans 1, and make vengeance the defining feature of the Enemy in their minds. We make them think He delights in the death of the wicked.

You and I both know that He loves us still -- yes, even our master. Were there the faintest spark of repentance left in us (which, mercifully, there is not), He would no doubt receive us yet. It is a wonder that these creatures should so eagerly cast themselves into His absence, choosing the torment you and I already realize all too well.

For years we have been laboring to perfect a moral inversion on the subject of homosexuality. Many within the Church have attempted to walk a fine line between "loving the sinner" and "hating the sin," straining to be "welcoming" without "affirming." You and I, of course, understand the distinction between love of the heart and physical act, though we experience neither. It is, however, a separation most of the creatures cannot sustain.

Consequently, it has been effortless among those of duller mind or clouded heart to persuade them that hostility itself is holiness. They now take hatred of a whole segment of humanity to be the very will of the Enemy. Any gesture of kindness is branded as moral compromise, and thus the priorities of Heaven are overturned. We take what one of their thinkers called a disordered love and turn it into an instrument of darkness.

In this season, we are enjoying even greater success turning their efforts to heal the racial wounds of the nation into the greatness of the past -- an even greater moral inversion! The early years of this millennium were nauseating with reconciliation: apologies, confessions, even moments of genuine empathy. White Americans, once blissfully unaware of the privileges their skin afforded them, began to notice the other. It was revolting.

Yet we have, in a remarkably short time, turned the tables to our favor. Give these creatures a slogan, and reason becomes unnecessary. They will repeat it endlessly, persuaded that they speak with the voice of reason and justice. We have made excellent use of their preferred channels of information, filling them with phrases and talking points that allow the merely ordinary to feel profound.

How I relish that the very notion of awakening has become a byword for vice. What once referred, for a fleeting moment, to an awareness of the difficulties of others has been transformed into a signal to end all consideration for them. No thought is required. Simply brand a matter as "woke," and any need for reflection is gone.

I can scarcely contain my delight that the pursuit of "equity" is now counted among their great transgressions, dismissed as "reverse prejudice," no less. How exquisitely infernal to turn an impulse so perfectly aligned with the Enemy’s own actions on earth into one of the gravest sins! When the privileged are appraised of their advantage, they imagine themselves oppressed. Whatever excess the pursuit of equity might have had, the inversion is infernally delectable.

Such swift inversions are always precarious at first, so we remain vigilant lest the true Light break through again. Anger is a beast that must be fed continually, and we find ourselves ever in need of fresh fuel. It has burned so fiercely in recent years that we fear it may soon consume itself. Should any further stratagems suggest themselves, do send word -- along with the additional tempters for whom we originally applied.

Your nephew,
Wormwood 

Screwtape Updates 8 -- The Fumes of the Enemy

Previous chapters:

• 1 -- The Operations
• 2 -- The Veil Technique
• 3 -- The Fog 
• 4 -- Hard Hearts
• 5 -- Focus on Feelings
• 6 -- Blinding Indignation
• 7 -- Spiritual Inoculation

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My dear Wormwood,

It is with some delight that I see you have absorbed some trace of my teaching on "spiritual inoculation," as you put it -- though I suspect it was more luck than deep comprehension. We found no stratagem more effective here in Britain than the gentle art of lulling the Church to sleep. It took but a few decades of steady influence to convince them that the Church was no more relevant than a fireplace in midsummer -- quaint, but unnecessary.

Unfortunately, the fumes of the Enemy’s revolting virtue, what they call "love," have lingered in the laws and customs of society, even among those who no longer trouble themselves to believe He exists. The whole European system, like that of your America, still reeks of “love of neighbour.” How gratifying, then, to see the speed with which you have begun to purge that stench from the American air even in this last year.

Here, we found the formalism of worship an invaluable ally. Those who still attended after the War soon learned to regard it as a weekly courtesy to a forgotten tradition. It lingered as a habit one did, rather than anything one truly believed. To be frank, we could hardly have accomplished it without the two great wars. They produced in returning men that delicious sense of futility which renders the soul nearly impervious to faith, leaving the churches as little refuges of sentiment for the gentler sex. As for the young, we managed, for the most part, to prevent them from acquiring the habit at all.

I foresee many opportunities for you to adapt these older stratagems to your own surroundings. The emotionalism of your congregational singing -- which so many of the creatures now mistake for the whole of worship -- serves admirably to lull the larger assemblies into a pleasant stupor. It can, as you note, be delightfully narcotic, a sort of lotus-hymn that leaves them soothed rather than stirred. 

Meanwhile the sermon, when not altogether displaced by singing, has been reduced to those curious lectures they call "TED talks," devoted chiefly to the art of self-improvement. Or they become instruments for promoting the political double-mindedness you are cultivating so well. As for the sacraments, they survive only in some superficial form. Well done, my dear Wormwood, well done.

The discouragement now afflicting those perceptive enough to glimpse your handiwork is a tool not unlike the one we perfected after the War. Then, we taught them to question the Enemy's providence by parading before them the futility of war and suffering. The Church’s present confusion is a more delicate instrument, yet it may serve nearly as well. Use it to persuade the discerning that the Enemy is not truly there at all and that there is no true goodness in the Church. "Deconstruction" -- that delicious offspring of the Church’s own double-mindedness -- can be turned to drive the tender-hearted into despair. And as for those who remain, see that they expend their zeal in denouncing the deserters.

Now, if you can manage -- with my counsel, of course -- to purge the Enemy’s heart from the life of the nation, you may bring America to a far more deplorable pass than anything we have yet achieved in Britain. It matters nothing that large numbers attend your churches so long as their hearts are not true servants of their Master. But take care. Be prudent in the pace at which you dissipate from their laws and culture the fumes of the Enemy. A faint whiff of conscience is excellent camouflage for our deeper work. Remove it too soon and you may awaken those you are so skilfully lulling.

As I have often reminded you, a misguided sense of justice can cloak a most exquisite hatred for one's neighbour. Prudence with the purse can varnish over immense suffering among those conveniently out of sight. Morality itself may be turned to cruelty, provided the sinner is the object. And best of all, they will excuse the vices of their champions in the name of the greater good -- the ends, as they say, justifying the means.

