I’d like to add a couple of chapters to C. S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters. Not to say that I’m up to it, but some thoughts spring to mind. Here’s a go at one of the new letters from the senior demon to his nephew-apprentice Wormwood, counseling the junior tempter as to how he can more effectively seduce “the Patient”:

You can’t do it all at once and you can’t do it one by one. You’ll have to work very hard to change the whole framework of a generation’s assumed convictions. The way you should do this won’t make sense at first, but I assure you that it works. You have to shift their habits of thinking from the more serious to the more trivial (without blowing your cover and provoking the opposite reaction). Affirm the second-best thing against the first-best, then the third-best against the second-best, and so on. Here’s what I mean.

First, encourage them to take their faith for granted, by relying on what others believe. Distract them from explicit concern to a foggy memory of slogans and phrases they learned in their nurseries. This shouldn’t be difficult. They’ve grown up in it, after all. The Enemy uses that to his benefit, so we should too. It doesn’t really matter if they assent to beliefs about the Trinity, the Incarnation, Atonement, Resurrection, and all, as long as they don’t know why they believe it or why it matters. Get them somehow to think that the Enemy is either too far away to really care about them or so near that he’s a harmless pet—even better, their own inner voice. But the important thing here is to dissuade them from reflecting on what happened—you know, the stuff you’ve heard about “Immanuel: God with us.”

Second, now that they have begun to take it all for granted and wear it lightly, affirm the importance of spirituality, feeling, and doing good to others. That’s already there in the Enemy’s speeches, of course, but separate all of this from the question of truth. If possible (and it is, I assure you), use these very “virtues” celebrated by the Enemy as weapons against the doctrine. As long as they keep him in their private experience, but don’t really think of the Enemy entering history and bringing “salvation” to “sinners,” we should have less trouble with them spreading their nonsense. Help them to shift the burden of their religion from public truth to personal experience and happiness. Then, once they run into some rough patches they’ll realize it doesn’t work. The key: just keep it all light and superficial. There should be plenty of good resources already available for that sort of thing. Soon, they’ll forget it altogether.

Third, now they’ll be ripe for an outright offensive strategy on your part. Now that the “weightiness” of the Enemy’s speeches have been drained from their daily routines, and they think, feel, and live more like us, attack the beliefs straight-on. They already wear them lightly, so, with a little sophistry, they shouldn’t be likely to hold onto them too dearly. At this point, though, while you’re doing this, be careful to assure them of the good that religion can do in the world. I know that it works against your grain, but it does work in the end. For example, make them deeply concerned to celebrate Christmas and Easter as cultural holidays. They really love Christmas. Puff the holiday, but add in all sort of other things that make it sentimental rather than serious. They can still have the trappings; the important thing at this stage is that they let go of what it meant. Maybe they’ll start thinking of the Enemy’s so-called “achievements” no longer as an announcement but as a philosophy for living, cultural values, and that sort of thing. Just get it out of the sphere of “Good News,” as some of them still call it. Again, there should be plenty of resources near at hand for you to use—especially look for ones that they produce themselves!

OK, I don’t know if that works as fiction. But, sadly, it has worked in reality. Check out this provocative article in the Daily Telegraph: “Britain Will Miss Christianity When It’s Gone.”