4 Things Christians Can Learn From The Satanic Temple

Bruce Makarius
Nov 3 · 8 min read

Look, if you haven’t seen ‘Hail, Satan?’, you’re really only hurting yourself at this point. Do yourself a favor, pop on to Hulu and give it a whirl.

The documentary has been buzzier than a coked-up bee ever since its premiere at Sundance earlier this year.

The film introduces us to a cast of characters in the leadership of The Satanic Temple, an organized religion dedicated to embracing ‘Satanic values’. Their website states their mission as the following:

“ The mission of The Satanic Temple is to encourage benevolence and empathy among all people, reject tyrannical authority, advocate practical common sense and justice, and be directed by the human conscience to undertake noble pursuits guided by the individual will.”

It’s a pretty far cry from the baby sacrifices and grave-robbing we typically associate with Satanism. That’s because these Satanists are a bit more post-modern than post-Reagan. Here’s what they have to say on the worship of Satan as a deity:

“It is the position of The Satanic Temple that religion can, and should, be divorced from superstition. As such, we do not promote a belief in a personal Satan. To embrace the name Satan is to embrace rational inquiry removed from supernaturalism and archaic tradition-based superstitions.”

Satan exists for these believers as a symbol of rebellion and rationality. It’s a bit more Iron Maiden than Alistair Crowley.

They even have their own version of the Ten Commandments! They call it the Seven Tenets. And here’s what makes these guys so interesting.

They’re fundamentally good people.

They offer support to new parents, socks for the homeless, protect children from abusive punishments in schools, and have even led blood drives! (Perhaps the most Satanic way of being charitable)

The Satanic Temple doesn’t want you to worship Satan. They don’t want you to worship anyone. Their underlying principles are freedom, benevolence, and rationality, practices which all of us would do better to remember.

I don’t aim to make any kind of comment on the theological or legal implications of The Satanic Temple. Plenty have already done so. Instead, I want to take an optimistic view of the Satanists. I want to see what we Christians can learn from them.

1. Embrace Rationality

“Beliefs should conform to one’s best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one’s beliefs.”

That’s the fifth tenant of The Satanic Temple. The idea that all of our beliefs should be informed by our own rational understanding of the world around us is key to any true belief system.

After all, if your belief system eschews knowledge, logic, and therefore, rationality, then why on earth should anyone believe you?

Sadly, many Christians have failed to do so. They reject our best understanding of the world around us, using the understanding and wisdom gifted by God in order to follow what they believed earlier. Yet, the common understanding in Christianity is that our human knowledge (including our knowledge of Scripture!) is fallible. In that case, we should recognize that any attempt to learn more about God’s world is an opportunity for growth, not fear. Yet, far too often, questions are given answers like,

“Well, because the Bible says so!”

“Why don’t you pray about it?”

“You can’t question the ways of God.”

Yet, the Bible is FULL of people questioning God and crying out to Him. Lamentations, Habakkuk, Judges, 1st and 2nd Kings, Psalms, and Proverbs all contain accounts of people asking God to explain the evils of the world around them. Check out this tidbit from Psalms:

Psalm 10:14: “O Lord, why do you stand so far away? Why do you hide when I am in trouble? The wicked arrogantly hunt down the poor. Let them be caught in the evil they plan for others. For they brag about their evil desires; they praise the greedy and curse the Lord. The wicked are too proud to seek God. They seem to think that God is dead.”

This is a direct challenge to the way God is doing things. It’s a sincere question stemming from a broken heart. It asks, “Why is everything so screwed up?”

We should encourage this! The Bible treats knowledge as an object to be revered, not feared.

Proverbs 15:14: “The discerning heart seeks knowledge, but the mouth of a fool feeds on folly.”

The Apostle Paul even commended those he taught who would directly challenge and question his teaching, searching Scripture to see if what he said was true.

Acts 17:11: “ Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.”

The distinction between thinking rationally and thinking like a zealot is instead of asking yourself, “MUST I believe this?” you ask yourself, “CAN I believe this?” The Bible tells us Jesus is Truth. He wouldn’t want anything less.

