Authoritarian movements depend on political religions — not least in America

(RNS) — On Election Day 2024, one is on offer.

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump arrives to speak at a campaign rally at Rocky Mount Event Center, Oct. 30, 2024, in Rocky Mount, N.C. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Mark Silk
October 31, 2024


(RNS) — From Russia and Hungary to Turkey and India to the U.S. of A., actual and wannabe authoritarians make a practice of imbuing their movements with religious significance, in a way that identifies them with the sacred dimension of their nations.

All nation-states sacralize themselves to some degree. In the U.S., texts from the Declaration of Independence to Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream Speech” are treated as holy, and Washington is littered with temples and shrines, from the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials and the U.S. Supreme Court to the various war memorials. Not to mention our military sites — the battlefield at Gettysburg, the Valley Forge camp and above all the burial grounds for those who served in the armed forces such as Arlington National Cemetery.

We have come to call this civil religion, defined by the Italian scholar Emilio Gentile as “the conceptual category that contains the forms of sacralization of a political system that guarantee a plurality of ideas, free competition in the exercise of power, and the ability of the governed to dismiss their governments through peaceful and constitutional methods.” In Gentile’s view, “civil religion respects individual freedom, coexists with other ideologies, and does not impose obligatory and unconditional support for its commandments.”


This civil religious inclusivity helps explain why we ban partisan political activity in U.S. military cemeteries — a ban Donald Trump was widely regarded as having violated in August, when he visited Arlington with family members of military personnel killed in the United States’ 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan. The headline on a column by USA Today’s Marla Bautista read, “Trump’s appalling desecration of Arlington National Cemetery shows he still can’t be trusted.”

Only something sacred can be desecrated.

The opposite of civil religion is what Gentile calls “political religion”: “the sacralization of a political system founded on an unchallengeable monopoly of power, ideological monism, and the obligatory and unconditional subordination of the individual and the collectivity to its code of commandments.” Political religion is therefore “intolerant, invasive, and fundamentalist, and it wishes to permeate every aspect of an individual’s life and of a society’s collective life.”

A historian of fascist Italy, Gentile is above all interested in the expressly secular totalitarianisms of the mid-20th century. Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin, he argues, constructed fascism, Nazism and communism as national political religions to some extent modeled on familiar religious beliefs and forms.

Civil religion and political religion à la Gentile are, to be sure, ideal types. A civil religion can have aspects of a political religion, and a political religion may likewise incorporate civil religious forms.

Thus, with the onset of the Cold War, American civil religion was expressed so as to exclude atheistic communists. The addition of the words “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954 was explicitly intended to differentiate the U.S. from the Soviet Union and its godless supporters, as was the designation of “In God We Trust” as the national motto two years later.

The Air Force Academy chapel in Colorado Springs, Colo. 

(Photo by Anthony Quintano/Wikimedia/Creative Commons)

A quintessential expression of that moment is the Air Force cadet chapel in Colorado Springs, Colorado, built in 1959. It is, in form, a militarized version of a Christian church — an apparent expression of political religion. But it is very much an expression of the civil religion of the times in featuring separate Protestant, Catholic and Jewish chapels inside.

Contrast this with the cathedral of the Russian military, consecrated in 2020: a Russian Orthodox church with no nod to religious inclusion in a country that is only 40% Russian Orthodox and where fewer than half the citizens consider themselves Christians of any sort. It perfectly expresses the alliance Russian President Vladimir Putin has made with Russian Patriarch Kirill, harking all the way back to the linkage of church and state in the Byzantine Empire.

Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill, center, and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, right, at the consecration of the Cathedral of Russian Armed Forces outside Moscow, June 14, 2020. (Oleg Varov, Russian Orthodox Church Press Service via AP)

A mini-me version of Putin’s political religion has been cooked up by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who governs with the idea of “illiberal democracy” — a nice term for populist authoritarianism. Presenting Orbán with the “gold degree” of the Order of St. Sava, Serbian Orthodox Patriarch Porfirije praised him for “defending Christianity.” Orbán “fights for the soul of Europe,” the patriarch said. Replied the prime minister, “We are peaceful people, we want peace, but there is indeed a war for the soul of Europe, and without Christian unity – including Orthodoxy – we cannot win this battle.”

Such use of religion can look like Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s incorporation of Islam into his own authoritarian regime. The difference is that where Erdogan’s Islamism serves to appeal to Turkey’s sizable conservative Muslim population, the Christianism (to put it that way) of Putin and Orbán has no significant religious grassroots constituency, but seems all about rebuilding a postcommunist authoritarian ideology. In the case of Hungary, it resists at once immigration (from Muslim countries) and the pluralistic liberal culture of Western Europe.

How religious constituencies function under authoritarian regimes depends, of course, on how they view those regimes, and vice versa. A half-century ago, Shiite Muslims protested against the authoritarian Shah of Iran, who sought a connection to the glory days of the pre-Islamic Persian Empire. In 1979, these turned into parades supporting the authoritarian regime of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which promoted Islamic legal authority as the basis for a theocratic political religion.

A different kind of switching sides occurred in Myanmar, where religious power resides in the community of Buddhist monks. In 2007, the monks denied legitimacy to the military regime by refusing to accept its alms — symbolically represented by “turning over” their begging bowls. The regime yielded but reestablished its power via a genocidal campaign to rid the country of the Muslim minority Rohingya, in which anti-Muslim monks played an ideological role.

Meanwhile, hostility to Islam has been at the center of the Hindu nationalism successfully advanced by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Its ideology of Hindutva has generated a postsecular political religion that builds on hostility to Muslims in India dating to the Moghuls.

In America, meanwhile, Donald Trump’s incorporation of a form of Christianity into his MAGA movement is personified by his principal spiritual adviser Paula White, a Pentecostal pastor who has praised Trump as “chosen by God to protect religious values.”

White has been strongly influenced by the New Apostolic Reformation, a politically ambitious collection of charismatic Christians who are the subject of “The Violent Take It by Force,” an important new book by Matthew D. Taylor, a senior scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies. Credited with providing Christian nationalists with their marching orders, the NAR should be understood as promoting a political religion based on Christian supremacy summed up in the so-called Seven Mountains Mandate.

The mandate holds that Christians should ascend to dominion over the “mountains” of contemporary culture: family, religion, education, media, arts and entertainment, business and government. As Taylor puts it in describing one of the movement’s leaders, while he “speaks the language of democracy and justice and constitutional rights, his ultimate vision is a retrenchment from democracy in the church and society.”

I don’t want to suggest that the MAGA movement is all about establishing the NAR political religion. But there’s no question that NAR ideas have spread through MAGA world.

As for Trump himself, it’s anything but clear that he knows or grasps the Seven Mountains Mandate. But like other authoritarian leaders, he is driven inexorably toward the exclusivism of a political religion. And it’s the NAR’s political religion that’s on offer from the Republican Party this Election Day.\\

Opinion

The ‘Courage Tour’ is attempting to get Christians to vote for Trump − and focused on defeating ‘demons’

(The Conversation) — The ‘Courage Tour,’ a religio-political rally, is going around battleground states. It is focused on defeating Democrats, but also on defeating ‘demonic forces.’

