The Other Shoulder: Resisting Temptation in The Screwtape Letters

What duties might a guardian angel perform? Does it act defensively, warding off demonic attacks to protect its Charge from horrifying evil? Does it act offensively, harrowing wickedness by equipping its assigned Soul with gifted power? What could an angel do for a child of God that the indwelling Spirit of the Creator’s Holiness does not already do? Yet the Divine Way seems to designate these Messengers for particular service in the created order. They seem designed – at least in part – for, well, messaging.

The Other Shoulder houses a series of lyrics whispered by a guarding angel to a Soul undergoing devilish enticement. The book includes the reflections of that Soul in sketches parallel to the angelic lyrics. Both the sketches and the lyrics probe the psychology, emotion, and agency of resisting temptations advocated in C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters. Read with those letters or as a free-standing exploration, The Other Shoulder offers biblically-based assistance to withstand the allurement of sin.