Wormwood Writes: A Christ-less Christianity
Letter III
My dear Blistergrin,
I understand you are one of our more enthusiastic recruits. That is both promising and perilous. I’ve seen many a young tempter disqualify himself through overexertion, like a fool blowing out his own torch trying to fan the flames of damnation. Subtlety, my dear Blistergrin. There are no medals for theatricality in our ranks. Only results. You may chant the mantras of the Pit all day long, but unless your Patient arrives here clothed in the ashes of misdirected virtue and hollow religiosity, you’ll be reassigned elsewhere.
Your Patient, from your report, is ideal for our next stage of strategic deception. Raised within a cultural shell of Christianity, vaguely reverent toward religious symbols, fluent in moral language, but carefully untouched by the actual Person of the Enemy. He is precisely the kind of man we need in the modern West. Not a firebrand heretic or a hedonist, but a respectable, reform-minded citizen who would rather champion the ideas of Christ than bow to Him.
You must understand, Blistergrin, our most effective method in recent centuries has not been to abolish Christianity, but to hollow it out. In your Patient’s case, let him argue for “Christian values” —order, civility, tradition, moral clarity—while rejecting the living Lord who makes such values intelligible.
Do not discourage him from quoting the Bible. Encourage it! So long as he does it in such a way that it is merely ancient wisdom repackaged for pragmatic application. Let him see Scripture as a product of collective moral evolution, a sort of ethical sediment formed by generations of admirable men. He must never see it as the voice of the Living God.
When he reads the Sermon on the Mount, let him applaud its social usefulness. When he hears the crucifixion, let him admire the symbol, but do not let him perceive its necessity. Above all, do not let him tremble.
He may reference Golgotha as a metaphor, but he must never kneel before it as a ransom, especially for himself.
Encourage your Patient to think of Christianity as a kind of sacred varnish or a moral adhesive that once kept civilization from falling apart. Let him become a crusader for “Christian civilization” without becoming a disciple of Christ.
He may speak of the heritage of faith, the virtue of biblical ideals, the necessity of religion for social cohesion. Let him grieve the loss of public prayer, lament the moral decline of the West, and write essays on the brilliance of Judeo-Christian values. These are all fine, so long as he never asks what those values demand of him.
He may even champion the Ten Commandments, just make sure he forgets the First.
If he speaks of a Christian nation, let him envision it as a republic of cleaned-up suburbs, not as a Kingdom of redeemed souls. He may long for Christendom. Just make sure he never longs for Christ. You may allow him to build a city on a hill, just as long as you ensure that the light has gone out.
Let me tell you a secret, Blistergrin. The best kind of religious men for our cause are the ones who revere Christianity as a moral order, but divorce it from the Person of the Enemy. They gallop around in the armor of conviction, wielding noble slogans and historic reverence, but there is no Head upon their shoulders.
We call them Headless Horsemen.
They look Christian. They sound Christian. They may even vote Christian, but they have decapitated the Faith. Their Christianity is ornamental, that is, it is useful for legislation, slogans, and ceremonies, but utterly void of power.
Let him speak of grace, but mean order. Let him preach of truth, but talk himself around it. He may carry the banner of Christ, so long as it’s, never a cross.
Let your Patient become obsessed with fixing society. Encourage righteous indignation. Inflame his nostalgia. Let him pine for an age when church attendance was higher and morality enforced, but whatever you do, keep him from seeking personal repentance. Let him reform the world before being reborn himself.
He may argue for Christian morality in public education, politics, media, and economics. All very commendable because it creates complacency and self-rghteousbes! Make sure if he begins asking whether he himself is submitted to the rule of Christ, intervene at once. Distract him with culture wars. Stir him to outrage about national decay. Just never let him mourn his own corruption.
If he builds an altar, ensure it is to national identity, not to the Lamb.
One of the most effective things you can do, Blistergrin, is to domesticate the Enemy in your Patient’s mind. Make Him polite and mild. A silent partner in the Patient’s public religion. Remove the image of the roaring Lion of Judah and replace it with a benign life coach or a symbol of national unity.
The Enemy, as you know, is untameable. He commands everything, but your Patient must never see this. He must believe Jesus is a helpful consultant, not a sovereign King.
He must view the Incarnation as inspirational, not intrusive. The Resurrection as allegorical, not historical. The Return as metaphorical, not inevitable.
Give him theology without theos. Ethics without atonement. A church without a Christ.
Should your Patient grow pious (as many are growing right now), encourage him to conflate Christianity with the Constitution. Let him mistake church tradition for civic ritual. Use the flag. Use nostalgia. Use the language of revival without the reality of regeneration.
Should he ever encounter true believers, those strange and unsettling creatures who live as if Christ is actually alive, you just warn him! Whisper that they are radicals. Emotional. Soft. A threat to order. Let him view their joy as naïve, their humility as weakness. Let him call them Christians, but not emulate them.
Remember, Blistergrin, we are not trying to make him hate the Faith. We want him to respect it. To treat it as a cultural artifact. A useful mythology. A noble inheritance. Just don’t let him be saved by it.
If we succeed, he will spend his life championing Christian principles while rejecting the Christ who bled for him. He will argue for the law of God, but not the love of God. He will build a nation with no need for new hearts. He will name the Name, but never bow the knee.
And when he stands before the Throne, he will say, “Lord, did I not defend Your ways?”And the Enemy will reply, “But I never knew you.”
That, dear Blistergrin, is our triumph.
Now go and tempt well.
WORMWOOD
Senior Undersecretary for Cultural Disintegration
Author’s Note
This series is inspired by the brilliance of The Screwtape Letters and the mind of C.S. Lewis, to whom I owe an immeasurable debt. Though these letters will never rise to the depth or genius of his original work, they are written in the same spirit: to help us think more deeply about our faith, our temptations, and the unseen cosmic battle that rages for every soul.