Michael E. Heyes
October 30, 2024

(The Conversation) — As a scholar of religion, I attended the “Courage Tour,” a series of religious-political rallies, when it made a stop in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, from Sept. 27-28, 2024.

From what I observed, the various speakers on the tour used conservative talking points – such as the threat of communism and LGBTQ+ “ideologies” taking over education – and gave them a demonic twist. They told people that diabolical forces had overtaken America, and they needed to expel them by ensuring Donald Trump was elected.

The tour is attempting to get those Christians to vote for Trump. The tour has moved through several battleground states such as Arizona, Michigan and Georgia, drawing several thousand people at every site.

The tour is not only focused on defeating Democrats but also on defeating demons. The idea that demons exert a hold over the material world is a key feature of the New Apostolic Reformation, or NAR, worldview. The NAR is a loose group of like-minded charismatic Christian churches and religious leaders – sometimes termed “prophets” – who want to see Christians dominate all walks of life.

As someone who recently finished a book on the intersection of demons and politics, “Demons in the USA: From the Anti-Spiritualists to QAnon,” I was eager to see this combination for myself. I believe it would be a mistake to think that the New Apostolic Reformation is a fringe group with no real influence.
The influence and reach

The group has an associated nonprofit organization known as Ziklag – named for a town in the Hebrew Bible that is an important site associated with David’s kingship – with deep pockets for the movement’s goals. A ProPublica investigation found that the group had already spent US$12 million “to mobilize Republican-leaning voters and purge more than a million people from the rolls in key swing states, aiming to tilt the 2024 election in favor of former President Donald Trump.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center calls the New Apostolic Reformation “the greatest threat to U.S. democracy that you have never heard of.”

The diffuse nature of NAR membership and its rapid growth make it difficult to gauge followers: Estimates have placed the number of NAR adherents between 3 million and 33 million, but individuals who may not label themselves as part of the NAR might nevertheless agree with the group’s theology.

Moreover, Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance’s presence at the meeting I attended is also a tacit and significant endorsement for this group.


The ‘Seven Mountain Mandate’

According to NAR’s theology, there are “seven mountains” that govern areas of worldly influence, and Christians are destined to occupy all of them. These mountains are religion, government, family, education, media, entertainment and business.

Known as the “Seven Mountain Mandate,” this “prophecy” first rose to prominence in 2013 with the publication of “Invading Babylon: The 7 Mountain Mandate,” written by Bill Johnson, lead pastor of Bethel Church in Redding, California, and member of the NAR, and Lance Wallnau, NAR prophet and one of the founders of the Courage Tour. In the book, the Seven Mountain Mandate is trumpeted as a message received directly from God.

The NAR perceives the majority of these mountains as currently occupied by diabolical spiritual forces. To counter these forces, the NAR engages in “spiritual warfare,” which are acts of Christian prayer that are used to defeat or drive out demons.

As religion scholar Sean McCloud writes, these prayers can be taken from “handbooks, workshops and hands-on participation in deliverance sessions.” Deliverance sessions involve diagnosing and expelling demons from an individual.

Alternatively, it is not uncommon for pastors to incorporate spiritual warfare into church services. For example, in a much-reported sermon, Paula White-Cain, the former spiritual adviser to Trump, commanded all “satanic pregnancies to miscarry.” In the sermon’s context, satanic pregnancies were not literal pregnancies. Instead, White-Cain was praying for the failure of satanic plots “conceived” by the devil.

In NAR theology, all Christians are embattled by demons, and spiritual warfare is a necessary part of life. As scholar of religion André Gagné writes, the NAR sees spiritual warfare as happening on three “levels.”


The ground level occurs in a case of individual exorcism or deliverance, a kind of “one-on-one” battle with demons. The second level is the occult level, in which believers seek to counter what they believe to be demonic movements such as shamanism and New Age thought. Finally, there is the strategic level in which the movement does battle with powerful spirits whom they believe control geographic areas at the behest of Satan.


Friday night on the Courage Tour.

The Courage Tour

The Courage Tour is part of a strategic-level act of spiritual warfare: Stumping for Trump is really about exerting Christian influence over the “government mountain” that followers of the NAR believe to be occupied by the devil.

According to the speakers on the tour, America is in trouble: It is currently being run by “the Left,” or Democrats, a group that is slowly pushing the U.S. toward communism, a system of government in which private property ceases to exist and the means of production are communally owned.

It claims that the Left wants to see this shift occur because it is populated by “cultural Marxists.” This is part of a far-right conspiracy theory that suggests all progressive political movements are indebted to the ideas of Karl Marx, whose Communist Manifesto is most closely associated with communism.

In more extreme forms of communism, nation-states disappear – an idea reflected in speakers’ frequent criticism of “globalism,” which was generally defined as a single, worldwide governmental structure. The group rejects globalism on the grounds that God instituted nation-states as a divinely ordained form of government.

Wallnau described globalism as a sign of the beast and the end of days, and claimed that “the intent of that Marxist element in our country is to collapse our borders.”




Promotional sign on the Courage Tour for My Faith Votes, an organization that encourages voters to vote biblically.
Michael E. Heyes, CC BY

Demonizing queerness

The speakers further claimed that this demonic Marxism was perverting the educational system in the United States. For example, numerous speakers criticized schools for supposedly indoctrinating or “evangelizing” children with “LGBTQ ideologies.”

Wallnau even suggested that the “trans movement” began “in the days of Noah” when the fallen angels of Genesis 6 married human women and had hybrid children. This echoes a discussion Wallnau and Rick Renner had on the “Lance Wallnau Show,” linking such “ideologies” to fallen angels and the Apocalypse.

This negative view of nontraditional gender and sexual orientations is a long-lived feature of the group. John Weaver, a scholar of religion, notes in his book “The New Apostolic Reformation” that the group’s ideas are indebted to conservative theologian Rousas John Rushdoony, who supported the death penalty for homosexuals.

Likewise, religion scholar Damon T. Berry writes that members of the movement believe that “demonic spirits” are “acting to subvert the will of God through aspects of culture like the toleration of homosexuality, abortion, addiction, poverty and political correctness.”

Wallnau encouraged the audience on the Courage Tour to “fight for your families because I don’t want to leave behind a demonic train wreck for my children.”

As hard as it is to believe, one of the most important questions of the election might well be – how many Americans believe in demons?

(Michael E. Heyes, Associate Professor and Chair of Religion, Lycoming College. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)


The Conversation religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The Conversation is solely responsible for this content.

Genesis: Book Review

 By Paul Braterman

PANDAS THUMB

 May 22, 2024 

Martyn Iles, as many readers will know, was managing Director of the Australian Christian Lobby until sacked by the Board in February 2023, was appointed Chief Ministry Officer of Answers in Genesis in May of that year, and in November was promoted to Executive CEO, working alongside Ken Ham, who remains as Founding CEO.