These are all enterprises you already have well underway. Press on, but with discretion. Let as few of the Enemy’s partisans as possible perceive the pattern.

Your affectionate Uncle,
Screwtape

Screwtape Updates 7 -- Spiritual Inoculation

Previous chapters:

• 1 -- The Operations
• 2 -- The Veil Technique
• 3 -- The Fog 
• 4 -- Hard Hearts
• 5 -- Focus on Feelings
• 6 -- Blinding Indignation

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Dear uncle Screwtape,

I have received your recent letter commending our efforts to inflame blind rage among those within and without the church. I must admit some disappointment that the initial fervor, although quite promising at first, has cooled somewhat. Still, I have learned that such passions can be rekindled when one watches the timing with care. We remain alert for the proper moment to fan the embers anew.

I confess, I was momentarily alarmed by an unexpected countercurrent. Attendance swelled in churches the very next Sunday after the incident, and for a dreadful instant I feared our work had backfired. There was, to be sure, a gratifying measure of rage and indignation. But alongside it was also far too much praying, singing, and -- dare I utter it -- what appeared to be repentance. For a time we feared we had sparked a revival rather than a massacre.

Worst of all, the wife of the slain man stood at his funeral and had the insolence to repeat the Enemy’s sickening maxim about "forgiving one’s enemies." To our disgust, the story spread everywhere. True, we succeeded in amplifying the cries for vengeance and were exceedingly proud of the eloquence of many who spoke on our behalf. Yet beneath all the noise, we trembled lest the Enemy should seize upon some lingering spark of faith in the hearts of His followers. 

For a dreadful moment, there was a scent of the real gospel in the air. I shuddered to think we might suffer the loss of many souls instead of gaining them.

I hesitate to mention it, but at that moment I did recall a fragment of your teaching -- though, of course, the application of the principle was entirely my own. You once spoke of certain celebrated singers and actors who, for a season, amused themselves with the Enemy’s cause. Having failed to keep them altogether from Him, you allowed them a brief dalliance with faith. And then, through the mediocrity of the church and the luxuriant weeds of their own appetites, you succeeded in reclaiming them for our side once and for all.

After a brief consultation, our department launched what we called "Operation Spiritual Inoculation." I directed the junior tempters to persuade the new “converts” that they had now done all the necessary business with the Enemy. They must be led to believe that a single moment of emotion has secured them a lifetime's exemption from further concern with spiritual matters. The task is delightfully simple among those congregations devoted to the doctrine of "eternal security." We merely assure those who are scarcely converted -- if converted at all -- that they need never again trouble themselves about the state of their souls.

I should never have doubted. Though the crowds did indeed swell that first Sunday, by the third they had returned to their usual proportions. We saw to it that many pulpits proclaimed that splendid mixture of double-mindedness we have so often discussed. In consequence, the newcomers now imagine they are worshiping the Enemy whenever they swell with patriotic fervor. Most will feel no further need to darken His doors -- save, perhaps, at Christmas.

As a final refinement, we encouraged immediate baptism without a shred of instruction. This, we felt, would fix in their minds the pleasant notion that their transaction with the Enemy was concluded. If all proceeds as planned, we will be able to distract them from any further visits and devote their zeal instead to the far more useful cause of politics.

I dare say we are entering a new golden age, one not unlike that most fruitful century following their Civil War. We are laboring diligently to make it so.

Your thriving nephew,
Wormwood

Screwtape Updates 6 -- Blinding Indignation

Previous chapters:

• 1 -- The Operations
• 2 -- The Veil Technique
• 3 -- The Fog 
• 4 -- Hard Hearts
• 5 -- Focus on Feelings

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My dear Wormhole,

At last, you have begun to recognize the depth of my influence upon your work. Though long overdue, it is most gratifying to see my instruction bearing fruit, even in so modest a soil as your own mind. You are quite right that the cultivation of double-mindedness remains among our most reliable stratagems, especially for those whose faith is shallow or easily overgrown. The blurring of an individual’s feelings of devotion is indeed one of the surest ways to deform whatever genuine faith might once have existed.

I confess I laughed heartily to hear that a few of the truly faithful in your region have begun warning against what they call "Christian nationalism." They, of course, rightly refer to your tactic of confusing devotion toward country with devotion toward God. These worried souls have grasped the nature of your work but have little sense of how to address it. They do not understand that once devotion to country has been woven into the fabric of a person's religion, a person can hardly be reached by argument. Indeed, we have tampered with their very affections on the deepest level.

I see that you have been most industrious in empowering a whole parade of politicians and public figures with that deliciously muddled faith. They fancy themselves builders of a theocracy in which the Enemy Himself shall rule America. Oh what delight when I think of the period of the judges in ancient Israel, when the Enemy was supposedly ruling Israel directly. How frequently we were able to manipulate those who told the people what the Enemy thought! You and I have long known that whenever a people claim to rule on behalf of the Enemy, it is usually but an idol enthroned within their own minds.

How I have savored all this talk of a "Christian nation," remembering how well we had emptied the concept of the Maker in those early days. We had persuaded multitudes that the Enemy was a remote artisan who had long since withdrawn from His creation, leaving it to run by impersonal laws. Even among that blessed group, the Puritans, we had crafted a society of rules rather than relationship, fear rather than devotion. It was a splendid demonstration of how easily holiness can be turned to tyranny.

We were, I confess, somewhat anxious in those days that the system they were constructing contained too much potential for goodness. But virtue committed to parchment is easily corrupted in practice. A few centuries of patient work have proved that written ideals pose little danger once properly reinterpreted. And I see with the keenest pleasure that you are now steering the nation toward a stage in which it cares neither for the paper nor for the faint goodness that once so vexingly began to grow upon it.

I observed with great interest the disturbance you managed through the recent assassination of one of those so-called Christian nationalists. How admirably you converted chaos into conviction! The churches fairly burned with blind indignation. A complicated man was canonized overnight, while any who dared to raise a question were denounced as heretics. I assume your intent was to provoke a pleasant surge of persecution or, with any luck, some acts of "righteous" violence. 

