good and evil | BirkeyBlog

Uncle Screwtape and Toadwood his Scribe

I had an opportunity to go and see FPA Theatre Company’s production of C.S. Lewis‘ “The Screwtape Letters” a week ago. It is playing at the old Mercury Theater at 3745 N. Southport in Chicago. It stars Max McLean (who also co-adapted the script) as “His Abysmal Sublimity Screwtape,” and Karen Eleanor Wight as “Toadpipe,” his demonic personal secretary and scribe.

C. S. LEWIS (Author) (1898-1963) was one of the intellectual giants of the twentieth century and arguably the most influential Christian writer and apologist of his day. He published The Screwtape Letters in 1942 wherein he presented a humorous and perceptive exchange between two devils named Screwtape and Wormwood. He used the book to deal with moral questions about good vs. evil, temptation, repentance, and grace.

Here is C.S. Lewis’ own INTRODUCTION:

I have no intention of explaining how the correspondence, which I now offer to the public, fell into my hands.

There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.

Readers are advised to remember that the devil is a liar. Not everything that Screwtape says should be assumed to be true, even from his own angle.

There is wishful thinking in Hell as well as on Earth.

C.S. Lewis
July 5, 1941
The Screwtape Letters

Shmuel is the name of the boy in the striped pajamas. He is an eight year old Jewish boy in a Nazi concentration camp. Bruno, the eight-year old son of the camp commandant meets Shmuel across the electric barbed wire fence. The film, based upon the book by John Boyne, uses this powerful story to explore issues of innocence, friendship, good, evil and what it means to be human.

As Catherine Barsotti and Robert Johnston say in their helpful book, Finding God in the Movies: 33 Films of Reel Faith,“ Successful movies do not merely transplant us somewhere new; they inspire us to become one with one of the characters.” And this film certainly does that. We look at the Holocaust through the eyes of an 8-year-old whose country and family would have him believe that the Jews were enemies and were getting what they deserved. But Bruno’s childlike identification with Shmuel tells him otherwise. — Breakpoint.org

This is a very powerful, emotionally gripping story with implications for our current culture and world situation. I encourage any adult who reads this blog post to go see the film, or read the book (it is not for children!)… then sit down over coffee with some friends and have an open discussion about it. There is a discussion guide available below to help.