While still in Australia, Iles promoted right-wing causes in the name of individual religious freedom, expressed support on his YouTube channel for the claim that the 2020 US presidential election had been stolen, and in a Facebook post on January 21 2020, just two weeks after the January 6 insurrection, reaffirmed his admiration for Donald Trump. However, since joining Answers in Genesis he has, to the best of my knowledge, refrained from overtly political comment. In a Facebook post on March 17 this year he explicitly rejected the idea of a “Christian nation,” since being a Christian or not is a characteristic of individuals. Thus he has placed a welcome distance between himself and the extremes of US Christian Nationalism.

"Who Am I?" by Martyn Iles, Executive CEO of Answers in Genesis: Book Review

By Paul Braterman

PANDA'S THUMB
May 22, 2024 

Martyn Iles, as many readers will know, was managing Director of the Australian Christian Lobby until sacked by the Board in February 2023, was appointed Chief Ministry Officer of Answers in Genesis in May of that year, and in November was promoted to Executive CEO, working alongside Ken Ham, who remains as Founding CEO.

While still in Australia, Iles promoted right-wing causes in the name of individual religious freedom, expressed support on his YouTube channel for the claim that the 2020 US presidential election had been stolen, and in a Facebook post on January 21 2020, just two weeks after the January 6 insurrection, reaffirmed his admiration for Donald Trump. However, since joining Answers in Genesis he has, to the best of my knowledge, refrained from overtly political comment. In a Facebook post on March 17 this year he explicitly rejected the idea of a “Christian nation,” since being a Christian or not is a characteristic of individuals. Thus he has placed a welcome distance between himself and the extremes of US Christian Nationalism.

There is one important difference in style between Iles and Ham. Ham, in the tradition of Henry Morris and, before him, George McCready Price, argues that science supports his version of Bible-based Young Earth Creationism. Iles, however, does not even condescend to discuss such mere details. As he posted on Facebook in October 2022, “Truth is in the [biblical] word itself. Other things are true insofar as they conform to it.” Moreover, Iles is clear in his own mind that his understanding of the Bible, however far-fetched, is the correct one. So when he tells us what it means, he is speaking for God.

On his appointment, Iles wrote,
Just as evolutionary naturalism has threatened the faith of so many, postmodernism and new critical theories threaten the faith of a new generation.

Given his position at the head of the world’s leading Young Earth Creationist organization, we need to know what he has in mind by this laconic statement,and we can gain some insight into this from the book under discussion here.

The book itself, like others from the same publisher, appears to be directed at young adults. It is an easy read, with large clear print, and the text is liberally illustrated by silhouettes of young people, generating a warm and welcoming impression at odds with the fundamentally dictatorial nature of the content.

That content is mass of self-contradictions. We are told that man is made in the image of God, but there are multiple biblical references to human sinfulness and corruption. It is our duty to look after the world, but not to take responsibility for human-caused climate change. And Iles deplores, as do I, the upsurge in young people seeking to mutilate their bodies when their personalities do not fit gender stereotypes, but claims biblical authority for stereotypes of the most constricting kind.

Iles begins by deploring what he sees as the modern emphasis on the self:
Actually, I didn’t realize you could use it [self-] as a prefix quite so much until I started my research. Self-ideation, self-love, self-discovery, self-definition, self-perception, self-determination, self-narrative, self-image, self-concept, self-esteem … All of these I have encountered in contemporary works on identity. This word has brought with it the age of the inward turn — the looking at the self.

Notably absent from this list: self-knowledge.

He goes on to build up an enormous superstructure on a very narrow theological base. He makes extensive use of a handful of verses from the opening chapters of Genesis:


Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. (Genesis 1:28)

Increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it. (Genesis 9:7)

While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease. (Genesis 8:22)

From this he infers that there cannot be an overpopulation problem, that it is a duty of fertile couples to have children, and that concerns about such large-scale matters as climate change are fundamentally misplaced, since these things are in the hands of God and, to use his expression, when we imagine that we can affect them we are “getting too big for our boots.” This is the sin of pride, and pride is a very serious sin indeed. Climate alarmism (his expression) is only one example of such pride, part of a list that includes
abortion, transgenderism, queer sexuality [sic], critical race theory, feminism, family breakdown, …, childlessness, cultural Marxism, post-modernism, and all that stuff. The common thread is this: all of them seek to usurp God’s authority as Creator by redefining what He has already defined. All of them seek to do His job for Him, only better.

He accepts unquestioningly the interpretation of Genesis 3:15:
And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.

as the very first prophesy of the coming of Jesus. In this interpretation, which goes back to the 2nd Century CE, the serpent is identified with Satan, the woman’s offspring is Jesus, born of a woman, the bruising of his heel is the agony of the crucifixion, and the bruising of Satan’s head is Christ’s triumph over evil.

From this he infers that the highest vocation of woman is motherhood, and that Satan bears special enmity towards pregnant women and babies. Satan is very prominent in Iles’s view of the world, and is mentioned 11 times in this short book.

Male and female roles were spelt out at the creation. God decides to create woman because:
It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him. (Genesis 2:18)

And Adam is duly appreciative:
This at last 1 is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. (Genesis 2:23).

Thus, according to Iles,
woman was made with such care and purpose that she perfectly complemented and completed him [man]. She too was not made to be alone. The two became one.

One, but different:
The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. (Genesis 2:15)

Iles draws our attention to two words, which define a man’s God-given purpose; first, to “work,” and second to “keep.” The reference to “the garden” directs attention to his external responsibilities. And so, he tells us, men are called to industry and must beware the sin of idleness.

Why, Iles asks, was it Adam that God addressed by name after the Fall:
Adam, where art thou? (Genesis 3:17, KJV)

This although Eve and the serpent were also present at the scene, the serpent was the primary initiator of the sin, and Eve was the first to eat of the forbidden fruit. The reason for singling out Adam is that, as a man, he had primary responsibility for what had happened in the garden that had been entrusted to his care. Responsibility is a male prerogative.

Of women, Iles says
The woman was at her best when making another person their best. That was her commission. And it spills over into her motherhood too. Only women are mothers, and this is a good and beautiful thing indeed — a commission from God, for which she is designed biologically, psychologically, and spiritually.

Iles goes on to mentions meekness as part of woman’s special virtue, and uses the word “meek” with reference to women on seven separate occasions.

In a passage worth quoting in full, he compares the different ways in which men and women go about getting their own way when not entitled to:
While men might prefer to exercise illegitimate control through brutishness, force, and cruelty, women tend to use different methods. They play games. They manipulate circumstances. They might even get their girlfriends involved to “make” things happen or drop ideas, seeds, and prompts through third parties. Their minds are always storyboarding, working out what people are thinking, how they’re feeling, and preempting next moves. They operate in the realm of the emotional, subjective, and interpersonal. To use such powers of discernment to manipulate circumstances and control outcomes is ultimately an abuse of those feminine giftings. They were given to be exercised selflessly and meekly, without the taint of self-will and premeditated outcomes. There is a difference between godly help and controlling “femcraft.”

And when challenged as to what the besetting sin of woman might be, as compared to idleness in men, he answers “Control.” As he put it on Facebook (6 June 2023)
A word like “independent” is a direct assault on God’s design for women… A woman who prizes strength in independence is a woman rebelling against her nature.

There you have it. You and I may think that our identity is a puzzle, but the book promises in its title to solve it for us, and does so. We may even have imagined that there are many possible solutions, but Iles knows God’s design, and there’s an end of it.

