Scargoyle Attacks the Family

My dear Moldwhistle,

I received your letter of acceptance, and I am pleased to know that you will be joining my team in service to Our Father Below. I have heard from your last supervisor that you are a devious fellow who would value the chance to work for a master tempter. With all due modesty, I believe I can give you that opportunity.

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First, I must clear up a misunderstanding. When I invited you to join our attack upon the family, you mentioned the vulnerability of the familial institution to gay marriage, pornography, and other popular inventions of our Father. Well, Moldwhistle, any devil can mount a successful attack using pornography. Our division works through a much more sophisticated—subtle, if you will—form of sabotage. In fact, we use methods so understated that the targets have no idea they are under our influence.

Our research has identified Sunday morning as the most successful time to attack the family. Church is a dangerous place. While we can’t keep all families from church, we can offset the detrimental effects of corporate worship by fostering conflict and self-righteousness among family members.

Perhaps you will see what I mean if I describe a recent Sunday sabotage carried out by Malwick, one of your new colleagues. Last Sunday, Malwick launched his attack with a tried-and-true sock hunt. It got the morning off to a deliciously terrible start. The wife of the target family asked the husband to put socks and shoes on their male offspring. Malwick simply stole one sock from each pair. After just five minutes of pawing through a drawer of mismatched socks, the husband lost his temper with the child and cursed at the wife.

The wife in question, offended that her husband would blame her for his inability to do a simple thing like put socks on a toddler, responded with passive aggression (one of Our Father’s chief delights) by changing clothes three times. Her husband hates to be late to church. Rather than apologize for his outburst, he waited in the van while the wife packed the diaper bag, kenneled the dog, and rounded up the children.

The tension in the car continued to rise as Malwick (with help from our engineering department) turned each stoplight red. When the children started crying, their father turned up the preacher on the radio. The wife glared at her husband as she exited the van but forced a smile for the deacon who opened the door for them.

The attack had been so successful to this point that Malwick thought he could relax and enjoy the fruits of his work. That, my vile friend, is a rookie mistake. Malwick hates the grating sound of all those voices singing praise to our Enemy, as do we all, but this was no excuse to let the family out of his clutches.

Unfortunately, the church attended by this couple has a weekly time of confession. Confession of sin causes our campaigns to implode like nothing else can. For years, Our Father has used the sinfulness of these humans to accuse and condemn them, but for some reason, this tactic backfires when a person confesses his sin.

When the family exited the Enemy’s house, the tension was gone. Husband and wife held hands. The children still fussed, but neither parent grew impatient. What had begun as a successful campaign against family harmony ended with forgiveness and grace—a total failure.

You see, if our target families are properly handled, they will never recognize that Sunday morning annoyances are opportunities to extend grace to one another and to seek it for themselves. Grace, as you know, is the hallmark of our Enemy. It undoes our very best work. We must seek to keep our targets out of its way at all costs.

This is where I am hoping that you, as the newest member of our team, will focus your efforts. I will look forward to your ideas at our next debrief and strategy meeting.

Your humble instructor,

Scargoyle