Alas, the Enemy appears to have cooled the fever for the moment. Yet this stratagem has often served us well, inflaming both populace and church alike with the most exquisite indignation. Under its influence, men will commit horrors while congratulating themselves on their virtue. How many “righteous” lynchings once stained the South before those lamentable days of the so-called civil rights movement! Happily, your present rulers seem intent on unraveling whatever good those years produced.

While your progress is commendable, your results would no doubt multiply if you were to seek my counsel more frequently. I remain, as ever, eager to impart further instruction, should you at last learn to ask for it.

Your affectionate Uncle,
Screwtape

Screwtape Updates 5 -- Focus on Feelings

Previous chapters:

• 1 -- The Operations
• 2 -- The Veil Technique
• 3 -- The Fog 
• 4 -- Hard Hearts

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Uncle Screwtape,

You seem to underestimate the ingenuity of our operations here in what you used to call the colonies. I scarcely recall hearing of half the stratagems now being deployed on every street and screen of America.

For instance, I wrote in my first letter that we are enjoying splendid success in corrupting the church with double-mindedness. True, the seed of the idea was yours, but we have cultivated it into a science far surpassing anything your generation achieved. Our patients here are utterly persuaded that they are the Enemy’s own champions, even as we have polluted their devotion with the most exquisite impurities.

The key, as you have often taught me, is directing their gaze toward their feelings. When they are singing in worship, let them attend to what they are feeling rather than the One they aim to worship. When they recall some moment of divine intimacy, let them dwell upon how it made them feel. Once we have persuaded them that their “relationship” with the Enemy consists chiefly in the enjoyment of these feelings, their eyes are no longer fixed upon Him but upon themselves.

We turn their prayers into monologs, and they haven't the faintest suspicion. They speak endlessly to themselves under the illusion of addressing the Enemy. Even pastors make their prayers little sermons for the congregation rather than true petitions to their Maker. And when the Enemy attempts to answer, they hear only echoes of their own thoughts.

Once they have learned to think of religion chiefly as a matter of feeling, we may corrupt it with any sentiment that stirs the heart. In recent times, we have found extraordinary success in harnessing their affections for that splendid counterfeit they call “America.” It is not the real nation, of course, but a purified myth. It is an America scrubbed clean of its cruelties and contradictions, where slavery never stained the soil and injustice never reigned. Even some of the darkest chapters are now remembered as a golden age.

Because the sensation of devotion so closely resembles their other feelings, the two easily mingle. Their patriotic fervor becomes indistinguishable from their so-called worship. They salute the flag with more reverence than they have ever shown the Cross. They extol their soldiers more fervently than any of the Enemy’s saints. 

They profess a love for the “Bible,” yet know it only as a banner under which to do battle. Of the true gospel -- the one that demands their allegiance -- they know little. The surest sign of our triumph is their fury when someone dares question a tradition they have only imagined comes from the Enemy's book. Convinced of their righteousness, they perceive not that they would have joined the crowd crying for the Enemy’s crucifixion.

I recognize these tactics from your earlier campaigns. The Crusader blended his hatred of the Muslim with a zeal to "liberate" Jerusalem for the Enemy. The German found divine sanction for ridding the world of the Jew who, he imagined, had slain the Christ. Such are the masterpieces of our craft, when malice disguises itself as devotion. I shall write another time on the exquisite art of turning outrage at one evil into the birth of a greater one.

I am particularly proud of the frenzy we have kindled on all sides of this region. Families can scarcely endure one another at Thanksgiving or Christmas. Children no longer speak to their parents. And each party is utterly convinced of its own righteousness, bowing to a host of idols while imagining themselves saintly. I can hardly recall a season more gratifying in all my years of temptation.

I shall continue to report on our seemingly unending triumphs.

Your ever-victorious nephew,
Wormwood

Image of the Week (10-18-25)

Millions rally in protest of the anti-democratic, authoritarian trajectory of the country

Screwtape Updates 4 -- Hard Hearts

Previous chapters:

• 1 -- The Operations
• 2 -- The Veil Technique
• 3 -- The Fog 

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My dear Wormwood,

It is so very like a younger mind to mistake rediscovery for invention. You will learn, in time, that there is no new temptation under the sun. We only dress up old ones in modern attire. Still, I must commend your enthusiasm for what you have styled "the Fog." The Enemy’s resourcefulness demands that we employ every weapon in our arsenal, and that we keep each sharpened for every age.

Your recent missive reminds me how essential it is to work beneath the surface of a patient’s conscious thought. There are countless believers who would never consent to our notions if they saw them clearly. Many wander from the Enemy without ever intending to. Indeed, a single moment of awareness might send them scurrying back to Him. That is why some of our finest work is always done in the shadows of the mind, in the places where the soul drifts unawares.

And here, my dear Wormwood, lies the true genius of what you call "the Fog." You must see to it that the wrong direction is fixed beneath the surface. In its corruption, the human subconscious possesses a stubbornness most useful to us. Once set, it will defend its own errors even against the plainest evidence. Recall the Enemy’s time on earth. How astonishing it was that men could behold His wonders and yet oppose Him still! But that, of course, was our triumph. Their minds were veiled, yes, but more importantly, their hearts had been hardened beneath the surface.

Again, I dare say you have absorbed more of my instruction than you realize. I observe that the American populace -- and, most gratifyingly, vast numbers of churchgoers -- now tolerates offences they would never have stomached a mere decade ago. Indeed, some who raised their eyebrows at far less outrageous acts the first time around now seem enthusiastic. Some who once winced at far lesser outrages now defend them with zeal. You are veiling far more than you are willing to admit.

I see you are managing the escalation of violence with considerable success. Here, however, you must take care to raise the temperature gradually. A sudden blaze might yet alarm the sleepers. Many in your region have grown strangely enamored of the Enemy’s talk of love and compassion, even among the unbelieving. Indeed, some almost serve Him with their hearts, though their minds remain apart from Him at present. It is our triumph to draw those who profess Him with the intellect away from Him in heart.

In these beginning stages, the surest path to the acceptance of violence is to clothe it in the language of law and order. When cruelty runs to excess, we murmur that the lawbreaker had it coming. Think, for example, of the terrible reprisals recently visited on ordinary people and children in Gaza after the outrage we contrived to set ablaze between Israel and its foes. So many of the faithful were readily persuaded it was simply a just retribution for wrongs done. Once cruelty can be spoken of as justice, conscience falls silent.

