Description:
The Screwtape Letters Study Guide takes participants through a Bible study digs deep into each letter from Screwtape, an undersecretary in the lowerarchy of Hell, to his incompetent nephew Wormwood a junior devil.
Brief description: Alan Vermilye is an Amazon best-selling author who has written numerous works, including modern retellings of John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress series and John Milton's Paradise Lost. He is also known for creating some of the most trusted study guides for C. S. Lewis classics, including The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, and The Problem of Pain. In addition, Alan has authored the devotional series The Carols of Christmas (Volumes 1-3), as well as The Hymns of Easter. His work also includes study guides for Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol and his favorite film, It's a Wonderful Life. To learn more about his books, Bible studies, and devotionals, visit www.BrownChairBooks.com.
Review Quotes:
In advising how to keep his patient's life with God ineffective and arbitrary, a senior devil admonishes a junior to, "Keep his mind on the inner life . . . For if he ever comes to make the distinction, if ever he consciously directs his prayers 'Not to what I think thou art but to what thou knowest thyself to be', our situation is . . . desperate." And so C.S. Lewis launches us into a collection of devilish letters from Uncle Screwtape to his "nephew" Wormwood in his classic and widely popular, The Screwtape Letters.
Lewis wrote about the inspiration for the book in a letter to his brother who had recently been rescued from Nazi-surrounded Dunkirk during WWII. Lewis explained that in church on July 21, 1940--the morning after he had listened to a very persuasive radio speech by Hitler that made even Lewis wavier in his convictions--he had been "struck by an idea for a book which I think might be both useful and entertaining. It would be called As One Devil to Another . . . The idea would be to give all the psychology of temptation from the other point of view."
As much as The Screwtape Letters did indeed prove to be very 'useful' to thousands during the confusion of WWII, it is a book equally valuable for us in today's culture of rapid change and confusion. Recognizing an enemy of truth and the Christian faith in the complex world around us is challenging, yet recognizing the subtle, shadowy whispers and twists of an enemy within is often even more difficult. But before there can be hope of progress in dealing with any enemy, that enemy must first be recognizable. Therefore any assistance and wisdom in this recognition is genuinely welcomed. And this what Alan Vermilye has done with his study of Lewis's The Screwtape Letters.
Vermilye walks the reader through each Screwtape letter and wisely asks questions to bring out turns and twists in the thoughts and emotions that we each experience and that Lewis wanted us to recognize. He helps us to see where crippling "truths" are often nothing more than half-truths and lies that enslave us with pride and defensiveness or shame and reticence. From his years of teaching Bible study classes, Vermilye also smartly adds Scripture to weigh in on the discussion. For anyone or group that wants to become more intimate with God by re-assessing some of the enemies strongholds within, I highly recommend Alan Vermilye's study.
Steven Urban PhD Double-board certified Physiatric Interventional Pain Specialist
Author of Mere Christianity Study Guide: A Bible Study on the C.S. Lewis Book Mere Christianity