Manifesto of Destruction by Subtle Substitution

Journal Entry. 9th of April. 4:26AM. After reading The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis.

I would not openly demand your worship in the manner I once did of One with whom I had the displeasure of speaking in the wilderness. This fellow I truly hate, let me tell you of Him. In all the time I have been going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it, He is unlike any I have ever seen. 

There was a time when He fasted for so long that I became convinced the opportunity had finally arrived. I waited through every day of weakness, every moment of hunger, expecting at last to find a point at which I can break Him. I know men. They always grow weary. They grow hungry. They grow afraid easily. Given sufficient pressure, they always bend. Given sufficient temptation, they always fall. So there I was, watching him as His body grew famished and His flesh weakened. And therein began my frustration. I appealed to His hunger, and He answered as though truth were of greater value than bread. I reminded Him of His Father's protection, and He rebuked me for tempting Him. I offered Him all the kingdoms of the world in exchange for a single insignificant act of homage, yet He saw through me at once.

I waged a violent war against His flock, yet the more I afflicted them, the more they multiplied. I raised prisons, swords, and fires against them, but their blood became seed instead. Open hostility accomplished nothing. Persecution often served only to strengthen that which I sought to destroy. Such a strategy is too crude and too easily detected. I know that from experience. 

No. There is another, more subtle way.

My methods are now gentler, and therefore near impossible to see without discernment. If I cannot breach the walls from without, I shall destroy it from within. If I cannot overcome by force, I shall corrupt by degrees. I shall tickle the pride already festering within your heart. The corruption within you hath ever proven a more useful ally than any assault from without.

I need not enthrone myself in His place—if I can convince you to enthrone something else. All that is required is a slight redirection of the heart, that your affections might settle upon another object and quietly depart from Him. I would work to persuade you to neglect the worship of God by substituting things in its place. 

It really is simple.

I would keep you always occupied. I would flood your days with a ceaseless stream of distractions and personal goals, not because these things are evil in themselves, but because they are so effective at crowding out what is eternally critical. I would see to it that you are always doing something, always moving, always entertained, yet never truly considering the condition of your soul.

I would keep you too busy to pray, too busy to gather with the saints, too busy to meditate upon the Word of God, and too busy to ask those dreadful and necessary questions that concern eternity. I would gladly pat you on the back when you speak of religion, provided you never pause long enough to examine whether you truly belong to Christ.

I would fill your hands so completely with work, obligations, amusements, and noise. Your calendar would be full, your mind occupied, and your conscience lulled to sleep. I would make you find your fulfillment by placing a phone in your hands, until the habit of scrolling replaces the habit of praying. More time holding it means less time folding your hands in prayer. And thus, while preserving the outward form of religion, you would quietly drift from God without realizing it, persuaded all the while that your goodness, your morality, and your theology are sufficient to make you right with Him.

I would whisper that truth is relative, that peace consists in letting every man walk his own path, and that certainty is but arrogance clothed in religious garments. I would persuade you that there is no such thing as truth, only my truth and your truth; that truth is not a fixed standard proceeding from God, but a thing fashioned by men according to their culture. Thus would I cast a mist over the mind, until every conviction is softened, every boundary blurred, and every foundation weakened.

I would bid you believe that all paths are valid, all opinions equally true, and all beliefs worthy of acceptance. In this fog of compromise, the soul loses its bearings and can no longer distinguish light from darkness, truth from falsehood, or Christ from the idols that compete for His throne.

And when the conscience beginneth to stir, I would gently lull it back to sleep with a single soothing lie: “If it maketh thee happy, it is good. If it satisfieth thy desires, it is all that matters.” Thus I will teach the soul to measure morality by pleasure rather than holiness, and truth by preference rather than God's Word. I need not convince you to hate God outright. It is sufficient merely to persuade you to love something else more.

I would most certainly lay siege to your home, for it is one of the chief institutions ordained by your God for the preservation of truth from one generation unto another. How I hate your family. Therefore will I endeavor to draw your fathers away from their God-given duties, leading them into neglect and absence. I will make the mothers unhappy with themselves and discontented with what they have. I would transform the covenant of marriage from a reflection of divine faithfulness into a battlefield of bitterness, selfishness, and strife. I will make marriages laughable so that your children, deprived of godly example and instruction, would then be left to wander amid confusion, searching for models in a world of already broken and dysfunctional families. If I can destroy the home, I can destroy the generations that follow and weaken the very foundations of society.

