My Dear Globdrop,

Excuse my delay in replying to your ever-growing mound of letters. I have been entirely occupied with things not slightly above your clearance. Truthfully, I have felt relieved to be free from all the drivel and sniffling I’ve grown accustomed to in your letters. Imagine my great disbelief, then, when I opened this last one. Splendid, nephew, simply splendid! My labor may not be wasted after all.

How I wish I could have witnessed the look on your patient’s face when those “married men” put the question to him plainly: What did he— as a follower of the Enemy — have to say about their love? Headquarters informs me that your man’s quivering voice, contorted face, and darting eyes made for excellent entertainment around the barracks all week.

But this, as you say, merely began the descent. I salivate imagining him wiggling about in his shoes — but a few days later was it? — when he, excuse me, she, insisted that your man use her proper pronoun. I should have grown three shades darker to see him “grow three shades paler” in line at Chipotle. And all of this occurring in front of the girl he likes, you say? Excellent.

And then, to hear news of this weekend’s family reunion — riveting. We wondered how we might utilize his uncle’s fondness for drink to better advantage. I heard the brute nearly fell down as he staggered to and fro, pointing about the room, bellowing, “Sooo, you’re telling meee, that weee all are off to hellll? . . . . We will blister in the flames if we don’t follow your God, will we?”

He “never felt so small, so embarrassed, so ashamed” — he actually wrote that in his journal later that night? I’d love to see it. And on the car ride home, did he really turn to our Delilah and say, “Some Christians believe in that sort of stuff — but I’m rethinking things. I’m sorry. I hope you’re not upset”? I snarl with delight.

In my absence, you led him to a most glorious repentance: apologizing on behalf of the Enemy!

Beware the Book

The humans, senseless creatures that they are, assume that we would never desire for them to experience remorse. Not so! We work tirelessly to get them to apologize for all the right sort of things. Thus, your mighty progress. You began to awaken him to how truly humiliating his allegiance to the Enemy is (I can still remember the sickness in my stomach when our Master first aroused me to the discovery). All of our ranks, along with many of our most valuable servants, travel the path from shame to liberation to usefulness.

Getting him to be ashamed of the Enemy — and especially the Enemy’s Book — is no small feat, nephew. Consider it.

What is this but to make the soldier skeptical of his General’s command? The ambassador humiliated by his King’s message? The warrior ashamed to use his own sword? He is the seaman who sails blindly in the dark for fear that his lamp might offend our sleeping ones. His unease at being found in his uniform confirms what we’ve always known the Enemy to be: Unbearable. Unworthy. Embarrassing.

If we disarm them of the Book, nephew, make them uncomfortable with its contents and sickened by even a few of its teachings, the battle for that soul is all but over. We need but lift our flag over him. We take the Enemy at his word: Whoever is ashamed of him and of his words, of him will the Enemy be ashamed. If they deny him, he will deny them. If they hang their heads at his unpopular positions and drool for the belly scratch of others’ good opinion, they will lie alone, exposed, and weaponless — and we never blush to fire our arrows.

Small Cracks Can Grow

Some practical pointers then.

Not all at once. Do not attempt to make him self-conscious about the Enemy’s words all at once. Do not grow hasty. Remember, small cracks sink even the largest of ships.

Humiliation over one or two points will do. Never forget, the Enemy doesn’t just claim some of his words are true, but all. Words such as infallible and inerrant can be spun to make our job easier: Only one opinion needs to become untenable for the humans eventually to dismiss the whole as unbelievable. How many will serve at our everlasting feast because they could not bear what happened in Canaan centuries ago? Small cracks, nephew, small cracks.

Reward compromise. When you spurred him on to make the innocent mistake of calling the six-foot-three male in front of him a “he,” provoking him to demand an apology — which he quietly gave — what happened to him afterwards? Nothing.

Nothing bad happened to him — at least that he could tell. The appeased turned around and ordered. Onlookers left him alone. He didn’t exhibit himself a “fanatic” to his love interest; he did not get scourged on social media (Hell forbid!). Nothing was triggered. Only that still small voice grew a little quieter, and he, a little closer.

Train the feelings; take the mind. Remember, Globdrop, this is a moody, emoji generation. Their feelings dictate their minds; their emotions stand jury for truth. Headquarters continues to produce data proving that argument has never been less effective. They live by their guts, not their minds. We spend more time now on the show: the fog, the lights, the sound-bites. Allocate time, then, not to reasons why the Enemy expects husbands and wives to relate in such and such a way, or why he might bid men to act like men; rather, cause such to be obviously false because it is so hideous to the heart. Capture their emotions, and you win their soul.

Finally, make “that thing” ultimate. I remember operating on a patient once, who, without my intervention, was destined for what the vermin call a “happy marriage.” Early in their union, however, I quietly suggested that he reconsider the chortle which, in his infatuation, he had deemed an adorable laugh. Dating no longer, we slowly turned up the volume of this unmusical howl, and he grew evermore irritated. The more he resolved to forget it, the more we brought it to mind. Soon it became more than a sound, representing all that he disliked about her. He soon forgot many reasons he loved her — her laugh becoming our whip that scourged his affections.

My point? Make them preoccupied with that one perceived defect in the Book. Once you’ve found it, fixate your man upon it. Slowly turn up the volume. Make it the whole of his religion to be the inescapable howl. Scourge his affections and his naive trust in the Enemy’s word.

Breath of the Enemy

All Scripture is “Enemy-breathed.” Our task, which you’ve begun this past week, is to cause them to cringe at the smell. If God-breathed, then foul breath. Awaken him to the discovery that he worships the divine Embarrassment. The air is better down below.

As your man continues, nephew, never forget to allow him to only travel one-way. No matter the issue of the day — whether slavery or sodomy, divorce or abortion, social justice or patriarchy — gently lead him to judge the Enemy’s word by another standard.

Send him to consult our world’s twitters, the gurus of the age, the pop psychologists, the progressive Bible scholars, his unbelieving neighbor, an unbelieving world, and then, maybe then, he might be ready to visit Amos or understand what that wretched apostle really meant in his letters. Judge the Book by his intuitions; the Enemy’s wisdom by man’s — never vice versa. Always travel from the world into the Book — never from the Book into the world.

Your pleasantly surprised uncle,

Grimgod