Book Review of Operation Screwtape, by Andrew Farley

Oper­a­tion Screw­tape con­tains words writ­ten by a demon. To be fair, it is a trans­la­tion. And, well, to be com­pletely trans­par­ent, it was all writ­ten by “expert lin­guist” Dr. Andrew Far­ley, author of The Naked Gospel (2009), God With­out Reli­gion (2011), and Heaven Is Now (2012). Oper­a­tion Screw­tape is the most recent of his books.

• Title:  Oper­a­tion Screw­tape:  The Art of Spir­i­tual War
• Author:  Andrew Farley
• Pub­lisher:  Baker Books
• Date: Jan­u­ary 15, 2013
• Length:  192 pages / 3.25 hours
• Nar­ra­tion:  David Cochran Heath

Note on the audio ver­sion:  David Cochran Heath is an excel­lent nar­ra­tor. I think he was espe­cially good in Screw­tape, because of his sin­is­ter demonic laugh­ing. Seri­ously, he punc­tu­ated the nar­ra­tion with bouts of dev­il­ish snick­er­ing. Juve­nile? Meh, maybe. Engag­ing and effec­tive? Pretty much. 

Overview

Far­ley, who spe­cial­izes in the shock fac­tor, writes the book as if it were a train­ing man­ual for demons. Like Screw­tape Let­ters, in which a senior demon instructs a younger demon on how best to tempt his sub­ject, this book fol­lows the same model. Since the tech­niques of the orig­i­nal Screw­tape Let­ters are out­dated, accord­ing to the intro­duc­tory mat­ter of Oper­a­tion Screw­tape, this is a demon’s train­ing book for a new age. The train­ing pro­vides demonic neo­phytes a way to mess up the spir­i­tual lives of those who are already Christians.

Thoughts

There is a chill­ing warmth about the book. On the one hand, it is chill­ing because you’re read­ing the cal­cu­lated, aggres­sive, and con­spir­a­to­r­ial advances of the enemy. On the other hand, it is warm and encour­ag­ing, because you are reminded of the power of the gospel as it com­bats the advances of the devil. The book con­tains plenty of the­ol­ogy, albeit com­ing from a demon. These sec­tions serve to remind us that the gospel is suf­fi­cient, that we are safe in Christ, that we are dead to sin, and that we will ulti­mately triumph.

Read­ing a book from the enemy’s per­spec­tive is fas­ci­nat­ing. It takes some get­ting used to. Most Chris­tians are accus­tomed to read­ing praise­wor­thy things about God, and not-so-praiseworthy things about the Devil. This book con­tains pre­cisely the oppo­site, and appro­pri­ately so. When read­ing the book, you begin to expe­ri­ence “aha” moments when you finally “fig­ure out” how demons are trick­ing you, and the sin­is­ter tech­niques they’re using to trip you up. But for all its fas­ci­na­tion, we’ve got to remem­ber that we’re not really read­ing a Demon’s Train­ing Man­ual. This stuff wasn’t actu­ally writ­ten by a demon.

What you’re read­ing is spec­u­la­tion, con­structed from bits of Scrip­ture, a bit of deduc­tion, and a lot of per­sonal expe­ri­ence. It’s help­ful to get a look at us — the good guys — from the per­spec­tive of the bad guys. But the book isn’t some cos­mic wik­ileaks. Every­thing is a prod­uct of some spec­u­la­tion, and there­fore dis­cern­ment is advised, just as with any book. 

Writ­ing an entire book from the per­spec­tive of a demon has another short­com­ing. When we start blam­ing every­thing on demons and dev­ils, we fail to see the depths of deprav­ity that has per­vaded our own hearts. “The devil made me do it,” is a supi­cious exon­er­a­tion of guilt. The Bible, how­ever, describes the con­di­tion of our hearts as “des­per­ately wicked” (Jere­miah 17:9), and paints a deplorable pic­ture of what we’re capa­ble of with­out the help of demons (Romans 1:18–32).

Per­haps the  most valu­able aspect of Farley’s book is that it reminds us of the pres­ence and cun­ning of the evil one. Eph­esians 6 pro­vides an appro­pri­ate impe­tus for read­ing the book:  “We…wrestle against…the cos­mic pow­ers over this present dark­ness, against the spir­i­tual forces of evi in the heav­enly places” (Eph­esians 6:12). The “schemes of the devil” are some­thing to take seri­ously, and to stand against faithfully.

Ama­zon | Audi­ble | Chris­tianau­dio

Dis­clo­sure of Mate­r­ial Con­nec­tion: I received this review copy for free as part of the Chris­tianau­dio Review­ers Pro­gram of christianaudio.com. I was not required to write a pos­i­tive review. The opin­ions I have expressed are my own. I am dis­clos­ing this in accor­dance with the Fed­eral Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Con­cern­ing the Use of Endorse­ments and Tes­ti­mo­ni­als in Advertising.”