Posted on 08/20/2012 6:14:29 AM PDT by Jim Robinson
Edited on 08/20/2012 6:23:21 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Letter # 10 “Recognizing the Traps of Becoming a Duplicitous Christian” MY DEAR WORMWOOD, I was delighted to hear from Triptweeze that your patient has made some very desirable new acquaintances and that you seem to have used this event in a really promising manner. I gather that 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 skeptical 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. This is excellent. And you seem to have made good use of all his social, sexual, and intellectual vanity. Tell me more. 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 realize it himself; and by the time he does you will have made withdrawal difficult. No doubt he must very soon realize 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. 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 skeptical 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. This is elementary. The real question is how to prepare for the Enemy's counter attack. The first thing is to delay as long as possible the moment at which he realizes this new pleasure as a temptation. 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, though I see much (indeed more than I like) about Mammon, I see few of the old warnings about Worldly Vanities, the Choice of Friends, and the Value of Time. 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. 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. If he is a big enough fool you can get him to realize 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. 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. 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". 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. Your affectionate uncle, SCREWTAPE
And yet; you reply back.
"Man up and merely IGNORE the pest" is what yer buds would tell you.
You may as well get used to it: if you post something that I want to reply to; I will.
Really? YOU can’t see me - I’M LAUGHING!! So far you are batting ZERO!
We are not supposed to copy of the Amish and withdraw from the world.
Jim’s not so much supporting Myth as he is voting against the Marxist.
You, OTOH, are Rainbow RINO riding Useful Idiot - the ilk of which being a significant reason why the GOP-e has a Queer enabling RINO Quisling like Myth as their candidate instead of an actual American Conservative.
Does Jimmy Lewis get to wear his magic undies in Federal Prison?
You are welcome!
O...
K...
I didn’t ask what we were NOT supposed to do; but what we ARE supposed to do.
“Ok, YOU know a dimwit named Jim Thompson...so what? “
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2919381/posts?page=39#39
LOL.
Who ~is this guy Jim Thompson you’re calling a dimwit, Super Genius?
I understand that but his words were speaking of PNSN/me. Tell me that no one ever does that - speaking of someone and not ping them - then your words will have value. And this is a public board! Try to teach your freepers manners/FR etiquette, if there is such a thing anymore - even though God's Word gives him the itch.
Seems like anything goes anymore - the animals are out of the cage.
"Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
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Hit a nerve?
I’m not getting antsy..just sick of reading your constant know it all, sanctimonious drivel.
Go to the religion threads if you feel the need to preach. Better yet, you and your pal Elsie form your own sect. And, don’t tell me about your perfect Christianity, you are blathering, foaming at the mouth embarrassments.
Us? Like I care..
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