The Wormwood Archive Quotes

“We have convinced church leaders and music ministers that classical choral styles are unattractive to the younger crowd, that so-called ‘seekers’ will be—what’s the American term?—turned off by a Mendelssohn psalm or a hymn arranged for choral singing. At the same time we have allowed such music to flourish in secular environments and liberal churches where its spiritual effect is negligible. Many evangelical music ministers now consider it a fact beyond question that radio styles, driven to popularity by clever marketing schemes, are the way to penetrate the hearts of those attending church. Repetitive phrases and a beat that encourages clapping are taken as sure signs of our Enemy working in the hearts of the congregation.”
― T.G. Brown, The Wormwood Archive

“If you have ever seen people engaging in mutual worship of one another, you know it is a beautiful sight. Only self-worship is more enjoyable to watch.”
― T.G. Brown, The Wormwood Archive

“I constantly warn my assistants to guard against worship environments in which people can hear the voices of other audience members. That is why one of the most wonderful achievements of our time is the combination of sophisticated instrumentation and voice amplification. We have elevated accompaniment to an art form, added attractive worship teams, and created a worship atmosphere in which no one need hear her own voice or that of her neighbor. The entire audience—for now it has become an audience, not a congregation—can now lip synch their praise, with confidence that our Enemy will hear, and approve of the worship being offered onstage.”
― T.G. Brown, The Wormwood Archive

“In the worship discussions it will therefore be important for us to convince the leadership that they are seeking unity when they are really seeking uniformity. Some of our most significant victories in the last few centuries have been when churches abandon the search for unity (a difficult and elusive search) in favor of a policy of uniformity. Unity can only emerge from the Enemy working in the hearts of individuals. A leadership can impose uniformity. Unity has, at its core, a common conviction and celebrates differences in expression. Uniformity emphasizes appearance—as long as we all meet together and sing the same songs, we must be unified. Uniformity says that our various beliefs about the Enemy can differ or even be nonexistent as long as we do not question the decisions”
― T.G. Brown, The Wormwood Archive

“As you know, real musicians (and the performers must keep reminding themselves that they are indeed real musicians) don’t like to play familiar songs repeatedly. They intensely dislike overused arrangements for hymns and praise songs; they need a challenge, and this means new songs added each week, songs that have ever more sophisticated arrangement and accompaniment. Over time fewer and fewer audience members are able to give voice to the songs.”
― T.G. Brown, The Wormwood Archive

“The great success of our strategy can be seen in Daniel Southerland’s sincere conviction that members who object to a Performance Driven transition are just like Sanballat. They are enemies of the Enemy, and should be driven from the community. To our great advantage many of these are former leaders, or elderly servants of the Enemy who might never find another church to which they can belong and are thus effectively sidelined from the battle.”
― T.G. Brown, The Wormwood Archive