Letter XXV **
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The Horror of the Same Old Thing
Replacing Mere Christianity by Fashion
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
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Same old thing
Pleasures
Ever increasing
desires
Diminished return
Fashion
Art
Hebrew 13:8
“We should never ask of anything ‘Is it real?’, for everything is real. The proper question is
“A real what?” e.g., a real snake or a real delirium tremens?” CSL
I
N this letter the opposite occurs of letter XXXIV in this Christianity is the “same old
thing”. Here Lewis describes the boredom that may come along with a Christian that
might have been longer in church but not grown adequately as to be excited about what
God has done in his / her life.
Questions for Discussion
1. Discuss “if men become Christians at all, is to keep them in the state of mind I call
‘Christianity And’". Do you agree with the statement?
2. do you think the statement “Work on their horror of the Same Old Thing” is still a valid one
for our generation?
3. Do you agree it is as pervasive as Screwtape states it? “an endless source of heresies in
religion, folly in counsel, infidelity in marriage, and inconstancy in friendship”
4. Discuss: “The humans live in time, and experience reality successively. To experience much
of it, therefore, they must experience many different things; in other words, they must
experience change.”
5. How can we avoid making change an end in itself?
6. Do you agree with the statement “He has made, by that union of change and permanence
which we call Rhythm. He gives them the seasons, each season different yet every year the
same, so that spring is always felt as a novelty yet always as the recurrence of an immemorial
theme. He gives them in His Church a spiritual ear; they change from a fast to a feast, but it is
the same feast as before.”
7. How can we avoid the “demand for infinite, or un-rhythmical”?
8. Do you agree that avarice and unhappiness are largely a consequence of this insatiable
demand for change?
9. Discuss the horror of the same old thing in the Arts and Fashions
10. Discuss “The game is to have them running about with fire extinguishers whenever there is a
flood, and all crowding to that side of the boat which is already nearly gunwale under” What
would be the dangers of our age?
11. How can we ask the simple questions “is it righteous? is
Developing Virtue
it prudent? Is it possible?” to understand how to live as
Christians?
12. What would be our greatest defense against the error of
this insatiable change?
Contentment
For Further Reading and Reflection
Recommended
Final Thought: “Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear… He
confirmed it with an oath”
Heb. 6:17-20
Area of
Life
Fashions
Feelings
Experience
of reality in
time
Emotional
Changes
Intellect
The Future
Devil’s Advice
God’s Way
a. Christianity AND ( with a
difference )
- The crisis
- Faith healing
- Psychical research
- Vegetarianism
- The New Order
a. Horror of the same old thing,
“an endless source of heresies”
- Folly in counsel
- Infidelity in marriage
- Inconsistency in friendship
a. Mere Christianity
- Salvation through faith
Jesus
- simple platitudes
a. Use change as an END
- Exaggerate the pleasures
-demand for absolute novelty
b. It “diminishes pleasure for
increasing desire” and spells for:
- avarice
- unhappiness or both
a. Fix the approval of fashion on
the virtue nearest to the vice which
we are trying to make endemic
- Cruel ages: Sentimentality
- Feckless + Idle: Respectability
- Lecherous: Puritanism
- Liberalism: Slaves or Tyrants
a. God made change
pleasurable: Rhythm
a. Nonsense in the intellect
- reinforce corruption in the will
b. Ask unanswerable questions
- in accordance with the general
movement of our time
- is it progressive or reactionary?”
a. Enemy loves platitudes
- reinforce stability
- do all you can do
b. ask simple questions
- Is it possible?
- Prudent?