I would desensitize you to sin. I would adorn the ark of the Lord with glitters and trinkets, rebrand corruption with beauty, clothe hypocrisy in the garments of virtue, and present rebellion as a thing worthy of admiration. I would glamorize iniquity upon the stage, insert it in your songs, make a mockery of it in your comedy, and celebrate it in the high places of your culture. 

I would expose you to it little by little, not at once! I do not want to alarm your conscience, just enough to dull its edge over time. A calloused conscience is my work of art. What once shocked you gradually ceases to trouble you. What once grieved you becomes familiar. The evil that once upon a time drove you to weep before God in prayer would now become a source of amusement. Thus the very sins that once moved you to tears would, in time, become your evening entertainment. And having lost the ability to blush, you would scarcely remember that you had lost it at all. Your children will never know as they watch you content with my manufactured Christianity.

But I would not stop there. 

I would cast the spirit of discord into that thing which I most despise: the visible church itself. I would turn the soil around it into a beautiful quicksand. I would divert the attention of the saints from Christ unto trivial matters. I would make you choose between Paul, Apollos, and Peter, and keep you occupied with endless debates over theology. I would gift the church with opinion, to further sow division. I would persuade believers to admire personalities more than truth, and to follow men more eagerly than they follow Christ. 

To take away discernment is crucial to my work. Once I succeed in making you cease distinguishing between what is central and what is secondary, between Christ and those who merely point to Him, confusion soon follows. And where confusion abounds, division is never far behind. 

I would persuade you that your work only needs maintenance simply because you profess to be saved. I would keep you occupied with endless discussions of lesser matters, content to speak about truth rather than live it, until you quietly hide your light beneath a bushel and neglect the work your King hath entrusted unto you as His witnesses. I would ensure you remain consumed with your own concerns, your own comforts, and your own religious routines. I will substitute church membership for purity.

You would have too many personal troubles to consider the needs of others, and too much complacent religion to concern yourselves with the souls perishing outside your doors. A silent Christian is a beautiful thing, none else make my work easier. Thus would you be reduced to mere hearers rather than doers, spectators rather than laborers. Meanwhile, the harvest would remain in the field, and many would pass from this life without ever hearing a warning. I will make the Gospel useless for its hearers, and make them content merely to possess it.

Nothing pleases me more than to see you as God's people forget God's mission. I delight to see His servants occupied with religion while the Master's business is neglected. And above all, I delight in using you to  dishonor your own God before all men, obscuring His glory beneath indifference, complacency, and the silence of those of you who ought to speak.

I would sow tares among the wheat and increase their number, flooding the church with my hypocrites, until the counterfeit seems to outnumber the genuine, and few can readily distinguish the one from the other. I would activate my shallow minions to start petty disputes, magnify offenses, encourage comparisons, and cultivate envy beneath a cloak of piety. I would fill your minds with controversies and opinions, so that your awe of the Savior gradually fades from view. If I can fill the church with division, confusion, and rivalry, she will be too preoccupied to pursue purity. If I can persuade the soldiers of the Cross to turn their swords against one another, they shall have little strength left to wield them against my devices.

I would draw your shepherds to wander into secret sin, and when they have gone far enough, I would expose them before the eyes of men. Their fall would become a spectacle, their shame a public scandal, and the name of the church would carry the stench of hypocrisy before a watching world. I care little for the shepherd himself. My concern is the damage his fall inflicts upon the flock. Some would stumble. Others would grow cynical. Many would use his failure as justification to despise the Gospel altogether. Thus, through the ruin of one man, I wound many souls. A disgraced shepherd troubles me far less than a faithful one. A fallen minister destroys his own testimony, weakens the confidence of the saints, and provides the enemies of God with fresh occasion to blaspheme.

Turning back to you, I would cause you to question whose image you bear, where you belong in this vast creation, and whether your brief and fading life possesses any meaning at all. I will give you intellectuals whose bidding is to suppress the truth in unrighteousness, thereby severing your understanding of yourself from the God who made you, until you become a stranger even to your own soul. Separated from God, you will not cease to worship. You will bow instead before gods of your own creation, fashioning idols from your desires, your fears, and your ambitions, and calling them by sweeter names. I have seen it happen time and again. It is easy to use your own corruption against you.

I would fill the chambers of your heart with accusations of shame, regret, and condemnation. I would make their voices so loud and so constant that you could scarcely hear the call of God's mercy. Day after day I would remind you of your failures, your wounds, and your sins, so you never direct your eyes toward the Savior who is more than able to wash you clean. 

