Fellowship & Fairydust

Part of an ongoing web serial perhaps inspired by The Screwtape Letters.Unless otherwise noted, “the Ex-CEO” refers to God, “the opposition” to the side of the angels, and so on.

Read the previous installment here.

To: Deception, Overseer of Ekron Initiative (American Evangelical Division)

From: Malice, VP of 8th Circle of Hell (Global Initiatives Branch)

Date: [Exact Date Redacted, Circa 1968]

Subject: Phase 1 – Changing Attitudes to Scripture

Deception,

You know, as any tempter worth his claws knows, that the first step in effective temptation is to keep targets far away from the Ex-CEO’s ideas. Therefore, if you want to misdirect your targets from seeing all they can accomplish through art, you must distance them from any source that points them toward his views. Here I will discuss one particular source you must distance your targets from – in fact the primary one. You must, be any means necessary, distance your targets from their holy text.

Keep them from looking at any section of their holy text that speaks about the arts. Most fortunately for us, many of this text’s references to art take place in the Old Testament. These references include, but are not limited to:

• A melodramatic account of earth’s origin portraying the Ex-CEO as a divine sculptor¹
• Reference to earth’s creation as a good thing, something worthy of emulation²
• Long instructions about persons given “all kinds of skills” to make priestly clothing, an ark, and other sacred structures³

Obviously, you can keep targets from some of these passages simply by showing them how tedious they seem. Consider the instruction about making priestly objects, for example. These instructions hide dangerous messages about how the Ex-CEO values well-made and tasteful art, but they bore the unobservant. Many miss them entirely, focusing on the admonition “thou shalt not make a graven image” and see it as a statement that all art is idolatry.⁴ By all means, play on your targets’ ignorance whenever possible.

However, you will find the most effective way to keep them from the Old Testament is by playing on their vanity. Suggest their faith is really about the New Testament, and that all those old covenants and prophecies have nothing to do with them. Make them see their faith in exclusively New Testament terms, ignoring all the Old Testament ideals that give their faith its foundation. For example, manipulate them so when they describe their faith, they immediately jump to that story about the Ex-CEO’s son dying to save them. Get them to skip the stories that set the stage for that tale, the stories of why the Ex-CEO felt he had to come in the first place.   

Obviously, your target will know on some level that their master’s “redemption initiative” is rooted in their wonderful fall from his grace. But do whatever you can to keep them from thinking about it. A few comments about how they live in “the era of the New Testament” and that “the old covenant is gone, so we don’t have to pay any attention to those things” should do the trick.

Eventually, this process will mean your targets avoid any teachings their holy text can give them about their creative gifts. When they consider how important quality is when creating art, they will consider their own opinions rather than how hard the Israelites worked to make the Ark of the Covenant. When they wonder whether they can describe violence and other messy topics in their art, they will follow what their parents and favorite religious magazines say long before they consider how their holy text describes violence. As previously noted, we are already dealing with those parents, publications, and other influencers.

Once your targets have severed themselves from their holy text, misdirection will be quite simple.

Infernal Regards,

Malice

Vice President of the 8th Circle of Hell

(Global Initiatives Branch)

Editor’s Notes:

1. See Genesis 1-2.

2. See Genesis 1 where God looks at the things he creates and “saw that it was good.” For more on human beings imitating God’s creative capacities, see “On Fairy-Stories” by J.R.R. Tolkien and other writings on “sub-creation.”

3. Exodus 31:3-5 describes how God gave Bezalel was filled “with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills—to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts,” which he used to lead a team that made the ark of the covenant, the tabernacle and other items for the Israelites.

4. Francis Schaeffer writes in Art and the Bible that this is a common misconception about the Old Testament’s view of creative giftings.

Cover Photo by Craig Whitehead on Unsplash