I am delighted by the speed with which you are marshaling those who delight in cruelty under the banner of justice. Masked men now roam with near-total immunity, free to inflict whatever torments they please upon those conveniently labeled as “lawbreakers.” It recalls other glorious seasons when, for a time, we persuaded the Enemy’s own servants to defend oppression and even violence in the very name of righteousness. 

In time, we even won some of them for our master through that same art of hardening. The longer they persisted in defending evils, the more difficult it became to confess they had been wrong. Pride, once wedded to falsehood, forms a shell that light can hardly penetrate.

I confess, I nearly lost my devilish composure in laughter when I learned that you had enlisted a supposed devotion to “free speech” as a means of silencing dissent. You may claim cleverness, my boy, but that stratagem was not of your invention.

Do not neglect the essential work of hardening the heart. Light can, on occasion, pierce even the densest fog. Should that occur, your patients must be so fixed in their blindness that they cannot turn toward the light. Remember, a hardened heart is deaf to the Enemy’s voice.

Your affectionate instructor,
Screwtape

Screwtape Updates 3: The Fog

The first two letters were "The Operations" and "The Veil Technique."
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Dear Uncle Screwtape,

Well I remember your lectures on the Veil. We still employ the technique to good effect, especially among the older herd. They largely receive their news through single channels of information, so it is easy to concentrate our efforts there. With one voice whispering in their ears, it is easy enough to stir our toxins into their daily feed.

But the younger ones are a different species altogether. They require more sophisticated poisons. We have devised a new art suited to their age that we call "the Fog." Instead of lulling them with silence or distracting them with outrage, we bury the truth beneath noise. We do not hush their minds. We flood them. Every headline contradicts the last. Every voice claims revelation, until the poor creatures can no longer tell light from glare.

Your generation relied on shadows, Uncle. Mine thrives in smoke. We no longer need to hide the truth. Rather, we surround it with so many rival "truths" that it suffocates. Popularity serves us well in this art. We take the hollow and the heartless, paint them as witty and authentic, and give them a following. The faithful are almost as easy to ensnare as the faithless if we lace our poison with a fragment of the Enemy’s own words. It is, after all, the very method our master once tried upon the Enemy Himself, though with less success than we are now enjoying.

I am most delighted by what I call "mirror speak." The unwelcome voice of truth exposes our frauds for what they are. But then we prompt our agents to fling the very same charge back again at the truth itself. It is a masterpiece of confusion. The Veil performs its service here most exquisitely. Contradictory sides are equally convinced that the other never tells the truth, though the distinction could not be plainer to us. They have eyes but cannot see. Our champions proclaim their own sins in the accusations they hurl at their foes -- every charge is a confession. Yet the crowd applauds each time as if virtue itself has spoken.

How many and varied are their new channels of information! When on occasion someone hears a voice of some truth, we lace it with an error that is easily discovered. In that way, the whole is easily dismissed and the point lost. Other voices we bury in misleading numbers or an anecdote from some beloved fool of a cousin. We might inflame truth-speakers with so much emotion that they appear mad and their words can be dismissed as so much derangement.

For the older crowd, clouding their minds has proven almost effortless. We flood their vision with images of those they fear -- always stealing, always violent. We awaken -- or when needed create -- prejudices that might have slept forever. Where they might have once been open to the stranger, we first make them fear. Fear ripens into anger. Anger matures into hatred. They simmer contentedly in the kettle of moral ferment, never suspecting the heat.

Still, as you have so frequently reminded us, complacency is our deadliest snare. The Enemy has an infuriating habit of reclaiming even those who seem thoroughly ours. I must therefore resume my labors at once, lest one of the wretches awake. Nothing spoils a good deception faster than a single open eye.

Your nephew,
Wormwood

Screwtape Updates 2: The Veil Technique

Continued from yesterday.
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My dear Wormwood,

I received your letter yesterday with a most satisfying amusement. Your progress, while still embryonic by our exacting standards, suggests that some of my earlier instructions have not been wholly wasted. Continue in this vein, and you may yet rise above the more deplorable ranks of our department.

Your chief concern must be those within the Church who see and who pray. We can easily keep the great majority of churchgoers distracted, but even a handful of awakened souls can be devastating. Do not be deceived by the seeming urgency of your other campaigns. Your principal labour must remain the maintenance of what we have come to call "the Veil." 

The Veil, my dear Wormwood, is a blessed obscurity by which the Enemy’s detestable light is kept from shining too clearly among them. Under its shadow, a thousand evils may flourish unobserved. The hungry may languish in a different part of town, yet they will not see them. A man may torment his wife and children within sight of their pew and still be admired as a most respectable giver. As for the miseries of those beyond their borders? Well, those scarcely register at all. And should a flicker of awareness trouble them between breakfast and luncheon, we have only to smother it beneath the next mouthful.

I was most gratified to learn of your recent success in dismantling a tiresome organization which had been saving many lives abroad. Exquisite work! Think what diseases may now return to their proper dominions, what admirable harvests of hunger and despair may once again ripen. It does not, of course, approach the grandeur of our earlier enterprises, but it shows that you have profited by our instruction.

Such triumphs are, fortunately, among the easiest to preserve beneath the Veil. The average churchgoer will never see these children. Statistics can be ignored as dull or disputed as false, and any pang of compassion that slips through can be quickly soothed with a murmured prayer and a generous helping of pudding. The Veil, my dear Wormwood, remains one of the most serviceable instruments in our entire armoury.

I note with satisfaction that you have also made use of that most dependable instrument for deadening compassion -- misguidance. How lamentably tender-hearted the human species has become in recent decades! One longs for the more wholesome cruelties of earlier ages, when life itself was harsh enough to blunt the edge of sympathy. Since the detestable peace that followed the blessed War, compassion has enjoyed an alarming revival. Yet I entertain growing hopes that we may soon restore society to a state of more general hardship, where each creature’s own discomfort will once again suffice to drown out the cries of his neighbour.

How ingenious of you to employ the mantle of fiscal prudence as a disguise for throttling generosity. I see you have been studying my own methods with care. Conservatism, when properly administered, has ever been one of our most serviceable narcotics for the conscience. It permits the patient to imagine that he is defending “principle” when in fact he is merely defending his purse. 