The rest of the book is devoted to theological questions, with heavy emphasis on our sinful nature, but since I have no special insight to offer on such matters, I will leave it there.

Who am I? Solving the identity puzzle, Martyn Iles, with a foreword by Ken Ham, 35,000 words spread out over 208 pages, Master Books, 2024, $19.99 on Amazon.“At last” because in between the two verses cited, we have the creation of the animals, and their being brought to Adam as potential partners and found wanting for that purpose. But if you include this in your materials, you will find yourself with something far more interesting than Iles’s blinkered moralizing.

As conservatives put religion in schools, Satanists want in, too

Tyler Kingkade
Updated Fri, May 17, 2024 

When conservative lawmakers in Florida and Texas won the fight to allow religious chaplains in public schools, they swung open the door to ministers from other faiths — including the Satanic Temple.

The demonic-sounding group, which describes itself as “nontheistic,” is using this debate and others like it to make a point about the growing encroachment of religion on public life.

It would prefer no chaplains in schools, it says, but would settle for equal representation, intentionally goading conservatives, some of whom are explicit about wanting Christianity, rather than just religion, in public education.


“If they pass these bills, they’re going to have to contend with ministers of Satan acting as chaplains within their school districts,” said Lucien Greaves, a co-founder of the Satanic Temple, who uses a pseudonym to protect him against threats. “We think the public should know in advance that that’s what the outcome of these bills can be.”The Satanic Temple, founded in 2013 and recognized as a religion by the IRS, is known for trolling the religious right by taking advantage of Christian campaigns. When Arkansas installed a statue of the Ten Commandments outside the State Capitol, the Temple unveiled its own statue of Baphomet, a goat-headed figure, there, too. It offered the Hellions Academy as an alternative to Christian studies during school hours and named a telehealth abortion clinic after Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s mom.

Image: A statue of Baphomet surrounded by children. Baphomet sits on a throne adorned with a pentagram. (Hannah Grabenstein / AP file)

The Temple believes in reason, empathy and the pursuit of knowledge, its website FAQ helpfully explains. And it doesn’t worship Satan. “Satan is a symbol of the Eternal Rebel in opposition to arbitrary authority,” it states. But it’s not just a joke, supporters say. And opponents seem to agree.

One man was charged in January with a hate crime for vandalizing the temple’s altar at the Iowa State Capitol. Another was arrested and accused of throwing a pipe bomb at the group’s headquarters in Salem, Massachusetts, leaving a note that urged the group to “REPENT” and “TURN FROM SIN.” And a third was arrested this month and accused of plotting to blow up the headquarters.

“It definitely started with a kind of humorous or satirical element to it, but this is a movement with hundreds of people that’s been going for 10 years now — they’re quite serious about it,” said Joseph Laycock, a religious studies professor at Texas State University who wrote a book-length study about the group. “They’re willing to put up with death threats. They’re willing to wear bulletproof vests because Neo-Nazis have threatened to kill them if they give a public speech. People don’t normally take those kinds of risks for a joke.”

Interest in joining the Satanic Temple shot up in recent years, Greaves said, and the number of congregations more than doubled since 2021. That coincides with a decrease in the number of self-identified Christians in the U.S. and a growing movement among right-wing activists to insert conservative Christian doctrines into public policy and schools.

“The real fear of Christian nationalism is driving people into the arms of groups like the Satanic Temple,” Laycock said. “And then the fact that there are now Satanists taking to the streets of America is causing the Christian nationalists to double down, too, and making them even more determined to cling to power for as long as they can.”

The laws in Florida and Texas require school boards to vote on whether to appoint chaplains in their districts. Similar bills have been proposed in 13 other states this year. The proposals, which vary slightly, would have chaplains of various denominations serve in similar capacities as school counselors, in some cases with on-campus offices or salaries paid for by the districts.

“They are able to help the child work through their issues, work through their feelings, and also encourage them to work with their parents, in accordance with their family’s underlying religious foundations,” said Brad Dacus, president of Pacific Justice Institute, a conservative advocacy group that testified in favor of the Texas bill.

Proponents of chaplains in schools have gone on the offensive, vowing that the Satanic Temple won’t infiltrate their schools. “There will be no Satanists in Oklahoma Schools. Period,” Ryan Walters, the state’s right-wing superintendent of public instruction, recently tweeted. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared at a bill signing for the new law last month that the Temple wouldn’t qualify to provide chaplains. “That is not a religion,” he said.

But legal experts warn that conservatives disregard the Satanic Temple at their own peril, because the group’s strategy of stepping into spaces intended for other religions is often effective. In 2016, the Temple began running After School Satan Clubs, seeking to start them in schools that already had Christian-based groups on campus. A federal court sided with the Temple in a legal challenge last year, and there are currently seven clubs nationwide, where children make arts and crafts, learn about animals and do science experiments.

“The Constitution is unambiguous about this,” Greaves said. “You just cannot take a religious identity and cut it out from a public accommodation. It’s against the law, the school districts will lose, they’ll have to pay the attorneys fees, and frankly, they shouldn’t be pulling their budget into this culture war grandstanding B.S.”

Lucien Greaves outside a courthouse. (Josh Reynolds for The Washington Post / Getty Images file)

One of the Temple’s first actions was to perform a “pink mass” in which gay couples made out over the grave of the mother of Fred Phelps, founder of the homophobic Westboro Baptist Church, and declared her a lesbian. The Temple has protested corporal punishment of children and sued states to argue that abortion restrictions violate their religious rights.“It is a poignant way of pushing the idea of what these governments really care about,” said Jay Wexler, a Boston University law professor who studies church-and-state issues. “Do they really care about opening up their spaces for religious pluralism, or do they actually care about just promoting one view of God and Christianity in the public space?”

People often ask why the Satanic Temple, with its lofty principles, uses such divisive names.

“If we were to name it the ‘fluffy bunnies and rainbows science club,’ or anything else, and people were to find out it is run by the Satanic Temple, we feel that that would actually cause more harm than good,” said June Everett, a Satanic Temple minister and the campaign director of the After School Satan Club. “Also, we are proud to be Satanists. So anyone that has a problem with the name or what we’re trying to do is free to just not send their kids.”

Rocky Malloy, a born-again Christian and founder of the National School Chaplain Association, said his group organized a phone bank and letter writing campaign to lobby for the Texas chaplains bill, according to video of his remarks at a fundraiser in November. Malloy called it an effort to “bring the boldness of Christ Jesus to public education” and a “legal way to bring God and prayer in school.” Malloy didn’t respond to an interview request.

The National School Chaplain Association offers certification provided by Oral Roberts University, a Christian school in Oklahoma that suspends students for being gay.

“Who is against it? Alphabet people,” Malloy said, referring to members of the LGBTQ community. “It messes up their whole agenda,” he said at the fundraiser after having declared that school counselors are “confirming gender confusion.”

The Satanic Temple isn’t the only religious group opposed to chaplains in schools. In Florida, the Florida Council of Churches, Pastors for Florida Children and the National Council of Jewish Women opposed the bill. Over 100 Texas pastors signed an open letter asking school districts not to hire chaplains, and most school boards appeared to follow their advice. Only one district had hired a chaplain by last month, according to the San Antonio Express-News.

