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)

Date: [Exact Date Redacted, Circa 1998]

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

Subject: End Times Hysteria

Deception,

You know I like to survey the competition’s latest literature from time to time for anything we can exploit. I am particularly gratified by recent decades’ surge in apocalyptic literature.¹ We are now at the cusp of the end of the 20th century, a century which I frankly found rather tedious. However, our fleshy prey have given it titles such as “The Age of Extremes.”² Many are convinced that this will be their last century on earth. In fact, much of this literature comes from your particular sector.

We are of course quite used to this sort of thing. At the risk of seeming boring, let me explain some attributes of the current apocalypse trend which I believe you will find interesting. As I write to you, many targets in your designated sector are convinced of two things:

• their world will be entirely destroyed during the apocalypse
• the Ex-CEO’s followers will be raptured away before things get truly nasty³

If you are any kind of effective tempter, you know that these beliefs can be dangerous. They have the potential for sparking new interest in the Ex-CEO. This presents a problem, and my department is doing our best to divert such interests. However, I believe that with some prodding and teasing, we can divert targets to reach very different conclusions than the Ex-CEO wants them to reach.

Instead of concluding that the earth’s destruction is why they should serve their master all the more, suggest that it really means they should stop pursuing tasks that involve making things (music, books, buildings, paintings, etc.). After all, they believe anything they make will soon cease to exist. Doing things that meet their narrow definition of “true ministry” (such as preaching repentance) will seem valuable. Creating art will just seem frivolous.

Some of the Ex-CEO’s followers have recognized that the targets may reach these conclusions. These followers (including that China-born-Brit⁴ who dared write a pastiche about us) are doing all they can to point their friends toward “a better path.” However, I am very confident we can surpass their influence.

Eventually, your suggestions will place artists in difficult positions. When they meet with fellow believers, their friends will skip thoughts like, “Good thing your work reminds people of God when they may never enter churches.” Instead, they will jump straight to thoughts such as, “Why waste your time on this? The Lord will return soon.”

Your targets may never say these thoughts out loud. Fortunately, they don’t have to. A few sneers, a certain aloofness, or an attitude of disapproving confusion will send the message just as well.

As time moves ever closer to the year 2000, you can amplify these attitudes by giving your targets a time bomb mentality. Make them think their time is running out, and therefore they need to hold onto these ideas even closer than ever. 

The resulting trouble, as artists try to make their work seem relevant to the Company, and as they feel more and more isolated from it, will be most enjoyable. 

Infernal Regards,

Malice

Vice President of the 8th Circle of Hell

(Global Initiatives Branch)

P.S. You may be tempted (if that is the right word for beings such as ourselves) to ask whether I think these doomsday predictions are true. Even our most senior officers are prone to such ideas at times. Try to remember the truth of these claims is irrelevant to us. We are interested in what we can use and manipulate, regardless of its source.

Editor’s Notes:

1. Apparently a reference to the high amount of end times fiction published in the 1970s to early 2000s, a trend instigated by the publication of Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Earth in 1970. For more on this trend’s main features, see chapter 11 in The Evangelical Imagination by Karen Swallow Prior.

2. Apparently a reference to The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914–1991 by Eric Hobsbawm.

3. Theologians call this belief dispensational premillennialism, a variation on the dispensationalist teachings originating with Plymouth Brethren preacher John Barby Nelson. Lindsey and his successors followed this particular end times theology, made more popular through the Left Behind thriller series by Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye.

4. Apparently a reference to Os Guiness, British apologist and social critic born in Hsiang Cheng, China. Guinness wrote a satirical book titled The Gravedigger File about modernism’s influence on Western Christianity. See his critique of dispensationalists in Fit Bodies Fat Minds. 

Cover Photo by Craig Whitehead on Unsplash