The Satanists are coming

Oh no!  As a general rule, I don’t get to wrapped up in stories like these.  Do I believe in Satan?  Yeah.  After the 20th century, how can’t I?  The the father of lies, adversary, tempter, accuser.  I see plenty in the world to believe in a driving force of evil behind it all.  I think I believed in Satan before I believed in Jesus.  Then again, I wouldn’t want to take away from our own responsibility.  In all due respect to Flip Wilson, when I sin, Satan seldom needs to do more than give me a nudge.  Sometimes he needs to get out of the way.  When it comes to sin, we humans are fast learners and usually leave the nest pretty quickly.

Nonetheless, Satan is there, always at the end of the chain, beckoning us downward.  And there are those who throw their full worship behind him.  I doubt it’s anything new.  Many who say they are Satanists today, however, are like the hippy druids you see at Stonehenge every Summer Solstice.  More like frat boys desperately looking for a party than serious believers.  I’ve known a couple in my life who said they were Satanists, but honestly, they sounded more like I did when I was an agnostic.  It’s just being a Satanist allowed them to go all Goth.

So it wouldn’t surprise me if the Satanism that has made the rounds with this story is less according to Hoyle Satanism than we might fear.  Likely non-religious trying to paint believers into a corner.  Which is a good tactic and has worked like a charm for some time.

The eradication of religious liberty is one of the great fights of our time.  A nation proud of answering Francis Scott Key with a resounding Yes for generations is now contemplating changing the answer to No.  To accommodate the latest theories of my gender and sexual desires, we’re willing to toss antiquated concepts like religious liberty, freedom of speech and political dissent out the window.  Dumb generation.

In the move to eradicate religious freedom, eliminating religion from the public forum has been all important.  Out of sight, out of mind.  Get God out of everywhere but church and synagogue, ghetto and catacomb, and it’s easier to chip away at the freedom to worship Him.  One of the ways people argue about religion being kept away from anything remotely state or government has been to play the Satan card.  So if we are bothered that a  church group can’t use school facilities after hours, or that a young valedictorian is told she can’t invoke God, the question comes back: Would you want someone doing the same with Satan?  The assumed answer was always no, and the follow up charge was always possessing a double standard.

I say sure, why not?   I received a petition in an email to stop this whole Satanism kerfuffle.  I didn’t sign.  I say bring them on.  Let them have their share of the space and beat them in the court of public debate.  For too long we’ve allowed our faith to be expunged from the culture under the mistaken idea that the Founding Fathers wanted protection from religion rather than protection for it.  In addition to fomenting the disastrous idea that the world doesn’t have a right to offend me, it’s also been used to promote the eradication of the right to the free exercise of our religion.  So whatever the real story, whether hard-line Satanists or secularists giggling behind the scenes thinking they’ve one-upped us, I say let them have their day.  Let all faiths, however fringe or insincere, have their time in the ring of ideas.  Then, when it comes time for that valedictorian to praise God or a Christian ministry dedicated to helping the community using a school facility, we’ll face less push-back from fair minded people when it comes to the charge of promoting double standards.