Jaehyoung Kim: Essay 2

My Favorite Author and Book: C. S. Lewis and The Screwtape Letters

      Few months ago (when I was in Thailand, of course), my class studied about The Screwtape Letters in our literature class. I was amazed by the creativity of C. S. Lewis to write a ‘letter’ from the view of a demon. And while I was reading about it, I was amazed once again because he pointed out many small mistakes of Christians that we unconsciously ignore but can be critical when Satan attacks us. I think C. S. Lewis is surely one of the greatest authors of 20th centuries. So in this essay, I want to share about him briefly and I want to introduce his book The Screwtape Letters.

      C. S. Lewis was born in 1893. His full name is Clive Staples Lewis and he was known as Jack to his family and friends. And his famous works include The Chronicles of Narnia (I think most of us watched the movie-version of it, but I want to recommend everyone to try to read the original book. It’s great!), The Screwtape Letters, and The Space Trilogy. He was born and baptized as a member of Anglican Community, but he fell away from church during his adolescence. Fortunately, some of his friends including J. R. R. Tolkien (the author of The Lord of the Rings) continued to persuade him and he came back to church by 1931. From there on, his faith influenced his writing much and he wrote many books to encourage Christians to ‘live for God’. Now I want to talk about one of these books, The Screwtape Letters.

Remember, he is not, like you, a pure spirit. Never having been a human (Oh that abominable advantage of the Enemy's!) you don't realize how enslaved they are to the pressure of the ordinary.

As long as he retains externally the habits of a Christian he can still be made to think of himself as one who has adopted a few new friends and amusements but whose spiritual state is much the same as it was six weeks ago. - From ‘The Screwtape Letter’

      Among the many books of C.S. Lewis, my favorite book is The Screwtape Letter. As I mentioned already, writing a book from the perspective of a demon is probably what only C. S. Lewis could try. In The Screwtape Letter, Lewis candidly depicts the problems of the modern church, such as Sunday Christian, focusing only on the rites of worship services, etc., and he tells us how to live a ‘real’  Christian life. The brief overview of this book’s plot is like this: A senior demon named Screwtape teaches his nephew Wormwood how to ‘trick’ a human and lead him to hell. This book takes a form of letter by which Screwtape is advising Wormwood. There are several titles of characters that Lewis created to emphasis that he’s writing from the perspective of demon. For example, he used ‘Enemy’ for God and ‘Patient’ for the man whom Wormwood is trying to tempt.

      Although it’s pain to read this book without a dictionary since he had used a lot of highly academical vocabularies in this book (Yeah, he was a professor in Oxford and Cambridge.), I’m sure that it’s a great book for Christians to read. (There are Korean translations available, too!) I found a news that a movie-version of The Screwtape Letters is going to come out by Ralph Winter, the producer of the movie-version of Chronicles of Narnia. Though I’m not sure it’s true or not, but I think it would challenge many Christians and lead them back to God.

      Nowadays, many ‘Christian cultures’ are prospering all around the world. We listen Christian musics, we watch Christian movies, and we even established Christian schools. But I think living only in Christian cultures only makes us like a plant in a greenhouse. God didn't created us to do that. In someday, we must go out to the world. And I think a ‘real Christian’ should live a ‘different’ life, even though they are standing in the world's cultures. I think C. S. Lewis was one of the great Christians who applied it to their lives. When he tried to live ‘differently’, his books influenced not only Christians, but even atheists. Many people came back to faith after reading his books. The ‘real’ Christians who change the world are those who know how to apply God’s message in our life and reveal it throughout their life. I think C. S. Lewis is one of these real Christians and that’s why I like him and his books.