Greaves said the Temple is waiting to learn the details of how the chaplain programs will be implemented. But the Temple plans to start with placing its first ministers in Florida and Oklahoma.

Everett, the minister, is optimistic that they’ll be welcomed into some districts. “A lot more people are now aware of the Satanic Temple and what we’re doing,” she said. “Basically fighting fire with fire.”

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

MAGA’s Christian nationalism excludes a vast majority of Christianity

John Stoehr

March 16, 2024

Photo by Gracious Adebayo on Unsplash

You have probably heard a lot of scary things in the news lately about something called “Christian nationalism.” Without going into the weeds about what these people want in terms of policy, it’s important to understand who they are, and who they are is pretty simple: people who believe America was founded as a Christian nation for Christians.

That’s where the simplicity ends, but you might not know that if your understanding of “Christian” comes primarily from politics. In that case, your understanding is that “Christians” are aligned with the Republican Party, support Donald Trump unequivocally and seek to restore America to a kind of pre-Eden era in our history – before science, technology and liberalism triggered a fall from God’s grace.

Of course, there are many other Christianities, seemingly too many to count, and that’s what makes the “Christian nationalist” objective of restoring America to its “Christian roots” more complex than it seems. They say, as the country gets more diverse and more secular, that their faith is increasingly under assault. They say that whatever they do, it’s in the name of religious freedom. It isn’t, though. It’s in the name of religious suppression. That includes suppressing other Christianities.

Recently, I was watching a video clip of Fox host Laura Ingraham interviewing Steven Miller. He’s the architect of a plan, pending Donald Trump’s election, to deport 10 million “illegals.” It requires massive staging areas and as many as 200,000 law enforcement officers. As I watched, it occurred to me that these two people – a Roman Catholic (Ingraham) and a Jew (Miller) – were oblivious to the danger. They seemed to believe the urge to purge America wouldn’t ensnare them.

Most of us seem to understand antisemitism well enough, but few of us seem to understand anti-Catholic hatred among white conservative Protestants, who make up the core of “Christian nationalism.” Most of us don’t understand, because social and political forces, including white solidarity and the anti-abortion movement, have since the 19th century assimilated Catholics to the point where they seem like any other Christian. To the mainstream American, that’s true. White conservative Protestants, however, are not mainstream Americans.

I say this from personal experience. I was born into and raised up in a white conservative Protestant sect whose identity as the true religion worshiping the true God was predicated on not being a false religion worshiping false gods. Jews always got a pass, because they would have a chance to convert after the Apocalypse and Christ’s millennial reign. But Roman Catholic never did. They were idolaters, pagans and heretics, perhaps even unknowing minions of the Antichrist. The Roman Catholic God was not ours. It was something closer to Satan.

Anti-Catholic hatred among white conservative Protestants hasn’t gone away. It’s rooted in one of the greatest theoretical disagreements in human history. It only seems to have gone away, because political interests are at work to make it look that way. In part, they stem from the fact that “Christian nationalism” wouldn’t be as successful as it has been, to the point where it really does pose a threat to democracy, the Constitution and religious freedom, if Roman Catholic participants like Laura Ingraham understood, or stopped denying, how hated they are.

They won’t understand, or won’t stop denying, how much they are hated, because in their minds, they are immune to the outcomes of their own hatred. They can rah rah rah for the restoration of America’s “blood” to a time before its “poisoning” by 10 million migrants. They can rah rah rah safe in the knowledge that their apparent whiteness will protect them. And for a time, they’d be right. But only for a time.

Eventually – if Trump is elected and if 10 million immigrants are deported – the urge to purge wouldn’t stop because it can’t. It is too totalizing. Before that point, “Christian nationalists” said America was founded as a Christian nation for Christians. Afterward, they’d say America was founded as a “real Christian” nation for “real Christians” – a term that would exclude Christians seen after the Reformation by many conservative Protestants as idolaters, pagans and heretics.

We might see happen to Christians what’s currently happening to Republicans, as calls for group purity (namely, calls against the influence of RINOs, Republicans in Name Only) have gutted the GOP organizationally to the point of chaos. The ranks of “real Christians” would shrink, as the ranks of “real Republicans” has been shrinking. Roman Catholics, Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists, Church of Christ, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Unitarians – any Christian insufficiently recognized as “Christian nationalist” would be purged until God’s chosen people are an island surrounded by an ocean of heresy.

The outcome of the presidential election does not depend on making conservative Roman Catholics like Laura Ingraham (or for that matter, conservative Jews like Steven Miller) see the dangers they are in. As Rev. Dan Schulz wrote recently, “Christian nationalists” are a marginal bunch. There’s just not enough of them. Their views are unpopular.

But as long as they won’t understand, or won’t stop denying, how much they are hated, they will continue to give “Christian nationalism” a dangerous credibility that it doesn’t deserve and will only abuse. It claims to speak for all Christians but its vision of America excludes, or has the promise to exclude, a vast majority of Christianities. It might be too late for Laura Ingraham. But other Roman Catholics who cherish their religious freedom should speak for themselves.

Unexpected defeat of referendums shows growing power of Ireland’s traditional Catholics

At a Mass said in Latin on Sunday (March 10), Ireland’s traditional Catholics declared political victory, days after a pair of referendums aimed at secularizing the Irish Constitution were unexpectedly and resoundingly defeated.

People attend a Latin Mass at St. Kevin's Church, Harrington Street, in Dublin, March 10, 2024. (Photo by Daniel O'Connor)

March 13, 2024
By Daniel O'Connor


DUBLIN (RNS) — At a Mass said in Latin on Sunday (March 10), Ireland’s traditional Catholics declared political victory, days after a pair of referendums aimed at secularizing the Irish Constitution were unexpectedly and resoundingly defeated.

On Friday, the Irish government put two measures to a vote that would have extended the rights of unmarried couples in the country’s constitution and removed language defining women’s roles “within the home.” Both had been widely expected to pass despite enjoying little debate in the Dail, or Irish parliament, and after a rubber stamp by all three of the Irish Republic’s main political parties.

Both proposals failed, even in progressive Dublin. When all votes were counted, 67.7% of voters had rejected the family amendment, while 73.9% rejected the measure dealing with women’s roles, referred to as the care amendment. Turnout was 44.4%.

On Sunday, as pundits and reporters struggled to explain the most strongly rejected referendum in the republic’s history, roughly 200 traditional Catholics, many in their 30s and 40s, gathered at St. Kevin’s Church, Harrington Street, one of the few places in the city where the traditional, pre-Vatican II Latin Mass is still celebrated, for a triumphant celebration and a redoubt of conservative Catholics.

RELATED: Pope says traditionalist Catholics ‘gag’ church reforms

Even as a much smaller crowd arrived for the noon English-language Mass, those who had attended the 10:30 a.m. Latin Mass — men in tweed jackets and women in long skirts and white, floral head coverings — packed into the tight parish hall for tea, still buzzing with delight at the vote.