- Righteous?
a. Think that the future is the
promised land which favored
heroes attain…
b. Substitute descriptive adjective:
a. “We reach at 60 min an
hour, whatever he does,
whoever he is and is in God’s
hand”
a. Thankfulness and
simplicity
- Hold on to the faith
- Wisdom / Faithfulness
- Consistency / Endurance
- as children
b. Be thankful under all
circumstances
a. Modesty
- Christ the same
-Yielding fruits of the spirit
- Do not be tossed along by
any wind of teaching
Questions,
Observations
a. Ephesians 2:8 “For it is
by grace you have been
saved, through faith…the
gift of God”
James 1:27 “Religion
that God Our father
accept is this”
a. James 3:13 “Who is
wise and understanding
among you? Let him
show it by his good life,
by deeds done in the
humility that comes from
wisdom”
a. Ecclesiastes 3 “all
beautiful in His time!”
b. Colossians 3:15 “Let
the peace of Christ rule
in your hearts… And be
thankful”
a. Hebrews 13:8 “Christ
is the same yesterday and
today and forever”
Galatians 5:22 “the fruits
of the Spirit are”
Ephesians 4:14 “blown
here and there by every
wind of teaching”
a. Ecclesiastes 9:10
“whatever your hand
finds to do”
b????? Ecclesiastes 7:10
"Why were the old days
better than these?" For it
is not wise to ask such
questions.??????
a. Ecclesiastes 7:14
“times … God has made
the one as well as the
other”
“unchanged” for the emotional
“stagnant”
b. Fear God and keep His
commandments
c. Decide the future by making
unanswerable questions
c. “future will be depends
very largely on just those
choices”
Jeremiah 29:11 “ plans to
give you hope and a
future”
b. Ecclesiastes 7:13 “Fear
God and keep His
commandments”
“Spiritual Malnourishment?”
Our Calling and its Healthy Growth
At the spotlight in
the medical news lately
have been the nutritional
predicament of many of us
in America; Overnourishment that is. A cut
above normal? That is still
a question. In many cases,
it is just a different form of
malnourishment. Too much
artificial carbohydrates,
many say. What is the real
problem? That is still
unanswered. Nevertheless,
while most of us are in need
of controlling our desire for
a third doughnut, after
already having gobbled up an extensive breakfast, many children around the world have not
much to eat at all. This is depressing in itself, but more heartbreaking is the spiritual
malnourishment that can go on in our churches, and also more devastating. You might ask
“What? In our churches?”
Let me remind you of an old well known hymn (1865 of Sabine Baring-Gould 1) that sings:
Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus going on before.
Christ, the royal Master, leads against the foe;
Forward into battle see His banners go!
Refrain
Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus going on before.
At the sign of triumph Satan’s host doth flee;
On then, Christian soldiers, on to victory!
Hell’s foundations quiver at the shout of praise;
Brothers lift your voices, loud your anthems raise.
Refrain
1
http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/o/n/onwardcs.htm
Like a mighty army moves the church of God;
Brothers, we are treading where the saints have trod.
We are not divided, all one body we,
One in hope and doctrine, one in charity.
God’s church moving as a mighty army, as Christian soldiers move onward, carrying
Christ’s banners and as a consequence Satan flees! Is this what we see around us? Why not?
The apostle Paul in Hebrews 5:13 says that “anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is
not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness”. A baby cannot continue for over a year
without more nourishing food. “Teaching about righteousness” is the more solid food
according to this verse. At first we need milk (1 Peter 2:2), which are the elementary truths
(Hebrews 5:12). But, by the time many should be teachers, we still continue needing someone
to teach us elementary truths (1 Corinthians 9:7) – you might want to look these up!
XXV
MY DEAR WORMWOOD,
The real trouble about the set your patient is living in is that it is merely Christian. They all have
individual interests, of course, but the bond remains mere Christianity. What we want, if men
become Christians at all, is to keep them in the state of mind I call "Christianity And". You
know—Christianity and the Crisis, Christianity and the New Psychology, Christianity and the New
Order, Christianity and Faith Healing, Christianity and Psychical Research, Christianity and
Vegetarianism, Christianity and Spelling Reform. If they must be Christians let them at least be
Christians with a difference. Substitute for the faith itself some Fashion with a Christian coloring.
Work on their horror of the Same Old Thing.