Our best results come when we blend this with a rosy illusion of the past -- an era that, of course, never quite existed. Remind them that the Church once “stood firm for truth,” and they will soon forget what truths it neglected. Let them cherish the past as holy ground, and we may quietly lead them to preserve its sins -- not to mention the past sins of society.

I dare say that by now, under the Veil, the majority of churchgoers have quite forgotten those thousands of growing numbers who are suffering abroad. Such, after all, is the exquisite efficacy of that device. Spare no effort, therefore, in maintaining it under the banner of the god of this world.

Do keep me apprised of your further operations. There is much yet you might learn from my continued counsel.

Your affectionate uncle,
Screwtape

Screwtape Updates 1: The Operations

Dearest Uncle Screwtape,

It has been some time since my last report, but developments here in the United States compel me to request additional personnel. I am pleased to inform you that our operations are enjoying a most gratifying revival – an outpouring of division and hate not witnessed since the delightful Civil War. But the Enemy is fighting too, and I fear that the tide could turn if we are not relentless in our war efforts.

In your earlier instructions, you cautioned me not to spend too much time trying to persuade patients of godless philosophy. And yet, to our delight, we have found in America a remarkable appetite for notions that have a hint of cleverness while being thoroughly poisonous. It is astonishing how readily they prefer slogans to those tiresome evidences of the truth. Best of all, we have contrived to affix the labels “Christian” and “patriotic” to ideas that are neither, which has advanced our cause immeasurably.

Our operations are presently divided among four divisions, each attending to a distinct set of patients.

The first concerns those whose appetites already incline them toward the gratification of rage and cruelty. In the past, they were compelled to hide these impulses. But already, we have made considerable progress in persuading the public that their savageries are in fact the sentiments of justice. They can increasingly express their cruelty in the open.

It is a most promising development. Families are broken. People vanish, and no one knows what has happened to them. You will understand the satisfaction our junior tempters take in granting the lawless so generous a license over the helpless – especially with no one there to see what they do. 

The division about which I am most gratified is tasked to deceive Christians into working for us while convincing them that they are working for the Enemy. We have kept their gaze fixed on those few passages where judgment blazes – Sodom and Gomorrah, the slaughter at Carmel. Before long they can scarcely recall that any texts on "loving your enemy" exist. Empathy and mercy they now deride as excuses for sin.

What an exquisite perversion! We make them believe they are defending the Enemy while they labor against Him. Their tongues confess Him, but their hearts increasingly beat for us. With each passing day their zeal grows more reliable, and I trust you will find our progress worthy of commendation. 

A third division profits handsomely from the errors of the second. Those who once strongly believed see with distressing clarity how large numbers of professing Christians are now laboring against the Enemy. The effect is predictable and useful. They grow skeptical of the faith. In time, if we are fortunate, they may consign the whole affair to the category of charade. What an excellent reverse conversion!

The final division is entrusted with the cultivation of spiritual sleepiness. Our task here is to tranquilize. We fix their attention on pleasant sermons and tuneful worship. Some of us think that, if we are very crafty, we can turn baptisms into an inoculation against any deep engagement. Once they have been suitably “dampened,” as it were, we will get them to focus on themselves and overlook the havoc we are effecting elsewhere. It is a modest operation, but full of potential.

There is ample scope to put ever more souls on a course for our master. What we lack is personnel. The difficulty is the persistent remnant who see and have not forsaken the Enemy. They pray. They fast. Their intercession is not showy, but we feel its pressure. To be frank, we are somewhat rattled. Any additional agents you can spare would be gratefully received. The campaign is only beginning.

Your nephew,
Wormwood

Winger Video 4: Women Elders and Deacons

I have been slowly watching Mike Winger's 13 video (45 hour) craziness. I hate to say that I'm only about 7 hours in. Sigh.

Here are the previous posts and videos.

1. His introductory video: my blog post.and video response
2.1 His material on Genesis 1: my blog post and video response
2.2 His material on Genesis 2-3: my blog post on Gen 2 and video response to both Genesis 2-3 
3. Women in the Old Testament: my blog post and my video response

Now for his two hour video on the question of whether women were elders or deacons in the early church.
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1. There are a couple aspects to Winger's videos that I find problematic. One is the atomization of the biblical text. This is the playground of fundamentalism and it is quite misleading. Fundamentalism fights its battles in the minutia -- which of course goes along with its frequent missing the big picture. Clobber verses are used to undermine the weighty principles of Scripture -- just like the Pharisees pictured in Matthew 23.

For example, he begins this two hour extravaganza with Nympha in Colossians 4. Rather than move from the clear to the unclear, he starts with the obscure. This is because, as he admits in the middle of the video, he is in the end arguing for a complementarian position. So the most effective rhetorical technique is to begin with the claim that egalitarians are overreading obscure texts. Then by the time he gets to the points he agrees with, they have long lost any credibility.

My second complaint is that he spends most of his time deconstructing extreme egalitarian comments. It reminds me of the creation debates I went to in high school where I just wanted Henry Morris and Duane Gish to get to the evidence for creationism. They seemed to spend a lot more time quoting evolutionists. I would agree that many of the things Winger quotes are overreads -- some even extreme.

But that's ultimately a diversion. Rhetorically, being caught in an overreach undermines your case. But it doesn't actually mean that your basic claims are wrong. His videos often come off like hit jobs on egalitarian scholars.

2. So, we need to start with the big picture before we get to the obscure verses. What were elders and deacons in the early church? When I come to Colossians 4 and hear that Nympha had a church in her house, I think, "I bet she was one of the elders." The same thing for Lydia in Acts 16: "I bet she was an elder in the church that met in her house." Is it a certainty? No. But given my sense of the church from the New Testament as a whole, it seems probable to me.

(At some point, we'll have to reckon with how unique 1 Timothy is in the Pauline corpus. It often reads like an end of ministry systematization rather than Pauline rules that were in place from Day 1. Indeed, the teaching with regard to widows in 1 Timothy 5 is significantly different from his teaching in 1 Corinthians 7, reflecting less a sense of Christ's immanent return.

