Last weekend, my wife and I went to hell.

We sat in a black box theater in Dallas. The curtains parted, and we were transported to the devil’s domain, a crooked room complete with skulls and bones lining the walls, all bathed in an eerie red glow.

We overheard correspondence between Screwtape, a senior demon, and his nephew, Wormwood, who was trying to sway a Christian convert back to his old way of living. In the end, Wormwood fails, and Screwtape looks forward to punishing his nephew most diabolically.

You might recognize this story from the famous 1942 work by C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters. By the end of that year, the book had gone through eight reprints. To date, it has sold an estimated 2.5 million copies. The stage adaptation, produced by the Fellowship for Performing Arts, toured nine cities in 2023 with 40 shows.

In a post-modern world where discussions of hell and demons are often dismissed as medieval notions, C.S. Lewis’s insights continue to resonate with audiences today. A 2010 review in The New York Times, hardly an evangelical mouthpiece, called The Screwtape Letters “a humorous and lively stage adaptation” where “the Devil has rarely been given his due more perceptively and eruditely.” Could it be that well-presented art is a powerful tool in reaching people with the Gospel?

Ephesians 2:10 reminds us that we are “God’s masterpiece,” created to do good works. These can certainly include the arts. Theologian and best-selling author Francis Schaeffer wrote, “Art is a reflection of God’s creativity, an evidence that we are made in the image of God.”

Of course, not everyone can play an instrument, deliver a dramatic soliloquy, or sculpt a masterpiece. But we can appreciate such works and promote the creativity that reflects the image of our wildly creative God. Art educates, uplifts, and changes lives for the better, inviting us to see the world through a transformative lens.

Ultimately, we might not beat the devil through art, but we can certainly frustrate him with it. Because in a world shadowed by darkness, every brushstroke, every note, every moving monologue pushes back the chaos, reminding us that beauty and truth will always have the final word.