The horror of the Same Old Thing is one of the most valuable passions we have produced in the
human heart—an endless source of heresies in religion, folly in counsel, infidelity in marriage,
and inconstancy in friendship. The humans live in time, and experience reality successively. To
experience much of it, therefore, they must experience many different things; in other words, they
must experience change. And since they need change, the Enemy (being a hedonist at heart) has
made change pleasurable to them, just as He has made eating Pleasurable. But since He does not
wish them to make change, any more than eating, an end in itself, He has balanced the love of
change in them by a love of permanence. He has contrived to gratify both tastes together on the
very world He has made, by that union of change and permanence which we call Rhythm. He gives
them the seasons, each season different yet every year the same, so that spring is always felt as a
novelty yet always as the recurrence of an immemorial theme. He gives them in His Church a
spiritual ear; they change from a fast to a feast, but it is the same feast as before.
Now just as we pick out and exaggerate the pleasure of eating to produce gluttony, so we pick out
this natural pleasantness of change and twist it into a demand for absolute novelty. This
demand is entirely our workmanship. If we neglect our duty, men will be not only contented but
transported by the mixed novelty and familiarity of snowdrops this January, sunrise this morning,
plum pudding this Christmas. Children, until we have taught them better, will be perfectly
happy with a seasonal round of games in which conkers succeed hopscotch as regularly as
autumn follows summer. Only by our incessant efforts is the demand for infinite, or
unrhythmical, change kept up.
This demand is valuable in various ways. In the first place it diminishes pleasure while increasing
desire. The pleasure of novelty is by its very nature more subject than any other to the law of
diminishing returns. And continued novelty costs money, so that the desire for it spells avarice or
unhappiness or both. And again, the more rapacious this desire, the sooner it must eat up all
the innocent sources of pleasure and pass on to those the Enemy forbids. Thus by inflaming the
horror of the Same Old Thing we have recently made the Arts, for example, less dangerous to us
than perhaps, they have ever been, "low-brow" and "high-brow" artists alike being now daily drawn
into fresh, and still fresh, excesses of lasciviousness, unreason, cruelty, and pride. Finally, the desire
for novelty is indispensable if we are to produce Fashions or Vogues.
The use of Fashions in thought is to distract the attention of men from their real dangers. We direct
the fashionable outcry of each generation against those vices of which it is least in danger and
fix its approval on the virtue nearest to that vice which we are trying to make endemic. The
game is to have them running about with fire extinguishers whenever there is a flood, and all
crowding to that side of the boat which is already nearly gunwale under. Thus we make it
fashionable to expose the dangers of enthusiasm at the very moment when they are all really
becoming worldly and lukewarm; a century later, when we are really making them all Byronic and
drunk with emotion, the fashionable outcry is directed against the dangers of the mere
"understanding". Cruel ages are put on their guard against Sentimentality, feckless and idle
ones against Respectability, lecherous ones against Puritanism; and whenever all men are really
hastening to be slaves or tyrants we make Liberalism the prime bogey.
But the greatest triumph of all is to elevate his horror of the Same Old Thing into a philosophy so
that nonsense in the intellect may reinforce corruption in the will. It is here that the general
Evolutionary or Historical character of modern European thought (partly our work) comes in so
useful. The Enemy loves platitudes. Of a proposed course of action He wants men, so far as I can
see, to ask very simple questions; is it righteous? is it prudent? is it possible? Now if we can keep
men asking "Is it in accordance with the general movement of our time? Is it progressive or
reactionary? Is this the way that History is going?" they will neglect the relevant questions. And the
questions they do ask are, of course, unanswerable; for they do not know the future, and what the
future will be depends very largely on just those choices which they now invoke the future to
help them to make. As a result, while their minds are buzzing in this vacuum, we have the better
chance to slip in and bend them to the action we have decided on. And great work has already
been done. Once they knew that some changes were for the better, and others for the worse, and
others again indifferent. We have largely removed this knowledge. For the descriptive adjective
"unchanged" we have substituted the emotional adjective "stagnant". We have trained them to
think of the Future as a promised land which favoured heroes attain—not as something which
everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is,
Your affectionate uncle
SCREWTAPE