From the above expression of surprise or annoyance, to ‘speak of the devil’, to ‘between the devil and the deep blue sea’, to ‘the devil made me do it’, and more, the devil gets a lot of airtime. Below was published in the November 2024 Harper’s. Are they aghast at this? I think not. I think this is in-your-face Christians, see what your religion-mongering has gotten you!
Opus Day School
From a letter sent in August by Rachel Chambliss, the executive director of operations for the Satanic Temple, to members of the Osceola County school board in Florida.
Dear members,
On behalf of the Satanic Temple, I am writing to acknowledge the critical vote you are taking tonight regarding the authorization of volunteer school chaplains in the Osceola County school district. We are enthusiastic about the opportunity this policy presents for our ministers of Satan.
We have carefully reviewed the proposed guidelines and note with interest that counseling consistent with a chaplain’s religious beliefs will not be considered proselytization in the school district. This understanding ensures that the ministers of Satan can offer guidance aligned with our satanic beliefs while remaining fully compliant with the board’s rules. Additionally, we acknowledge the board’s commitment to providing chaplains with visible and accessible office space on campus, ensuring that all students are aware of our satanic clergy.
The response from Floridians interested in becoming ministers of Satan and satanic chaplains has been overwhelming. With hundreds of members of the Satanic Temple already in Osceola County, we anticipate a significant increase in satanic clergy. We look forward to working with you to introduce the nation’s first satanic school chaplaincy.
In a sense, they would be right. In 1989, I was on Active Duty as an Army Reserve Chaplain at Ft. Riley, Kansas. The Life of Riley it was not (Look the expression up.), and it has always puzzled me that Ft. Riley was once thought of as the good life. Anyways, the Post Chaplain, an O-6, full-bird colonel, was a Southern Baptist, and he was absolutely incensed that chaplains were being directed to make room for Satanists. You didn’t have to actually lead their “services”, but you had to provide space, time, and if they have clergy, hire civilians to lead their “worship.”
This is what comes from living in a religiously diverse society. If one denomination has chaplains they all have that right – there is a certain threshold of soldiers who identify as that denomination necessary before a chaplain slot is created. When I got out in 1995, they were adding Buddhist and Muslim chaplains. The Buddhist chaplain insignia was a prayer wheel. I suggested a 💣for the Muslim, but for some reason that was rejected.
Diversity is a hallmark of American religious life. It’s what allowed the Gospel to spread its wings here. As the Pax Roma served the Gospel in 1st century Rome, so did religious freedom serve it in the America of the 18th, 19th, and the first half of the 20th century. Then gradually pluralism pushed out diversity. Religious diversity is illustrated by different colored ice cubes floating in the same bathtub. Pluralism is the melting of those ice cubes. Christianity can exist and even thrive in the former, but must protest and refuse to join the latter. Or die trying.
The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod’s Director of Chaplains, a retired Army Post Chaplain, told me the above helpful illustration in 1986. Then he completely compromised this principle and our faith by what he said next. He told me as a Post Chaplain he would preach at services with Christian Scientist or Mormon chaplains conducting the rest of the service, so the people could at least hear the Gospel. I could tell you his name, but like Charles V, I don’t believe in making war against the dead.
The U.S. Army, at the time of the Ft. Riley instance, 1989, had regulations that worked to insulate the Satanic influence. By regulation you could not use a table that had been set aside, we’d say consecrated, for use in a chaplain anywhere but another sacred space. The same thing went for everything in a chapel. In 1991 I was on Active Duty in Ft. Polk, Louisiana. I had a WWII cantonment chapel in a part of the based only used for Army Reserve units. It was completely furnished every office, every desk, lamp, chair, book, etc., was there and not allowed to be used anywhere else even though there was a shortage of such things in that part of the Post.
So, a Satanist group was not allowed to use a chapel as that would defile it for Christians and Jews. Yes, Jewish worship used the same building. The cross above the altar had a corpus for Catholic services on one side, a bare cross for Protestants on another side, and Ten Commandment tablets on a third side.
So, to cite a another devil expression, a diverse society gives the devil his due. A pluralistic society is of the devil himself.
