Satanists weren’t what I expected … but still shouldn’t be in schools
I attended the Feb. 28 Saucon Valley School District Board meeting about the After School Satan Club. I’d been following the story in the news and wanted to speak out against it.
The superintendent explained that she initially approved the club because she had no choice: the Constitution of the United States requires it. Two days later, she rescinded approval after determining the club broke certain rules. Essentially, the Satan Club was denied on a technicality.
As community members stood up to speak on the subject, I expected to hear a bunch of angry Christians exhort the board and berate the superintendent. That didn’t happen. One man yelled about the perceived embarrassment this incident caused in the community, but he didn’t mention religion. The rest of the speakers either complimented the administration for its handling of the situation, urged them to purge all religious activities from school property, or supported the Satan Club’s right to free speech. There were about a dozen members of the Satanic Temple present for the meeting.
The school board didn’t open the floor to nonresidents, so I didn’t have the chance to speak. But as I was leaving, one of the Satanic Temple members noticed I forgot my reading glasses, and he returned them to me. He was friendly. I was grateful. He told me where he lived and why he came. After a few minutes of small talk with him and his friends, I asked him a question, “What do you know about Jesus?”
You might think asking a Satanist such a question would provoke an angry response. It didn’t. Instead, more members of the Satanic Temple joined the discussion. Soon almost half the group was participating in the conversation. We moved out into the parking lot, where we continued to share, and before we departed, they allowed me to lead them in Christian prayer.
Those people, the professed Satanists, are not what I fear. In public, they flout their pentagrams and inverted crucifixes to express themselves and shock their neighbors. In private, they seemed to me more confused than sinister. I feel great compassion for them.
The Satanic Temple website outlines their beliefs. No, they don’t really believe in the devil, the website says. To them, the devil is just a symbol of rebellion. They are driven by reason and science.
But read a little deeper, and the contradictions become apparent. The Satanic Temple’s sole authority for discerning truth is what each individual observes: “Beliefs should conform to one’s best scientific understanding of the world.” With this perspective, the ignorant, the misinformed and the misanthropic all are entitled to their own facts. Truth is simply false. Right and wrong are turned upside down.
When a few self-professed Satanists show up in the community and espouse their beliefs, it’s an oddity. When the community acquiesces to these ideas, and doesn’t recognize what’s happening, it’s a problem.
In the case of the After School Satan Club, well-meaning local leaders think the federal government requires them to accommodate people who believe all truth is relative and want to share that worldview with our children. In fact, our federal government exists to enforce the opposite.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The natural law that underpins these words is universal, timeless and true. That’s in stark contrast to the prevailing wisdom, which is debatable, fleeting, and all over the place.
No, the Constitution doesn’t require schools to approve Satan Clubs. It never has. That’s why we haven’t seen this type of thing in our country before.
The Satanic Temple seeks the protections of the First Amendment by calling itself a religion, even as its members say they don’t really believe in all that supernatural stuff. I wonder if the Nazi Party suddenly claimed to be a religion if schools around the country would feel compelled to let them in too.
We are falling for tricks, which is how the Bible says the real Satan operates. In the name of fairness, we accommodate those who mock religion and law while claiming the protections of both. In the name of diversity, equity and inclusion, we tolerate ideas that strike at the heart of moral authority. And, in the name of freedom, we accept all things to the point that nothing has meaning. Our children are paying the price.
Whether you believe the devil is a metaphor for rebellion or the personification of evil, he’s not somebody we want to invite into our schools. Let’s keep him out. A simple no will suffice.