Wednesday, August 11, 2004 AD
Screwtape on "the World"
Screwtape expresses his satisfaction at the decline in Christian preaching about the dangers of "the World" in the past century:
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. (from The Screwtape Letters, letter 10)If Screwtape were writing to a Lutheran's tempter, no doubt he could say exactly the same thing, only replacing the word "Puritanism" with "Pietism"...