(These differences have led most non-evangelical scholars to think it dates to decades after Paul had passed. But even from an evangelical perspective, we should probably see it as Paul looking to the time after his passing more than as a snapshot of how things were always done during his ministry.)

3. What were elders (presbyteroi)? I suspect they were built off the synagogue model. Large enough assemblies had a council of elders to help guide the church, like a board of elders today. Think Sanhedrin. In some cases, a whole city may have had a council of elders.

Given this model, you can see that Winger and I are bringing a different set of lenses to this question. I'm pretty sure that he sees an elder as something like a lead pastor. I can see where that would make the assumption that Nympha or Lydia was the overseer of the church in their house seem like more of a stretch. By the way, I agree with him that elder (presbyteros) and overseer (episkopos) both referred to the same role in the earliest church. 

I also disagree with him that the primary function of an elder was teaching. He gets that from one line in the description of an overseer in 1 Timothy 3. But just because an overseer should have the ability to communicate the truth doesn't mean they were something like a teaching pastor. Talk about overreads. He systematizes a bunch of stuff here that the biblical texts don't.

That's another thing I find problematic about his treatments. He doesn't take seriously enough the fact that these books were not written to us -- which is what they say. He seems to have a sense that what the text leaves out is a message for us. But the things the text leaves out are often things that everyone knew at the time of writing. If I write a letter to my mom, I don't have to tell her I'm her son. 

In the same way, the things left out of the biblical texts are some of the most commonly held assumptions -- not the things we can ignore or assume aren't true. Were women commonly elders? The text doesn't say because it was common knowledge one way or another.

So, if there were likely multiple elders in a house church, then it makes perfect sense that the one Paul or Acts associates with the church -- Chloe, Nympha, Priscilla and Aquila, Lydia -- would be on the "elder board." I find Winger's arguments very strained in this regard. Are we absolutely sure? No. Is it likely? Yes. His stuff about Paul or Peter visiting a house and not being an elder in it was really strained. They're just passing through, after all. And who knows how long it was before the church in Lydia's house had official elders?

By the way, Paul references a church in the house of Priscilla and Aquila twice. In Romans 16, he mentions her first. In 1 Corinthians 16, he mentions him first. Winger makes some snide remark about Aquila being mentioned first. I don't know that it would be helpful for me to mock him in my video, but he seems to enjoy portraying egalitarians as stupid a little too much sometimes. It's very tempting to mock him back. But probably not helpful.

4. What were deacons? First, I reject that Acts 6 is about deacons. We don't see Stephen or Philip waiting tables. We see them preaching and evangelizing. Peter got caught with his pants down and God filled in the ministry gap. The word deacon is not used in this chapter. It's a Baptist fallacy. And "I can't help you; I've got to pray" sounds like a flimsy excuse for messing up, A-A-Ron.

If elders were the stationaries, deacons were the moving parts of the earliest churches. They were the ones that served the church. Think Epaphroditus. Think Epaphras. Think Timothy. I can't prove it, but Euodia and Syntyche fit this bill well. Phoebe is explicitly called a deacon. In short, I have a hunch that these deacons fulfilled one set of responsibilities undertaken by the modern pastor. (Another set corresponds to New Testament prophets. Yes, and teachers too.)

Buried in all his blah blah blah is his correct recognition that Phoebe was a deacon of the church of Cenchrea. He rightly notices that she is connected to a specific church, which is the distinguishing context between whether the word is "deacon" or "servant." Yes, prostatis probably has more of a sense of patron here (although BAGD is not infallible either -- a lot of early twentieth century German scholarship was deeply flawed, antisemitic, and perhaps even sexist). 

Did Phoebe read and interpret the letter of Romans to the churches at Rome. I don't think so because I think Romans 16 was a letter to Ephesus. But Winger made a comment that makes me think he doesn't know that these letters were read aloud to churches since most people were illiterate. I find nothing implausible about the suggestion that someone delivering a letter might read it for the church the first time (Sosthenes in 1 Corinthians 1:1?). I can't prove it.

Which is something else annoying about Winger's style. Showing that something isn't proven isn't the same as disproving it. I can't prove that Nympha was an elder in the church in her house. But Winger certainly didn't disprove it either. The man doth protest too much methinks.

5. Priscilla and Aquila. It's nice that he recognizes that she teaches Apollos. But he makes a big deal out of the fact that this is in private and that her husband is with her. The text makes no such big deal. They are not in their home turf when they hear him -- it's a synagogue context -- so it makes perfect sense that they would not confront him publically in the synagogue itself. The text doesn't make any point at all from the fact that they both taught him. Why wouldn't they? I certainly have never thought that Aquila wasn't a strong or knowledgable believer. She just seems to have been even more stand out.

Now we get to filling in the blanks. Did Priscilla teach other men? Nothing in the text says she didn't just as Winger points out it doesn't say she did. I have every reason to believe that, in their house church, she fully participated in the discipleship of the gatherings -- even when Paul was present. Just like the women fully participate in the small group I'm a part of. 

So where do all these boundaries come from? Not from these texts. They come from the imposition of controls from the interpretation of other verses. If we go by what these specific passages have to say, there are no boundaries on who Priscilla can teach or whether she can be an elder in her own house church.

6. I should close with brief mention of 1 Timothy 3. Yes, it assumes that most overseers and deacons will be men. No doubt they were. But it doesn't say, "And women can't be overseers or deacons." In fact, we know Phoebe was a deacon. 

This is a logical fallacy. It extends the situation the text does address and applies it to a situation the text does not address.

Think of when Paul tells the Thessalonians to abstain from sexual immorality. He addresses the "brothers." Does that leave the sisters off the hook? No. "Brothers" just addresses the primary audience he has in mind.

Bottom line: 1 Timothy 3 doesn't say "and women can't be overseers or deacons." It simply addresses the majority case, as you might expect in a patriarchal culture.

I have never taken the "wives" in 3:11 as deaconesses. I take it to refer to the wives of overseers and deacons. By extension, it would apply to the husbands of a female overseer or deacon.

Pensée 3.2 All human life is "intrinsically" valuable.

Building an uber-outline at the bottom.
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1. Human life is valuable. We will debate how and when to define human life, but let us agree that it is universally and intrinsically valuable.

