This CGG Weekly essay, written in the style of C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters, was published on December 5, 2003.
Dear Bollix,
Just a short note to congratulate you on the wonderful job you are doing overseeing the American religious landscape. When I appointed you to the position of Religious Confounder for North America, I knew you would take your job seriously and get it done! I have never doubted for one moment that, by the end of your term, Americans would be leaving the churches in droves or languishing in meaningless, superficial, liberal religious fellowships. Bravo!
Lately, your work has been phenomenal. It seems you have kicked matters up a notch or two, and that has made the higher-ups rub their hands together in glee! Keep this up, and you will be sitting on my throne in a jiffy (vacated for higher office by yours truly)! I do have an eye for talent, if you do not mind my boasting.
Your latest masterstroke has to have been the Alabama Ten Commandments monument “fiasco” (really, a huge victory for our side). I love the way you set the rule of law and the “separation of church and state” (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) against the people’s freedom of religion. You made judges, the state attorney general, and his star-chamber jury decide between them. How rich! It was a foregone conclusion that a bunch of lawyers and judges would choose the “legal” avenue! Every time I think of it, I cry my eyes out with laughter.
I also love the way you manipulated the media to characterize Roy Moore, the former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice, as anything but a deeply religious, Constitution-waving patriot. For some, branding him as right-wing was enough, but you laid it on thick with suggestions of his being a power-hungry politician angling for the governorship or a U.S. Senate seat—perhaps even the presidency! Ingenious! Then to hint of improprieties regarding bringing the monument in under cover of darkness, allowing only a Christian video crew to tape it, and making those videos available for sale put just enough stink on the matter to doom his chances. Fine work!
You have pushed materialism and instant gratification so hard that Christmas is all but a completely secular festival. Share on XI see that your Christmas project is already underway. Obviously, you and Haywire, our Ascended Master of the American Economy, have put your heads together to give us a rollicking good holiday season! With the financial figures looking awfully bullish, the public has cracked open its wallet, and the money is flowing out like water! Not only has Haywire succeeded in convincing everyone that rampant consumerism is “good for our economy,” but you have pushed materialism and instant gratification so hard that Christmas is all but a completely secular festival. People do not even care anymore that Christmas’ roots are sunk deep in pre- and anti-Christian “traditions.” Well done!
The other principalities and powers and I were joking the other day about the rampant confusion you sowed among Christians over the past few decades regarding personal morality. We especially like the line heard so often: “I’m a pretty good person compared to a lot of people.” That says it all! Once you whittled away at that onerous standard of morality the almighty Unnamed One requires, it was only a matter of time before people began comparing themselves—favorably, I might add—to the lowest wretch among them. So now, thanks to you, if a person has never murdered his grandmother on national television, he or she is a “pretty good person”! We can live with that!
Before I close, I should also mention the terrific job you are doing within the churches themselves. It is still hard to believe that they let you in so easily! Anyway, kudos to you for inspiring so many young, moldable, liberal minds to enter the seminaries—and particularly, to stay there and teach the next generation of ministers! In this way, the pulpits have been ringing with humanism, tolerance for sin, bleeding-heart do-goodism, and rank skepticism over the Unnamed One’s Book. The Tartaroo Congress also enjoys all the modern music, the entertaining slide shows and videos, and the hokey drama skits that the churches put on, taking precious time from their odious preaching of the so-called “truth.” We always feel so welcome. Sometimes, so many congressdevils are at church, it is hard to round up a quorum for our Sunday meetings!
This note has gone overlong, but I know that every little demon likes a pat on the back every so often! Keep up the “good” work! LOL!
Yours evilly,
Ataxia
Prince and Power, Global Religious Affairs
