Imagine my horror, when I saw this on the dark web. It appears my post on worship has gone viral there after receiving the infamous Screwtape‘s personal stamp of approval.

At great personal risk, I have copied the text of Screwtape’s response to my post. I hope it will be beneficial to you. I know I learned a lot from reading it.

To: My pathetic colleagues including the deficient Wormwood

From: the Inimitable Screwtape, Master of Daemons and Online Trolls

Another obscure post from another unknown blogger was brought to my attention. But it worries me slightly. Let’s use it as an example of how to avoid the good and focus on the bad. There is some risk associated with Mr. Darren’s self-righteous post, but I think we can manage it if we divert the discussions in the Parking Lot and bring in some resources from the Department of Discord.

Mister Darren starts off with some noxious clap trap about love, love, and more love. Do your best to divert anyone who happens along his blog post to skim over this part. Try to tease them into thinking this lovey talk is just the normal background noise of “churchiness” and not that he REALLY loves his church, his pastors (bleh I can hardly stand to type that word), or his youth. The word “love” stinks of the enemy, and real love is intolerable.

On to the juicy parts. I would have ignored this post altogether if Mr. Darren had not identified (accidentally, I’m sure because he doesn’t appear exceptionally bright) our two main techniques for deflating the power of worshipping the enemy – that is over emotionalism and under emotionalism. (Ugh! I hate admitting that anyone could actually worship … whatever!)

Cathartic excess and adrenaline has been one of our most effective weapons, and Mr. Darren has the gall to try to shine his little pen-light of a blog on our secret machinations. This has to be dealt with.

Likewise, he turns his little pitiful blog towards our bulwark of the disconnected recitation of mumblings that the enemy’s minions call the liturgy. He rightly points out that the words in those liturgical writings are noxious to us and are focused on the enemy.

But I’m not worried about the words in their liturgy or the words in their noxious praise songs. We have human nature on our side. And that is where I would like you to focus your efforts.

I am assigning Wormwood to lead this task. Hopefully, he won’t foul this one up.

Here is the plan.

If by chance someone stumbled upon Mr. Darren’s insignificant and pitiful blog, it is ok to let them read it. After they read it begin your work, thusly. Put the following questions into their ever-so-distractable minds:

1. How many minutes are dedicated in a so-called worship service to their favorite categories: Contemporary vs Traditional vs Liturgical
2. Did the worship committee pick EXACTLY the same number of contemporary songs vs old songs.
3. Why is (organ, guitar, saxophone, trumpet, piano, drums) being used? NEVER let them listen unimpeded to the beauty of any musical offering! That beauty (bleh) is from the enemy and is very dangerous to us. Instead, get them to focus on every little missed note, off pitch, etc. These people are pretty pathetic so it is always easy to find distracting bits in the mix.
4. Why is the pastor using that story, telling that joke, behaving that way, choosing that verse? This overly critical attitude of the “laypeople” is a new tool for us, and it is bearing some excellent fruit. Do your best to eliminate any respect of the pastors because they serve the enemy full time. There’s no telling what those fellas are up to. Especially dangerous to us are those pastors who pray together with each other and their leadership teams and who hold each other accountable. Our people cannot stand to be in the room when they are praying to the enemy, so we have difficulty knowing what they are planning.
5. Why are we (or aren’t we) offering two worship services? We can operate effectively against the enemy in either of these situations so no matter what they choose to do, we can still distract the members to be bothered by the situation.

The one thing we CANNOT allow under any circumstances, and that is to allow the members of Faith Lutheran Church or any other church to ACTUALLY worship the enemy.

Although I couldn’t bear to read all the writings and analysis Mr. Darren pulled from the so called “holy” writings, I do know he got dangerously close to equating worship with selflessness and sacrifice. This is a very delicate situation, but Mr. Darren has given you the key to distracting a devout worshiper. Notice his martyrial tone. “I will be the one to sacrifice MY desires.” Oh brother! Take this over-dramatic selflessness and insert our secret sauce – pride.

If you can have the devout worshipers become proud of their devotion, then we can derail the whole enterprise.

That’s enough for now.

Don’t mess it up!

-Screwtape