Small Groups

God has placed humanity in a dilemma concerning sex—either complete abstinence or unmitigated monogamy. How do the devils seek to twist sex so that we don’t live according to God’s standards?
Why is God’s creation of love offensive and irritating to Screwtape?
The devils not only twist sex but love as well. How have they twisted love to destroy God’s intentions?
What do we learn about God’s true intention for sex and love from Screwtape’s instructions to Wormwood?
How might the observations of Screwtape change the way you think about both sex and love?

Love is the fundamental difference between heaven and hell. What does the conflict over love show about God and Satan?
Screwtape also reveals the basic demonic strategy, making use of anything and everything so that we are drawn away from God. How do the devils twist love to their own purposes?
How have you experienced love as being both a means of drawing you to God and also a means of being pulled away from God?

JUNE

Temptations lose their power as God steps in. Why do you think God even allows temptations at all?
How has the demonic strategy of twisting sexual desire varied through the ages?
In what ways might the devils be twisting sexual desire for our time?
Screwtape writes about the terrestrial and infernal Venus as temptations for men. What are they like, and how are they useful?
Although Screwtape doesn’t mention them, how might a terrestrial and infernal Mars be tempting for woman?

Screwtape encourages Wormwood to attack his patient’s peevishness—that is, getting easily irritated by unimportant and insignificant things. What’s devilish about being irritated by interruptions and intrusions on “our” time?
How do you respond when events and people intrude on your own plans?
From a Christian perspective, what’s wrong with a personal sense of ownership?
How would your attitude toward life be different if you cultivated a sense of time and possessions that would be more pleasing to God than to the devils?

What doesn’t Screwtape like about the new love of Wormwood’s patient?
Why would Screwtape call God a hedonist (one who lives for pleasure)?
Screwtape clearly thinks that the holiness of the woman’s family has an infectious stink. How would you describe the woman’s family?
While he is on a rant, Screwtape goes after both music and silence. How have music and silence been a means of pleasure and grace to you?

The search for the historical Jesus that Screwtape refers to is an attempt to reinvent Jesus according to the scholastic fashion of each generation. What does Screwtape like about this?
What do you think is the current “fashionable” teaching about Jesus in our generation?
One devilish agenda is to destroy devotional life. How do they do that?
The fact of the Resurrection and the doctrine of the Redemption were the heart of the early Christian message, according to Screwtape. What do you think is the heart of the currently popular Christian message?
Why would Screwtape be glad to have Christianity be a means for accomplishing a political agenda for the good of society?
How are the devils of our time active in a diabolical mixture of faith and politics?

JULY

Evidently there is something about faith that is contagious; the patient’s girlfriend has “caught’ it from her family and friends. How can Wormwood use this spiritual contagion principle to twist his patient’s faith?
Essential elements of twisting the patient’s faith are pride and confusion. How can Wormwood use them?
How is it that peer pressure can be both a positive and a negative for spiritual growth?
How has the influence of others been a positive force in your spiritual development?
How might the influence of others be a negative force for your spiritual growth?

Screwtape does not like “mere” Christianity; he prefers to water down faith with fashionable issues and concerns. What sort of fashionable issues are presently being added to Christianity?
How do Novelty and Fashion, devilish smoke and mirrors, affect us?
What impact do Novelty and Fashion have on where you live, the cars you buy, and the clothes you wear?
The greatest triumph of the “demonic horror of the Same Old Thing” is in the realm of ideas. What’s wrong with asking if an idea is relevant rather than asking if it is prudent or true?
Now that you have read Screwtape’s strategy, what would you say to a person who dismissed Christianity as “old fashioned”?

Screwtape wants Wormwood to sow seeds of confusion that will bear fruit, not immediately but in ten years’ time. What do you think about his statement that the word love is “ambiguous”?
Why does Screwtape celebrate the devilish substitution of “unselfishness” for charity (love)?
How does mistaking sexual excitement for charity, and thinking that this excitement will last, affect us?
Describe how the devil’s twist of unselfishness can sour a relationship.
In what ways can you discern this devilish concept of unselfishness in your own thoughts and behavior?

What good advice for handling distractions in prayer can you apply from Screwtape’s prayer?
What specific and practical ways to pray can we discern from Screwtape’s advice?
What confusion and doubts about prayer does Wormwood’s patient have that Wormwood will accentuate?
What doubts and concerns may hinder your prayers?

AUGUST

Why does Screwtape prefer to see that Wormwood’s patient lives through the War to middle age and beyond?
In light of Screwtape’s advice to Wormwood, consider: how has aging affected your spiritual passion and development?
Why would devils want us to believe that this world can be turned into heaven?
From both the divine and diabolical perspectives, what is the value of a long life?

How do you think that the devils twist virtue to their advantage?
What problems do the devils have in using cowardice to trip us up?
From Screwtape’s reflection we learn that God has chosen to create a world of dangers in which moral choices truly matter. Why would he do that?
What is it that truly matters to devils about the human experience of sin?

The devils are interested in actions and results, not feelings. How might this insight affect the way you think about your own growth in virtue?
From a demonic perspective, what are the “benefits of fatigue,” and how do demons twist it against us?
Wormwood learns about ways to use “reality” to raise doubts about his patient’s faith. In what two contrasting ways have the devils twisted our thoughts of reality to their advantage?
How does the devilish twisting of our understanding of reality hinder our growth in faith and the development of virtue?

Wormwood’s patient completely escaped demonic harassment by dying. What is the first thing the patient sees on the other side of death?
How does Screwtape help us to grasp what death really means and why death is even beneficial?
According to Screwtape, what sort of insights do people have as they experience the process of dying?
What do you think Screwtape means when he laments that the patient will see “Them” and “Him”?
How does the sight of Christ on the other side of death affect Wormwood’s patient?

SEPTEMBER

Northern Virginia Chinese Christian Church English Ministry