2. Show, Don’t Force

The Satanic Temple doesn’t attempt to force anyone to believe what they believe. That’s the driving force behind their efforts to include prayers, after-school classes, and statues in government. To expose the hypocrisy which only allows Christianity to be publicly endorsed by governing bodies.

One of the most famous Bible verses is Matthew 11:15:

“He who has ears, let him hear.”

This is often used as a rebuke to stubborn little kids in the church. You’re bored in Sunday school? You need to have ears to hear! Functionally, it works best as a rebuke to stubborn big adults in the church. In the chapter where this verse occurs, it’s used to shut down those who were telling a revolutionary desert prophet that he was doing religion wrong.

Sound familiar?

Maybe, instead of attempting to tell everyone that our way of religion is the best, we should recognize that if we speak and live our lives in the way God intended, then those who have ears will hear!

And with the dose of rationality we took earlier, we can live in the humility which says that we might not know the entirety of the workings of the world, so maybe it’s time to stop screaming.

3. Cast out the Wicked

Jex Blackmore was someone on the ground floor of the Satanic Temple. But when her ceremonies ended with calls to execute the president and kill police, The Satanic Temple, who profess nonviolence, excommunicated her from their ranks.

To be clear, I don’t believe that we should remove those who believe differently from us. But rather, if someone is actively, in rhetoric or action, harming or threatening harm to others, Christians need to make it clear that they do not stand with them.

So, when Donald Trump abandons our allies, leaving them to be mercilessly executed, spurring hundreds of civilian deaths, and reckons with his endorsement of child murder by saying, “Sometimes, you have to let them fight, like two little kids.”, Christians are ethically obligated to call out this atrocity for what it is, evil.

When Christians dismiss the oppression of our Black brothers and sisters, the erasure of our indigenous family in Christ, and the attack on our Hispanic community, or even worse, encourage it, it is our duty to call them out on their hypocrisy.

Matthew 25:41–45: “Then the King will turn to those on the left and say, ‘Away with you, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his demons. For I was hungry, and you didn’t feed me. I was thirsty, and you didn’t give me a drink. I was a stranger, and you didn’t invite me into your home. I was naked, and you didn’t give me clothing. I was sick and in prison, and you didn’t visit me. Then they will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and not help you?’ And he will answer, ‘I tell you the truth, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me.’”

4. Love the Oppressed

Tenet 2:

“ The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.”

The Satanic Temple provides homeless women with tampons and pads, diapers for new parents, and socks for the homeless. They speak out for the LGBT+ community, abused children and women, and people exploited by the governmental and societal institutions of the world.

That’s exactly who God calls us to love.

Proverbs 31:8–9: “ Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.”

Psalm 140:12: “I know that the Lord secures justice for the poor and upholds the cause of the needy.”

Jesus spoke and sat with prostitutes, tax collectors (oligarchs), and Samaritans (immigrants) and told them that the meek would inherit the earth. His close circle wasn’t filled with Yeezys and coiffed pompadours, but with dirty feet and matted hair.

Here’s a question that’s challenging me lately. How often am I sacrificing my wants in order to help those less fortunate with me? Think if you can find even one instance of where you did that in the past week.

For many of us, that’s difficult.

It should be obvious.

I know this is a weird article to read. After all, aren’t Satanists the bad guys? What can Christians learn from them? And I get it, I really do. Learning about this subject, that was the question that kept coming back to my head. But I came to this conclusion:

No Christian should be above learning from Satanists.

The disciples of Christ were routinely schooled by widows with no money to their name, Roman soldiers, government-sanctioned murderers, children, prostitutes, tax collectors, and thieves. We’re told the first will be last and the last will be first.

Maybe the greatest lesson the Satanists can teach us is that the fact we even have to ask if we should learn from them is the real problem.

Bruce Makarius

Written by

Writer on Sprituality | Philosophy | Politics and the intersections between the three.

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