Previous chapters at the bottom.
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My dear nephew,
Your ingenuity continues to impress, and I await your further developments with great anticipation. Yet, as I read your latest proposal, an unwelcome shudder passed through me. I should hate to think that you might, in attempting to provoke some grand catastrophe, unwittingly hasten our final defeat.
We may possess a clear grasp of the original meanings of the Enemy’s book because we were there. But we must never forget that He, in His infuriating way, can make that text a living word, pliant to designs we cannot always see. Such meanings are spiritually discerned, and we, alas, are lacking such illumination. How horrifyingly ironic it would be if, in all our cleverness, we merely enacted the very plan He has had from the beginning!
The Enemy’s dealings with Israel are a prime example. From the beginning, we were permitted to veil their eyes from recognizing His Messiah. The apostle Paul spoke of that “mystery” by which most who believed came from the nations other than from Israel itself. Up to that time, the Enemy had given us great leeway to sow our chaos in the rest of the world outside His people.
(Although, to our great irritation, even then there always were a few who caught His light even through our darkness.)
Paul hoped that his own people might yet believe within his lifetime, a hope we were allowed largely to frustrate even to this day. Worse for them (and better for us), we managed in many ages to twist the Maker’s supposed followers into persecuting them. That counterfeit devotion became a most effective weapon. In Germany it reached its masterpiece, when we persuaded some weeds there that they were doing the Enemy a favor by their destruction.
Yet you and your colleagues have discovered a subtler way to undermine faith in the Messiah through this dispensational fascination. You have led some churchgoers to regard Israel as already secure without the Christ, thereby overturning the very teaching of Paul they claim to honor. By fastening their attention on Israel’s political restoration, you have helped them forget the one fact that should most grieve them: that most in Israel have not yet believed in Jesus.
What a temptation it is to deepen this blindness. If we could only provoke the rebuilding of a temple, what an exquisite distraction from Jesus that could be! How easily we might shape it into an idol of monumental piety. Even though the Enemy’s own book insists that only the blood of His Son brings atonement and that he is the only temple needed, what a diversion another earthly structure might provide!
These developments, I must say, have been some of your ranks’ more impressive achievements. You are leading certain of the Enemy’s followers that the ancient covenant can stand alone, quite sufficient without the Nazarene. I observe some even returning to the old dietary rules and purity practices of Israel. In themselves, such traditions are harmless enough. But the great prize would be to convince them that there lies another way to God which does not pass through the Cross.
And so it is that many now think of Israel itself as righteous merely by being Israel, while Christians are righteous through Christ. What a delectable division! Two chosen peoples, allegedly, each persuaded that the other’s covenant is complete without the other. A perfect fissure through which we may separate souls from the Enemy because they do not avail themselves of the one way to their Father.
As for the temple, yes, do share your thoughts with me on that notion. Imagine the reverent frenzy it might ignite, and the righteous fury it could stir once the first stone is laid. What a war the demolition of present houses of worship on that mount might produce! I confess, the thought alone sets my appetite aflame.
Do write again soon with word of your progress.
Your affectionate 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
- 16 -- Church over State
- 17 -- The Great Election
- 18 -- The Great Pestilence
- 19 -- Foiled Plans
- 20 -- A Single Authority
- 21 -- Forgetfulness
- 22 -- The Tribulation Request
- 23 -- The Antichrist
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