After School Satan Clubs don’t actually worship Satan; they’re a cheeky response to things like after-school “Good News Clubs” foisted upon children by right-wing evangelicals and, unlike those clubs, teach critical thinking skills and a non-religious worldview. The mere idea of the club is enough to trigger right-wingers into apoplectic rage. And just like Lil Nas X’s provocations, the MRC fell for it. Gabriel Hays cranked up the manufactured rage in a Jan. 13 post about one such club:
Remember guys, conservative parents concerned about what their children are exposed to might be extremists, or worse, domestic terrorists. On the other hand the staff teaching kids pernicious CRT lessons, disturbing LGTBQ and trans orthodoxy and allowing Satanic afterschool programming are noble victims of the militant parents.
Yes, you read that correctly: a Satanic after school club is the latest abomination to pop up in a public school.
[…]Really, they’re invoking Satan for the destruction of Christian imagery. And, whether they worship Satan or not, they’re still doing the job for him at the end of the day.
Back to the diabolical after school program. The club’s flier features a disturbing tagline which reads, “Hey kids, let’s have fun at after School Satan Club!” Yeah kids, that doesn’t sound weird at all.
The paper then tries to reassure parents that at the club they will teach kids “Benevolence and empathy, Critical thinking, Problem solving, creative expression, and personal sovereignty” – of course outside the Judeo-Christian framework of morality. That sounds like a recipe for disaster.
You know who else pursued “personal sovereignty” outside of God’s kingdom? Yeah, the devil himself.
Also what systems of “benevolence and empathy” divorced from Christianity have we seen crop up in recent years? Black Lives Matter and Antifa. And we all know what kind of fulfillment those groups brought to our society.
The MRC is notalone on the right-wing outrage beat; Fox News similarly melted down over the club, so much so that Satanic Temple spokesperson Lucien Greaves got to appear on Tucker Carlson’s show.
When the club was discussed at a Pennsylvania school, it was John Simmons to serve up the performative outrage in an April 20 post:
Most schools offer things like sports teams, book clubs, or music lessons for kids after school. But one school in Pennsylvania is considering offering an extracurricular activity that is literally demonic.
The Northern Elementary School board in York, PA will hold a probationary vote to allow an After School Satan Club in the school, continuing a disturbing trend by self-proclaimed Satanists to weasel their way into elementary and grad schools. This particular club was pushed by a parent who was upset that the school allowed a Bible study in the school during operating hours (oh, the horror!).
Sponsored by the Satanic Temple, the club would offer “activities such as science and crafts projects, puzzles and games and (students) would learn about benevolence, empathy, critical thinking, problem-solving and creative expression.” The organization at large is making a concerted effort to establish chapters in response to the Christian Good News Clubs that are currently in many schools across the country.
While benevolence, empathy, etc. , sound nice, no organization that supports abortion and opposes the good morals taught in the Bible should be teaching any of those things.
Furthermore, the fact that an organization that named itself after the father of all evil wants to teach young children these things is more unsettling than the transgender ideology that is infiltrating our schools.
[…]Organizations like this do not belong in schools, and children should not be trusted to men like Greaves. There is no middle ground and there should be no compromise.
Congratulations, boys, on being appropriately triggered and feeding the MRC’s outrage machine as you’re paid to do.