Old Error, New Dress!

       
The Screwtape Letters were written by C. S. Lewis. Wikipedia.com says the Screwtape Letters are 31 letters written by a senior demon named Screwtape to his nephew, Wormwood, a younger and less experienced demon. Wormwood’s assigned task is to guide a man called "the patient" toward "Our Father Below" (the Devil / Satan) and away from "the Enemy" (God). In one of the letters Screwtape coaches Wormwood in his efforts to guide his "patient" away from God and toward their infernal father, the Devil. Screwtape reminds the novice demon that "old error in new dress is error nonetheless." There’s a simple reason you can call a rose by any other name and it still smell like a rose. It is because it still IS a rose! You can call a skunk a cat or a dog or you call him Pepe’ Le Pew and give him a sophisticated-sounding French accent like the old Warner Brothers Looney Tunes cartoons – but no matter what you call a skunk, a skunk stinks – because he is still a skunk! Yes, my friend, old error in new dress is error nonetheless! That short sentence summarizes a major Bible truth – old error is error and old sin is sin no matter how many slick and smooth sounding words you hang on it.

Mankind’s oldest (but perhaps most widespread and dearly held) error is that there are multiple paths to God, and that we are free to find our own way to Him no matter what He has said. Hollywood actress Penelope Cruz verbalized the popular salad-bar approach to religion that says people are free to pick and choose as they build their own personal religious approach. She said, "I was baptized and had my first communion, and I believe in God in my own ways. But the philosophy I most identify with is Buddhism, because it’s the one that doesn’t say, ‘This is the only way.’ I don’t want to put a title on what I believe" ("Plugged In" May, 2001). Well, if Penelope won’t put a title on it, let’s let Screwtape do it for her – the title is "Error!" Right here is precisely why so many people have a beef with the Bible. Over and over again the Bible takes issue with the popular human notion there are many paths to God and that we can believe in God, as Cruz erroneously said, "in our own ways." God told Adam there was one way to retain the fellowship he and Eve enjoyed with God in that Garden Paradise – don’t eat the forbidden fruit, "for in the day that you eat it you shall surely die." The serpent convinced Eve she could believe in God in her own ways, saying, "You will not surely die" (Genesis 3:4). In the end, she and Adam chose their own way over God’s word. They bought the devil’s lie and bit into the fruit. But that error was fatal to their fellowship with God (Genesis chapter 3). Today Americans dress that same old error up in the new clothing of pluralism. We legalize what God calls sin and call it "civil liberties." We kill our unborn and dress it up with the word "choice." Instead of defining marriage as "male and female," we talk of "same-sex marriage" and insist on choosing how we "identify." Pluralism says I have my truth, you have yours – but we are all okay no matter what we choose to believe and do. So what if we teach different and conflicting and even oppsite things about God? Just don’t tell me there’s one way. But Jesus says there is (John 14:6)! Words from 1 Timothy1:3 call to the church to her duty: "charge some that they teach no other doctrine." Old error is still error, no matter how new and fancy the dress.

Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN