Pious Pence's Indiana: State government's embrace of Christian music backfires big time and triggers battle of the bands.

 

Below: I superimposed the lettering from the Satanic Planet Facebook page (here) over the Indiana State Capital:

Facebook page

Click above to enlarge

By Hal Brown, not a member of a Satanic or any church.

I came across this story on Raw Story + (subscription) with the clever title using the phrase "Hell's Bells" here.

Excerpt:

INDIANAPOLIS — Members of The Satanic Temple won’t be sacrificing animals or drinking blood inside Indiana’s capitol building on Sept. 28.

They are, however, bringing a band.

And this particular band should be plenty to outrage multitudes of Hoosiers in this deep-red state.

Lucien Greaves, co-founder of The Satanic Temple, said this week he has permission from the state and hasn’t heard about any obstacles to the performance of his band Satanic Planet — whose logo for the “Let Us Burn” tour features an upside down cross.

His group was recognized by the Internal Revenue Service in 2019 as a religion, at least for tax purposes..

Raw Story noted that Pence signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 2015. It gave extremely wide latitude for the practice of religion. 

Excerpt:

So the building where devout Christian and former Vice President Mike Pence served as governor will also now become the venue for Satanic Planet.

For those who don't subscribe to Raw Story + this news was also covered by Religious News Service (here)

This explains (as indicated in the subtitle) how Christian musician Sean Feucht brought his God and Country concert to the Indiana Statehouse, Hoosier members of the Satanic Temple demanded access for a concert of their own.

The Christian musician has initiated a lawsuit saying the Satanic Temple engaged in trademark infringement with their logo:

Excerpts: 

“Your use of the “Let Us Burn” and its corresponding logo is a violation and infringement of the Ministry’s duly registered trademarks, as “Let Us Burn” is a confusingly similar mark,” read the letter from Feucht’s lawyer.

If this ends up going to court I think it will be interesting to see whether the Satanic Temple can succeed in using both a religious liberty and a freedom of speech and expression defense. It could hinge on whether Greaves had exclusive rights to use the font for their lettering. He certainly can't have rights to a Christain cross in a circle.

I find this to be smart and cost effective marketing by Satanic Planet:

Music will be provided by Satanic Planet, the organization’s band. TST co-founder and spokesperson Lucien Greaves is the frontman for the band. Greaves said the event will bring the message of pluralism to counter Feucht’s self-proclaimed attempt to “hijack” state capitols.

“(Satanic Planet’s) purpose was to be a band like any other,” Greaves added, “However, after becoming aware of what Feucht was doing, we felt perfectly poised to assert” this message.

“We intend to play as many locations as Sean Feucht played, on the same terms that Feucht played them, to whatever extent our fundraising will allow,” Greaves said. They can’t sell tickets.

Whether or not you actually like their music (you can watch their many music videos here) you ought to appreciate their marketing ploy. For example, here's another article which building on the contrbversy stirred up by following the Christain musician's tour:

This weekend the Satanists troll the Christians Bigly in Boston

 

By Hal Brown

Click image above to enlarge. Note Lucifer is devouring a child.

You may have missed the news about their planned 10th anniversary celebration in Boston this weekend and that several Christian groups are going to “ambush” the event.

Click above to go to webpage

From the Wikipedia entry.

The Satanic Temple has seven fundamental tenets:

1. One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.
2. The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.
3. One's body is inviolable, subject to one's own will alone.
4. The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one's own.
5. 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.
6. People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.
7. Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.

Newsweek reports the following:

Click above to read article

Excerpt:

The Satanic Temple's 10-year anniversary celebration in Boston, Massachusetts, this weekend is facing counter-events from several Christian groups, including revivalist demonstrations designed to "ambush" the group's SatanCon convention.

The temple, unlike the Church of Satan, does not worship the biblical Satan as a deity, but instead has historically used its religious association to "reject tyrannical authority," according to the organization's website. Friday kicked off the group's second annual SatanCon at the Boston Marriott Copley Place, roughly 25 miles south of the organization's symbolic home in Salem, Massachusetts.

The group's organizers have dubbed the three-day event as the "largest Satanic gathering in history," and the convention will include presentations, rituals and a "Satanic Marketplace."

Raw Story covered this (here). Many of those who commented (300 as I write this) included images. Below is a sample:

What grabbed my attention as I looked at the website of The Satanic Temple (or TST as they sometimes call themselves) is that while they say they don't profess belief in an entity called Satan they use images of him on their website and at their conventions. 

Satan is used as a metaphor and symbol: 

• No, nor do we believe in the existence of Satan or the supernatural. The Satanic Temple believes 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. Satanists should actively work to hone critical thinking and exercise reasonable agnosticism in all things. Our beliefs must be malleable to the best current scientific understandings of the material world — never the reverse.

  • Satan is a symbol of the Eternal Rebel in opposition to arbitrary authority, forever defending personal sovereignty even in the face of insurmountable odds. Satan is an icon for the unbowed will of the unsilenced inquirer – the heretic who questions sacred laws and rejects all tyrannical impositions. Our metaphoric representation is the literary Satan best exemplified by Milton and the Romantic Satanists from Blake to Shelley to Anatole France. From the website FAQ .

  • If you read the various positions of TST and compare them to those of The Freedom From Religion Foundation you will find they overlap. This is the foundation promoted in TV ads by President Reagan's son Ron:

Herein lies the difference between the two groups: The Satanic Temple  without paying for advertising gets attention from the media for free by being attached to the Devil who they say they don't believe in.

I'm about as far from being a religious scholar as one could be. In fact, growing up as a Jew I never even went to Hebrew school or got bar mitzvahed. Despite my ignorance about Biblical texts it seems to be a no-brainer to draw the conclusion that if someone believes in Satan they also have to believe in God. (See "Do Jews believe in Satan?) I'd suggest that claiming to be a godless Satanist is an oxymoron.

The Satanic Temple using the mantle of religion is nothing short of brilliant marketing. They even have a way one can become a minister so they can officiate at weddings which is much more involved than just becoming a Universalist Life Church minister with a few clicks. 

The Satanists may be as successful in getting media coverage as some of the non-religious organizations and religious groups who promote progressive positions.

They do so by trolling the Christians. Their trolling actually has a troll of sorts, in fact their troll is far more terrifying than trolls who are kind of cute, he is the ultimate horror, the Devil himself.

Troll from Wiki Commons, Devil from Facebook

If the members of TST really believed in the Devil incarnate they'd be just a version of the QAnon believers who are certifiably insane, albeit they'd be crazy people that have beliefs consistent with democracy, equal justice for all, and tolerance of all people. 

My impression (as someone who was a psychotherapist for 40 years) is that most members of TST who are active in the temple/organization are no different in their mental health status than, for example, people who go to ComicCon or Trekkies who go to Star Trek conventions. 

You can rest assured there isn't a MAGA cultist member of The Satanic Temple.

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