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15th December 2023
03:37pm GMT
Parents at in school in Tennessee have reacted with fury after finding out that an after-school Satan club has been set up.
The After School Satan Club (ASSC) wants to set up a branch at Chimneyrock elementary school in the Memphis-Shelby county schools (MSCS) district.
The ASSC currently has four locally-recognised chapters across the US, and is a federally recognised non-profit organisation.
It is associated with the Satanic Temple, but it argues that it is a secular organisation which “promotes self-directed education by supporting the intellectual and creative interests of students”.
The Satanic Temple itself is keen to stress that its members do not worship the devil or promote evil, nor do they believe in the existence of Satan or the supernatural. Instead, the point of the temple is to use Satan as a symbol of free will, humanism and anti-authoritarianism.
Their after-school clubs are often set up at schools as a response to other religious clubs existing, such as bible groups.
The Satanic Temple believes that religion shouldn't be introduced in public schools and says it only opens a club "if other religious groups are operating on campus."
But parents and faith leaders have reacted with anger at the news of an After-School Satan Club being set up at the school.
The Guardian reports that in a meeting of more than 40 pastors and other religious leaders, district board chair Althea E Greene said: “Satan has no room in this district.”
One grandparent of a child at the Chimneyrock school told local news station Action News 5: “I’m about to come unglued right now. I cannot believe … this is a kindergarten-through-fifth-grade school and they’re letting a satanic club come in here?”
But MSCS interim superintendent Toni Williams has reportedly said there are no plans to stop the club from opening at the school.
He said: “I do not support the beliefs of this organization at the center of recent headlines. I do, however, support the law."
Back in March, the Satanic Temple sued Pennsylvania’s Saucon Valley school district for allegedly discriminating against the ASSC after it stopped the organisation from holding meetings on campus.
The district ended up settling with the temple for $200,000.
In response to the reaction in Chimneyrock, ASSC's national campaign director June Everett said: “I’d like to believe that people that don’t agree with us and don’t think that we should be allowed equal access into the same schools that these other clubs are running, that this is a reminder of what a great and free country that we live in.
“It’s the first amendment at work.”
The Satanic Temple says that to "embrace the name Satan is to embrace rational inquiry removed from supernaturalism and archaic tradition-based superstitions."
It adds: "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."
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