Sign for a voting location in Dublin, Ireland. (Photo by Daniel O’Connor)

The Latin Mass was largely done away with by the Second Vatican Council, when bishops meeting in Rome from 1962-1965 instituted Masses in local languages. However, some traditional Catholics remain drawn to the old Latin rite that dates to the 1500s.

That rite, which was allowed to be said more widely under Pope Benedict XVI, has become a flashpoint under Pope Francis, who in 2021 barred priests from saying it without permission from their bishops. Traditionalists have seen it as a symbol of the larger battle in the church over matters such as LGBT inclusion and the roles of women.

This divide was on display at the entrance to St. Kevin’s, in copies of Catholic Voice, a traditionalist newspaper whose latest issue looks forward to St. Patrick’s Day on March 17 while urging Irish Catholics to have the “courage” to declare that “liberalism is a sin” and deriding the “myths created by the homosexualist movement.” In a time when the pope is allowing priests to bless people in LGBTQ unions, the paper maintained that those who do not oppose “disordered sexuality” are “straddling Satan’s fence.”

The message that Catholic values are under threat from within the church has hit home in Ireland, where society was overwhelmingly Catholic a generation ago. As of 2022, Catholics made up just 69% of the population, down sharply from 79% in 2016. Weekly Mass attendance among Catholics hovers around one-third nationally, down from over 90% in the 1970s.

Accompanying this transformation have been referendums in which the Irish have legalized divorce (1995), gay marriage (2015) and abortion (2018).

But references to both marriage as a fundamental societal unit and to the roles of women in the home will now stay in the constitution. “It’s a great result for women, for mothers, for the homes and for marriage,” said Maria Steen, a prominent conservative activist. “And I think it’s a real rejection of the government’s attempt to, you know, delete all of that from the constitution.”

Steen ran a brief campaign that framed the removal of motherhood from the constitution as both sexist and anti-Catholic. She said Friday’s election result was a sign that the Irish had “gratitude” for motherhood.

St. Kevin’s Church, Harrington Street, in Dublin, Ireland, Sunday, March 10, 2024

. (Photo by Daniel O’Connor)

At St. Kevin’s, Michelle McGrath, a conservatively dressed woman in her 40s, said she was unsurprised by the vote result. She attributed it in part to the vagueness of the proposals, which would have equated marriage with other “durable” relationships. “Most people were confused about what it was, really,” said McGrath. “I don’t know what I’m being asked here.”

Confusion about what would be deemed durable relationships seemed to doom the referendum on marriage. In a televised debate on March 5 between Steen and Ireland’s deputy prime minister, or Tanaiste, Micheál Martin, he suggested that the court would decide what constituted durability, which would determine parental rights and inheritances.

McGrath said deeper frustrations were also at play. Steen and the “No” campaign suggested repeatedly that the broadened relationship laws would have facilitated greater immigration into Ireland, which has become increasingly controversial in the once demographically homogenous republic.

“People are starting to find their courage again in Ireland, and the people who’ve been silenced for a very long time are starting to call out the obvious injustices going on,” McGrath said. “The Irish have been put paddy-last, to use the pun, in their own nation. They have been sent to the back of the queue while minorities get the majority.”

Ireland, red, in western Europe. (Image courtesy Wikipedia/Creative Commons)

RELATED: The Catholic Church’s crash in Poland may follow ‘the Irish scenario’

Meanwhile, Shane Duffley, an early-middle-aged man with an intense stare, said the proposal on women’s roles was “messing with Irish mammies.”

“You don’t mess with Irish women,” he said firmly, eliciting strong nods from two friends — one a European immigrant with a small child in tow and the other a tall Irishman who, like many younger traditional Latin Mass Catholics, homeschools his kids.

Maggie, a middle-aged woman who declined to give her last name, said the liberalization of Ireland had “radicalized” the country. “Ireland has changed a lot in my lifetime,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean that everything that the government proposes is something that people accept.”

How ‘After School Satan Club’ Is Shaking Things Up

Michael Levenson
Sat, December 16, 2023

Earlier this week, a flyer began circulating online about a new organization coming to Chimneyrock Elementary School in Cordova, Tennessee, about 17 miles east of Memphis.

“Hey Kids!” it read against a backdrop of colored pencils. “Let’s Have Fun at After School Satan Club.”

The club was organized by The Satanic Temple, a group that has gained widespread media attention and infuriated conservative Christians in recent years by sponsoring similar student clubs in other school districts, filing challenges to state abortion limits in Indiana and Texas, and placing pentagrams and other symbols alongside Christmas displays in statehouses.

OK, so what’s really going on here?

The Satanic Temple does not actually worship Satan, its leaders say.

The Satanic Temple was founded in 2013 by two men who call themselves Lucien Greaves and Malcolm Jarry, both pseudonyms.

Based in Salem, Massachusetts, famous as the home of the 17th-century witch trials, it calls itself a nontheistic religion and engages in activism to defend pluralism, secularism and religious rights, according to its website.

Greaves, whose name is Doug Mesner, said the temple does not believe in Satan as described in the Bible but considers the concept to be a “mythological framework” that encourages people to question authority and follow “the best available evidence.”

“Satan,” Greaves said, “is the embodiment of the ultimate rebel against tyranny.”

A display draws anger, and vandalism, in the Iowa Capitol.

The temple is open about challenging what Greaves calls “our theocratic overlords.”

To that end, it displayed a statue in the Iowa Capitol this month that featured a mirrored ram’s head symbolizing the occult figure Baphomet. Next to it was a sign that read, “This display is not owned, maintained, promoted, supported by or associated with the State of Iowa.”

Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, called the display “absolutely objectionable,” encouraged Iowans to pray and reassured them that a Nativity scene — “the true reason for the season” — would also be displayed.

During an appearance on the campaign trail in Iowa on Tuesday, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida blamed his Republican rival, Donald Trump, for giving the temple a “legal leg to stand on” because the IRS granted it tax-exempt status as a religious organization in 2019, when Trump was president.

“My view would be that that’s not a religion that the Founding Fathers were trying create,” DeSantis said on CNN.

In fact, the First Amendment to the Constitution says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” and goes on to guarantee freedom of speech and the press. Courts have ruled that religious groups may pay to use government buildings, and holiday decorations have been allowed in public places.

That doesn’t mean everyone appreciates The Satanic Temple’s idea of a holiday decoration. On Thursday, someone knocked the ram’s head off the statue in the Iowa Capitol. The Iowa State Patrol said that Michael Cassidy, 35, of Lauderdale, Mississippi, had been charged with criminal mischief in the matter.

A conservative website called The Republic Sentinel began raising money for his defense, and quoted a statement from Cassidy that he had beheaded the statue to “awaken Christians to the anti-Christian acts promoted by our government.”

The temple justifies its actions on First Amendment grounds. Speaking to The New York Times before the statue was destroyed, Greaves said the temple was not exploiting some “unfortunate loophole in the Constitution,” by placing a statue of Baphomet in the Capitol.

“This is what religious liberty is,” he said. “This is what free expression looks like. It doesn’t have to be painful if we understand its value. We should look at this with some pride.”

What is the After School Satan Club?