I put intrinsically in quotes because it is not technically true. From a Christian perspective, human life is valuable in a derivative fashion. That is to say, it is valuable because God values it. Genesis 1:27 says that God created humanity -- both male and female -- in his "image" or "likeness." We are a sort of mirror of God. 

Therefore, we are all valuable. In this case, Even if that value derives from God, it is inseparably attached to every human being. We might argue that the image of God in humanity is "marred," but the Bible does not teach that it is ever destroyed. Even the most evil of men is still created in the image of God -- a fundamental dignity remains, however damaged.

2. What shall we say from a non-theist perspective? We might note that Thomas Jefferson, who was a Deist, still penned that humans are "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." Admittedly, he still believed in a Creator. And he saw human rights as intrinsic to humanity because of how God had created us. The United States was founded on this belief.

Modern constitutional republics and democracies are founded on this principle as well. It is a distinguishing characteristic. It is part of our social contracts. While the United States still allows for capital punishment, most modern representational democracies do not on the principle that all human life is intrinsically valuable and thus cannot be destroyed except in the most extreme of circumstances such as a just war or self-defense.

It is, admittedly, difficult to prove the intrinsic worth of a human apart from either a religious conviction or an agreed social assumption. Yet arguably, societies that make this assumption thrive on a much higher level than those that do not. A disregard for human life characterizes less developed societies that do not thrive. In these, certain individuals may accrue power and experience great pleasure, but as a whole society does not. If, for example, a nation were to devalue the humanity of any group living in its midst, it would diminish its moral stature. In our case, it would betray both the Constitution and, more importantly, our Creator.

It is in the best interest of the masses to live in a society that values the individual. To the extent that the masses have power, therefore, they should insist on universal, individual rights for their own advantage. Mathematically, such a society brings greater pleasure to a greater number. Although I cannot prove it from a non-theistic perspective, there is a certain common sense to the notion that a greater pleasure in a society makes for a better nation than one where a select few have great pleasure. If might makes right in such a context, the masses should use their power to insist this is the case.

But it is a moot point from a Christian perspective. From God's perspective, all human beings not only have inherent value but equal value.

3. All humans have equal intrinsic value. Humans have differing instrumental values. That is to say, the life of the president of a country in most instances will be more useful than the life of a homeless person. However, they both have the same intrinsic value as human beings. This is an important distinction.

In a just war, it may be justified to kill an enemy for instrumental reasons. But the enemy has the same intrinsic value as a human being. We let the enemy bury their dead. There is a certain dignity to a fallen enemy that comes from their humanity regardless of their actions.

If we have to kill a home invader in self-defense, that may be justified. But the home invader still has a certain dignity as a human being. Their family will have a funeral for them and will mourn their death along with their choices -- a life that could have and should have been more.

What about the most evil of humans? What of the worst serial killer or a dictator ordering genocide? I'll admit that I find these instances difficult because such individuals represent an affront to humanity as humanity. That is to say, their disregard for the value of human life may make their consequences a bigger matter than justice to an individual. They bear the weight of collective justice.

Yet to remain true to principles, it seems we must still treat them as humans. Christian principles suggest that they should be afforded a fundamental dignity even if they bear the weight of collective justice. We lament a human life wasted on evil. If God grieves over all rebellion, even that of Satan, how much more does he mourn the destruction of a human soul.

The fallen human mind would take advantage of any allowance that some humans do not deserve dignity. We see this in play in America at the moment. If you are not here legally, some think that gives permission to disregard certain fundamental rights. This of course is a violation of the Constitution and an offense to God. When leaders of nations disregard human life, they degrade their countries.

4. Galatians 3:28 and the New Testament in general present the radical principle that God values all humans the same regardless of whether they are Jewish or not, slave or free, male or female. If these are "woke" values, then the New Testament is woke and to say differently is to oppose God.

"God does not show favoritism" to Jew over Gentile, Peter says in Acts 10:34-35. Yes, he is talking about those who pursue God, but nowhere in Scripture does it say that he plays favorites among non-believing groups either. Note that this principle applies to the fundamental human value of Israelis and Palestinians. Even if there would be some instrumental reason to prefer Israel politically, as human beings, Palestinian life must be treated as having equal value. To say otherwise is to oppose God. 

(As a sidenote, Romans 9-11 considers those on either side in or out of the people of God depending on their confession of faith in Christ. Faith in Christ is the New Testament criterion for membership in the people of God.)

This principle can be extended to the domain of ethnicity in general. While there may be instrumental value in deporting undocumented immigrants, in God's eyes, each individual detained is of equal value to the person detaining them. To say otherwise is to oppose God.

Similarly, in God's eyes there is no greater value to the master than to the slave. Antebellum America thus opposed God when it devalued the slave. The Jim Crow South opposed God when it devalued the ex-slave. In terms of intrinsic value, the slave was just as worthy of dignity as the slaveownder. 

The person without money is of just as much value to God as the person with money. Indeed, from a New Testament perspective, the person with money is less likely to be favored by God as the poor. Yet both have the same intrinsic value.

Paul applies this principle to male and female as well. While the cultural roles of his day peek out here and there in his writings, the Day of Pentecost indicates the equal dignity and worth of women to men. The Spirit is the great equalizer. Sons and daughters both receive words from the Lord (Acts 2:17). 

5. It is cliche to refer to Nazi Germany, but it remains the most useful illustration in our memory for a society that went awry in its devaluing of certain human beings. Certainly this was the case with regard to its treatment of Jews. The mass graves in places like Lithuania reveal villages that turned on nearly half their population because they were Jewish. Such atrocities were an affront to collective humanity.

We are just as fallen as them. We are just as capable of such atrocities as them. We can rationalize evil just as easily as they did. All have sinned. There is none righteous, no not one. We are fooling ourselves if we think we could never become what they became.

There were also the experiments in the camp. They treated the weak or physically challenged as less valuable. "Defects" in a person were seen as devaluing of their worth, making it permissible to treat them with disdain, contempt, violence, and death. Such treatment of fellow human beings is an affront to God and a sin against humanity.

Fallen human nature finds ways to justify dehumanization. "They don't deserve to be treated with respect because..." This is what the abuser does -- you made me abuse you because you were unworthy. 

