The Screwtape Letters

It is the beginning of World War II, and the patient is uncertain about his future. Wormwood is “drunk” with the pleasure of the young man’s “anguish. However, while Screwtape rejoices in the death and destruction the war will bring, he warns Wormwood that war is not an unmitigated good. In the crisis of a war, people will often turn to the “Enemy,” and this will ultimately negate any benefits caused by their temporary suffering (which, in any case, Christianity instructs people to expect). Screwtape prefers the more mundane scenario of people who “die[] in costly nursing homes amid doctors who lie, nurses who lie, friends who lie, as we have trained them, promising life to the dying, encouraging the belief that sickness excuses every indulgence” (23-24).

Screwtape is pleased the patient doesn’t know whether he will be drafted, as a state of anxious uncertainty makes faith difficult. However, it is important that the patient not become aware that this state of anxiety is itself among the trials that Christians are asked to accept, as this would refocus him on the present rather than the future while also making him aware of his own weaknesses.