The temple says it started the clubs in 2016 to provide an alternative to other after-school religious clubs, particularly the Good News Club, a Christian missionary program. Students play puzzles and games and do science projects, nature activities and community service projects.

The temple says there are four active After School Satan clubs in the country — in California, Ohio, Connecticut and Pennsylvania, where the temple recently reached a $200,000 settlement with the Saucon Valley School District. The temple had accused the district of blocking it from using a middle school where the Good News Club also met.

The Supreme Court, in a 2001 case pitting the Good News Club against a school district in New York state, ruled that public schools must open their doors to after-school religious activities on the same basis as any other after-hours activity that school policy permits.

This ruling also opened the door, metaphorically, to Satan.

The Satanic Temple says it starts clubs only in places where parents have requested one. It claims that the parents of 13 children at Chimneyrock Elementary had signed permission slips for the first After School Satan Club meeting there on Jan. 10.

The Times was unable to find a parent who signed a slip who was willing to be identified on the record.

The club was allowed to rent space from the school, which has students from prekindergarten to fifth grade. In an email to parents, school officials said the club “has the same legal rights to use our facilities after school hours as any other nonprofit organization.”

The interim superintendent of the Memphis-Shelby County Schools, Toni Williams, said at a news conference with Christian pastors Wednesday that she was “duty bound to uphold board policies, state laws and the Constitution.”

“But let’s not be fooled,” she said. “Let’s not be fooled by what we have seen in the past 24 hours, which is an agenda initiated to ensure we cancel all faith-based organizations that partner with our school district.”

Althea Greene, chair of the Shelby County Board of Education, encouraged people to pray and “be vocal.” She describes herself as a bishop and pastor of Real Life Ministries.

“Satan has no room in this district,” she said.

A local pastor, William Adkins, said it was crucial not to allow “any entity called ‘Satanic Temple’ to have time — private time — with our children.” But he acknowledged that he was not sure how to bar the group without violating the Constitution.

“This is in fact what I call Satan personified,” he said. “They put us in a trick bag, and we almost can’t get out of it, using the Constitution against us.”

c.2023 The New York Times Company

After School Satan Clubs and pagan statues have popped up across US. What's going on?

Trevor Hughes, USA TODAY
Sat, December 16, 2023 

A Satanic church with a 10-year history of fighting for the First Amendment and religious freedom by launching after-school clubs is once again under attack from Christian conservatives, this time in Iowa.

Founded in 2013, Massachusetts-based The Satanic Temple has battled multiple districts, most recently in Pennsylvania, over its legal right to operate its After School Satan Clubs. The church, which is formally recognized by the IRS as a tax-exempt religious organization, often opens after-school programs in areas where Christian groups already operate, in an effort to counter Bible-based theology.

This year it also began begun offering mail-order abortion pills from a New Mexico clinic, and earlier this month, installed a goat-headed display of the pagan figure Baphomet inside the Iowa Capitol that a self-described Christian on Thursday night told Fox News he destroyed. He was arrested by Iowa State Police.

A man prays in front of the vandalized satanic display at the Iowa State Capitol on Friday.

The destruction of the Satanic temple's Iowa display follows a familiar pattern for the church, which has faced stiff opposition from Christians angry that it invokes the name of their religion's enemy.

The Satanic Temple says its members do not believe in Satan as a magical or spiritual being, but instead use the name as a metaphor for opposing mainstream religions and free thinking. Members also focus on altruism, logic, science and bodily autonomy as part of their belief system.

"People assume that we're there to insult Christians and we're not," TST cofounder Lucien Greaves told the Des Moines Register, part of the USA TODAY Network, last week. "And I would hope that even people who disagree with the symbolism behind our values, whether they know what those values (are) or not, would at least appreciate that it's certainly a greater evil to allow the government to pick and choose between forms of religious expression."

Free speech battle over 'disgusting' Satanic Temple display at state capitol in Iowa

What happened to the Satanic display at the Iowa Capitol?

Tucked alongside a staircase on the first floor of the Iowa Capitol, The Satanic Temple display featured a person-sized model of Baphomet, its horned goat head mirrored like a disco ball.

Some Christians objected to the display, but Gov. Kim Reynolds noted it was legally allowed because lawmakers had already permitted a Nativity scene. That drew condemnation from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is courting Christian conservatives in Iowa as he runs for the Republican presidential nomination.

After days of coverage about the display, former military pilot and Mississippi politician Michael Cassidy destroyed the display Thursday, he told Fox News. The Iowa State Police arrested him on suspicion of fourth-degree criminal mischief. In response, Cassidy posted a Bible verse about the devil and launched a fundraiser for his legal defense.

On Friday, Cassidy kept going, posting that, "To Christians who defend Satanic altars when they speak with their church, family, friends, coworkers, or on X: Would you use the same argument if you were speaking with God? Think on that."

DeSantis, a Harvard-educated lawyer, offered his support to Cassidy and said he would contribute to Cassidy's legal defense. He also rejected the idea that The Satanic Temple is a real religion. TST organizers say one of their primary missions is to remind Americans that under the First Amendment, they are free to worship however they want.

The Satanic Temple of Iowa display at the Iowa State Capitol, seen here days before it was destroyed.

What does The Satanic Temple stand for?

TST has fought legal battles in Indiana, Idaho, Kentucky, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Texas over its right to offer services and programs alongside more mainstream religions.

It also has tried to erect a 7-foot-tall statute of the winged goat god Baphomet alongside the Ten Commandments in several states, in addition to the now-destroyed Iowa display. The church often has partnered with the ACLU to challenge school districts, local governments and states members' legal rights to free speech and free expression of religion.

The Satanic Temple says it has members in a dozen countries and around the United States. The church's mission is to "encourage benevolence and empathy, reject tyrannical authority, advocate practical common sense, oppose injustice, and undertake noble pursuits."

It has seven specific tenets, including personal freedom and bodily autonomy, fallibility and the struggle for justice, and it specifically rejects the concept of Satan as a supernatural being. Instead, the church uses Satan as a symbol of rebellion, questioning and personal sovereignty.

Church leaders acknowledge that their actions sometimes seem designed to troll Christians but point out their existence forces the public to think about the role religion plays in society. In particular, they warn of the danger of letting evangelical Christians dictate and dominate so much public discourse in a country founded on the principle of the free expression for all religions.

"To embrace the name Satan is to embrace rational inquiry removed from supernaturalism and archaic tradition-based superstitions. Satanists should actively work to hone critical thinking and exercise reasonable agnosticism in all things," the church declares. "Our beliefs must be malleable to the best current scientific understandings of the material world − never the reverse."

What is the After School Satan Club?

It's not about the Christian version of Satan, for starters. Although that's the name of the clubs, organizers say their after-school programs have no religious component. Instead, they're designed to give students a space to hang out without being proselytized by Christians or threatened with eternal damnation if they don't conform.

The image of Satan used to promote the clubs is a cheerful-looking devil wearing a mortarboard and bowtie, and the church's website specifically notes that anyone seeking to sell their soul or get rich should "please look elsewhere." The after-school clubs have typically been launched only in areas where Christian Bible study groups already operate.

Last month, a Pennsylvania school district agreed to pay the church $200,001 after a judge found the district violated its First Amendment rights by banning it from operating an after-school program alongside an existing Bible study group.

