“Whichever he adopts, your main task will be the same. Let him begin by treating the patriotism or pacifism as a part of his religion. Then let him, under influence of partisan spirit, come to regard it as the most important part. Then quietly and gradually nurse him on to the stage at which the religion becomes merely part of the ’cause,’ in which Christianity is valued chiefly because of the excellent arguments it can produce in favor of the British war effort or of pacifism. The attitude which you want to guard against is that in which temporal affairs are treated primarily as material for obedience. Once you have made the world an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing. Provided that meetings, pamphlets, policies, movements, causes and crusades, matter more to him than prayers and sacraments and charity, he is ours—and the more religious (on those terms) the more securely ours. I could show you a pretty cage full down here.
Your affectionate uncle, Screwtape”
Lewis as usual nails it. Keep in mind the character Screwtape is a demon wanting to help his underling Wormwood to destroy his patient. It’s fictional, but I have seen the tactic work splendidly by Satan’s standard. This is story telling at it’s finest, and it is used to call attention to a technique virtually as old history itself. Christians need to follow Christ over and above everything else.
AMOKArts 