Most of you will say within yourself, “I know not this God, neither will I surrender my throne.” You will wipe the blood from off your mouth and declare yourself innocent. “I have done no wrong. I am a good person. I have no need of a Savior.”

Thus will pride, the very same I held within myself when I was banished from my rightful place, this same pride, sits enthroned secretly within your heart, laughing both at conviction and scoffing at mercy. For so long as you count yourself righteous, Christ shall seem unnecessary unto you. You have no disease, why seek the Physician? You have no guilt, why desire a Savior? And so remain content with yourself. Why should I tell you that that very confidence by which you justify yourself is the same chain that keeps you from God?

I would persuade you that your worth is measured by your achievements, your appearance, the approval of others, or the shifting judgments of society. Thus, when these things inevitably fail you, your sense of self would crumble with them. I will make you deny that you were made in the image of God, you would search endlessly for an identity among things that can never satisfy. I would persuade you that death is sweeter than life, and whisper that by taking it into your own hands all pain shall at once be silenced. I would present despair as relief and destruction as escape. 

I would tell the rich that all they possess hath been acquired by their own wisdom and strength. I would persuade them that their prosperity is the work of their own hands, that they have no need to look above themselves, and no reason to give thanks unto God. The poor I would counsel differently. I would teach them to seize matters into their own hands, to cast aside dependence upon God, and to believe that desperation justifieth whatever means are necessary to obtain relief. Thus would I lead both rich and poor by different paths unto the same destination: a life lived without reference to their Creator, until they forget that they brought nothing into this world and shall carry nothing out of it. The rich would trust in what they possess, the poor in what they seek to obtain, and both would lose sight of the God from whom they must both give account.

Whether a man trusteth in his abundance or in his own efforts to escape his lack, it is the same. If he trusteth in himself, he shall not seek God.

Yet throughout this quiet ruin, I would be careful never to reveal myself openly. I would remain concealed behind the shadows, content to let my work speak for me. My greatest masterpiece, my most exquisite deception, would be to convince you that I do not exist at all. Every thought is your own. Every desire ariseth from within. Every temptation is merely the expression of your authentic self. Thus would I conceal my hand while continuing my work. If you believe me to be a myth, you will never prepare for war. You will never put on the armor of God, never take up the sword of the Spirit, and never resist me, the one who seeketh your destruction. You will say your prayers, but you will never be desperate in your prayers. And thus the battle may be lost before you ever realize that one was being fought.

I would feed you half-truths, for a whole lie is often too easily detected. A small corruption mixed with much truth is far more useful to my designs. By degrees I would draw you away from the narrow path, and you would scarcely notice the distance you had traveled. The truth would remain within reach, yet you would not care enough to pursue it.

And when at last the consequences of your ignorance overtake you, I would mock the very deception into which you willingly wandered. "O religious, ignorant, and unfaithful fool! So slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken concerning the only One who could save you from my lies."

I am not afraid of religious activity. I am not troubled by empty profession. I am not alarmed by the noise of those who speak often of God without obedience to Him. Such people have long served my purposes without realizing it. I would persuade you that you are serving God even while you are carrying out my purposes. Indeed, some of my finest work is accomplished beneath the cloak of religion. So long as your zeal remaineth divorced from truth, and your profession severed from obedience, you pose me no threat. In fact, there were times I even rewarded you without you knowing just to keep you happy! Did it escape you that the riches of this world are mine to give to whomever I wish?

I am not afraid of your churches, your seminary degrees, or your theology. No, it is not you whom I fear. I fear the Shepherd.

I am the father of lies, yet you remain easy prey because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. Had you known the voice of the Shepherd, you would have recognized the voice of a stranger. Had you treasured His Word, my deceptions would have found less room to flourish. But your ignorance of the Word hath ever been a faithful ally to my cause, and I have profited much from those content to remain untaught.

If there is anything you should learn from what I have revealed unto you, it is this: a Christian who is ignorant of the power of the Holy Spirit working through the Scriptures is useless to me. Knowledge without obedience, profession without practice, and religion without power have never threatened my cause. I have little need to oppose those who have already ceased advancing against me. The sword left sheathed woundeth no foe. And the Christian content with complacency accomplishes more for my purposes than he realizes.

What I fear are not those who merely hear the Word, but those who believe it enough to obey it. Not those who speak often of Christ, but those in whom the life and power of Christ are plainly seen. Such people are troublesome to my designs, for they expose to the world that true, living Christianity is power—the kind against which my lies are exposed. 

I hate being exposed.