The clubs are typically small, based on their applications to school districts, but have drawn fierce opposition from Christians because the church invokes Satan.

"To the Satanist, embracing 'blasphemous' imagery takes on a religious significance of its own, signifying personal liberation from superstition," Greaves wrote. "The imagery has personal, positive meaning for us, regardless of what it may mean to others."

And because TST's belief system includes the right to bodily autonomy, it has threatened to sue districts if they hit any students who are church members. According to the federal Education Department, the following states still permit some forms of corporal punishment in schools: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming.

Federal statistics show that about 20,000 students received corporal punishment during the 2020-21 school year.

The church also offers mail-order abortion medicine via an accredited New Mexico health care clinic.

Lucien Greaves is cofounder of The Satanic Temple.

Why do Christians get so upset about The Satanic Temple?

In the Christian religion, Satan is the devil and tempts believers into forsaking their god through evil.

In Iowa, Republican state Rep. Brad Sherman, a Christian pastor, opposed the now-destroyed Baphomet display, arguing that because the Iowa Constitution expressly refers to a Supreme Being, the state should display the Ten Commandments and block any displays from The Satanic Temple.

He argues it is "a tortured and twisted interpretation of law that affords Satan, who is universally understood to be the enemy of God, religious expression equal to God in an institution of government that depends upon God for continued blessings," the Des Moines Register reported.

In ruling against the Pennsylvania school district that tried to block the After School Satan Club, a federal judge noted that federal law prohibits what's known as a "heckler's veto," where people opposed to a speaker create such an unwelcome environment that government officials then feel justified cancelling the speaker, even though it was the opponents who created the hostile environment.

Greaves and other TST officials have noted that Christians often act as if they are the "real" religion of the United States, despite religious freedom being expressly granted by our nation's founding documents.

What about other Satanists?

Just as there are multiple versions of Christianity, there are multiple churches that invoke Satanism, including the Detroit-area Temples of Satan church. Some of those churches practice animal sacrifice or try invoking magic or other supernatural forces to shape the world around them.

The Satanic Temple expressly rejects those practices.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The Satanic Temple's statues, After School Satan Clubs: What to know

Satanic display inside Iowa State Capitol destroyed, man charged: officials

Adam Sabes

FOX
Thu, December 14, 2023

The Satanic Temple's display inside the Iowa State Capitol was destroyed on Thursday, according to police.

A spokesperson for the Iowa State Police told Fox News Digital that Michael Cassidy, 35, was arrested after allegedly tearing down the Iowa Satanic Temple’s Baphomet display.

He was charged with 4th-degree criminal mischief.

In a text message to Fox News Digital, Cassidy confirmed he tore down the satanic display, which was erected last week by The Satanic Temple of Iowa to represent the group's right to religious freedom.

"It was extremely anti-Christian," Cassidy told Fox News Digital when asked why he tore the statue down.

THE SATANIC TEMPLE SETS UP PUBLIC DISPLAY INSIDE IOWA CAPITOL BUILDING: 'VERY DARK, EVIL FORCE'


Display that was erected at the Iowa Capitol by The Satanic Temple of Iowa last week.

Cassidy previously ran an unsuccessful campaign in 2022 to unseat Rep. Michael Guest, R-Miss.

The former congressional candidate didn't elaborate on why he tore the statue down, but posted a Bible verse Thursday night to X after being charged.

"1 Peter 5:8 KJV Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour," he posted.

The Baphomet statue at The Satanic Temple in Salem, Mass.

In a Facebook post, The Satanic Temple of Iowa wrote that the display was "beyond repair."

"We ask that for safety, visitors travel together and use the 7 Tenets as a reminder for empathy, in the knowledge that justice is being pursued the correct way, through legal means," the group wrote. "Happy Holidays! Hail Satan!"

Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds condemned the display's presence, but said it should be countered with more speech.

"Like many Iowans, I find the Satanic Temple’s display in the Capitol absolutely objectionable," Reynolds said. "In a free society, the best response to objectionable speech is more speech, and I encourage all those of faith to join me today in praying over the Capitol and recognizing the Nativity scene that will be on display ― the true reason for the season."

Co-founder of The Satanic Temple, Lucien Greaves, previously told KCCI Des Moines that the display would remain up for two weeks.

"We're going to really relish the opportunity to be represented in a public forum. We don't have a church on every street corner," Greaves said. "My feeling is if people don't like our display in public forums, they don't have to engage with them. They don't have to view them."

He’s accused of taking out a Satanic Temple statue at a state capitol. Now he’s being charged with criminal mischief

Hanna Seariac
Fri, December 15, 2023 

A damaged Satanic display is shown at the Iowa state Capitol on Friday, Dec. 15, 2023, in Des Moines, Iowa. The display, which has prompted outrage by some people who say it’s inappropriate at any time but especially during the Christmas holidays, was damaged Thursday. | Scott McFetridge, Associated Pres

A Republican candidate for the Mississippi House of Representatives and former Navy pilot was charged with fourth-degree criminal mischief in relation to the destruction of a Satanic Temple display. If convicted, he could face up to a year in prison and a $2,560 fine.

Inside the Iowa Capitol building, the Satanic Temple has a Baphomet statue, a goat-headed Satanic symbol, that was damaged, according to The Associated Press. The candidate accused of damaging the display is Michael Cassidy.

The installation of the display has been the subject of controversy.

“Like many Iowans, I find the Satanic Temple’s display in the Capitol absolutely objectionable,” Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said, per Fox News. “In a free society, the best response to objectionable speech is more speech, and I encourage all those of faith to join me today in praying over the Capitol and recognizing the Nativity scene that will be on display — the true reason for the season.”

Presidential candidate Ron DeSantis offered financial support to Cassidy’s legal defense.

“Satan has no place in our society and should not be recognized as a ‘religion’ by the federal government,” DeSantis said on X. “I’ll chip in to contribute to this veteran’s legal defense fund. Good prevails over evil — that’s the American spirit.”

According to Newsweek, the crowdfunding campaign raised $20,000 before it concluded.

Cassidy wrote on X on Friday, “I’ve been notified of more potential legal charges unfortunately, so I’ve opened the legal fund donation back up. All donations in excess of what is directly related to my defense shall be donated to a Christian legal fund. Thank you again.”

Former Navy pilot Michael Cassidy speaks to potential voter Heather Berry in Magee, Miss., June 15, 2022. Cassidy, a Republican running for the Mississippi House of Representatives is facing charges after being accused of destroying a Satanic Temple display inside the Iowa Capitol. Cassidy also ran for the U.S. House last year, narrowly losing in the GOP primary. | Rogelio V. Solis, Associated PressMore

Jason Benell, the president of the Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers, described the “targeting” of the display as “encouraged by legislators.” He wrote in a news release, “This is unacceptable. When our leaders make it permissible to destroy religious — or non-religious — displays they find religiously objectionable, they are abdicating their responsibility to safeguard the freedom of expression of the citizens they represent.”

Cassidy was reportedly released after his arrest. According to The Associated Press, he previously ran against incumbent U.S. Rep. Michael Guest and lost in a primary runoff.