"...the World an end, and faith a means..."

I am currently reading CS Lewis' "The Screwtape Letters" and once again I found that his words echo well beyond his time.  Consider the dichotomy he discusses below.   Here we see the devil Screwtape advising his nephew, Wormwood,  on how to best drive humans away from God ("the Enemy").  For some context, this was written during WWII which explains the debate regarding pacifism vs. patriotism.  But we should also consider how this applies today to many issues, although the two that come to mind are the vicious debates regarding gay marriage and pro-life vs. pro-choice.  


"Whichever he adopts, your main task will be the same. Let him begin by treating the Patriotism or the Pacifism as a part of his religion. Then let him, under the influence of partisan spirit, come to regard it as the most important part. Then quietly and gradually nurse him on to the stage at which the religion becomes merely part of the “cause”, in which Christianity is valued chiefly because of the excellent arguments it can produce in favour of the British war-effort or of Pacifism. The attitude which you want to guard against is that in which temporal affairs are treated primarily as material for obedience. Once you have made the World an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing. Provided that meetings, pamphlets, policies, movements, causes, and crusades, matter more to him than prayers and sacraments and charity, he is ours—and the more “religious” (on those terms) the more securely ours. I could show you a pretty cageful down here.
Your affectionate uncle, 
SCREWTAPE"


-CS Lewis, "The Screwtape Letters"


Those reading this likely know my liberal views, but I want to note that I post this not to justify my own beliefs (that would be a bit hypocritical would it not?) but to point to the destructive rhetoric around these issues.   Particularly the rhetoric on both sides (although far more from the right than the left, admittedly) which will brand an issue as being the "Christian" view.  


"Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless.  Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." - James 1:26-27


There is a fine line between debating what stance a Christian should take and taking a stance and dismissing those who disagree as "un-Christian" or even "un-Godly."  When we engage in the first, we are fulfilling our role as rational, reasonable men of faith trying to figure out God's word in a very different world than the Bible.  But the latter brings nothing more than bumper sticker discourse and shouting matches.  We are held to a higher standard than that.