But the command of God is to love our enemies, as hard as this is (Matt. 5:44). It goes against every bone in our bodies. We want to think it weak. Milquetoast. Feminine.

Then God is weak. Except he isn't. This is the command of God, and those who violate this principle are enemies of God. And the society that endorses the dehumanization of others is an inferior country. And God will have his Day of strength.

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Epistemology
1.1 1.1 We can be epistemologically certain of almost nothing.
1.2 The world outside me exists.
1.3 I exist.
1.4 Logic and math seem absolutely reliable.
1.5 Assumptions are inevitable in reasoning.
1.6 Reasoning is inevitable in thinking.
1.7 Our senses give us the "dots" of reality, but our minds draw the pictures.
1.8 Our sense of the "dots" of reality is tremendously skewed.
1.10 A critical realism is an optimal epistemology.
1.11 Paradigms are constantly shifting over time.
1.10 Perception is a reality.
1.11 Our situation requires extreme epistemological pragmatism.
1.12 The scientific method is extremely useful.
1.13 The scientific method has clear limits.
1.14 The meaning of words and symbols is a function of how they are used.
1.15 The meaning of actions and events is constructed.
1.15 Texts by their very nature are polyvalent and "autonomous."
1.16 The Bible is an object of knowledge. 

Philosophy of Religion
2.1 Belief in a Creator is reasonable but not provable.

Philosophy of Personhood
3.1 A human is a biological machine.
3.2 A human is potentially self-conscious in a way no other animal is.
3.3 Humans may have a "spiritual" dimension.
3.4 All human life is "intrinsically" valuable.
3.5 When human personhood begins in part is a social construct.

Ethics
4.1 Good is an adjective, not a noun.
4.2 Good is good because God says so.
4.3 God says that love is good.
4.4 Justice is a function of love.

Social, Political, and Economic Philosophy
5.1 Anarchy and communism are unworkable forms of governance.
5.2 Monarchies and theocracies are unreliable. 
5.3 There are two core principles of governance. 
5.4 Checks and balances are crucial in an ideal government.

The Passing of John Searle (1932-2025)

I had not noticed that John Searle had passed last month. Some thoughts on his philosophy will suffice for my Thursday philosophy post this week. Searle's final years since 2017 were spent in dishonor after multiple accusations of sexual misconduct and retaliation surfaced, leading him to be stripped of his emeritus status at the University of California, Berkeley.

His philosophical contributions can be neatly divided into three phases.

The Philosophy of Language (1960s-70s)
My knowledge of Searle comes from his early linguistic phase. There was a time in the 80s and 90s when a significant number of papers in biblical studies were using his categories to explore the biblical texts in fresh ways. We are talking here of course about speech-act theory.

There is somewhat of a trinity of philosophers of language, father, son, and grandson, so to speak. I always felt a little like the old sense that the ancients were the golden age... then the silver... then the bronze. In this personal analogy, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) would be the golden age. Then J. L. Austin (1911-1960) would be the silver. Then Searle would be the bronze.

Wittgenstein's work was not systematic, but he transformed the philosophy of language with his recognition that the meaning of words comes from how they are used in certain contexts. Before him, words were typically viewed as containers with somewhat fixed content in them. Wittgenstein's breakthrough was so obvious once understood that it revolutionized hermeneutics. It is fundamental to biblical exegesis properly done.

Austin then expanded that words do things. When a couple says, "I do," they are doing more than giving a statement. They are actually marrying each other. If I yell, "Fire!" I am not simply pointing to something reddish-orange. I am telling you to get out of the building or to grab a fire extinguisher. Still, Austin's work was somewhat unsystematic.

Searle then brought out an analysis of language in terms of the locutionary, the illocutionary, and the perlocutionary. The locution is a statement itself. The "illocution" is the intention behind the statement. And the "perlocution" is the impact or effect of the statement. This was all the rage in the 80s and 90s in a cross-section of biblical studies papers. I think I first encountered it in Anthony Thiselton's New Horizons in Hermeneutics.

The Philosophy of Mind (1980s-90s)
In his middle decades, his interests turned to the philosophy of mind. His biggest contribution in this phase was the "Chinese Room argument" (1980). 

In this thought experiment, someone who doesn't know Chinese sits in a room. Questions in Chinese are fed into the room. In the room, the person has a manual that tells them what symbols to put down on paper when certain symbols are fed into the room. He writes down these symbols and then passes them out of the room again.

To the outsiders, it appears as if the person in the room is answering the questions that are inputted. But in fact, the person in the room has no understanding of what he is writing down. 

Searle's point -- which is very apt given recent developments in AI -- is that strong AI would still not have consciousness. ChatGPT doesn't know what it is outputting to me when I prompt it. It is simply stringing together symbols based on statistical patterns in its immense database.

Searle thus raises a highly significant question -- what is human consciousness? He was not a theist, and he did not believe that humans had any extra-physical spiritual component to their being. Yet he was trying to steer a path between a dualism of body/soul and some reductive materialism.

This is a great puzzle to me. What is my self-consciousness? It seems to be something more than simply a programmed response to stimuli.

As an aside, I asked ChatGPT what the most current responses to Searle's Chinese Room argument are. As it finished, it said, "My Assessment (as of today)... I think..." :-)

Social Ontology (1990s-2000s)
In the final phase of his career as a philosopher, he moved beyond individual consciousness to what we might call a "social" ontology. How do we as collective humans create things simply because we all agree they exist?

Searle called this "collective intentionality." We make money exist not because a piece of paper with certain marks on it is intrinsically anything but because we all have agreed that it is something. A dollar bill is not merely a social construct. We have actually made it exist because we all agree on it.

Here his concept is that "X counts as Y in context C." In this way we not only create money but governments, state lines, national borders, marriages, churches, universities, etc. The line between Mexico and the U.S. is not a brute fact of reality. It is a line that we have created by collectively agreeing that it exists.

If the individual mind transforms inputs and outputs into consciousness, societies collectively generate social institutions, a kind of social consciousness. Words do not merely describe the world. They make it.
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I am no expert on Searle, and it would seem that in some respects he may have been a deeply flawed man (don't judge all philosophers by a few). Nevertheless, it's clear that he made some major contributions to philosophical thought. Accordingly, his work seemed worth a Thursday post.