Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Silly Secularists Celebrate Season with Satanic Scenery at Statehouse
Silly Secularists Celebrate Season with Satanic Scenery at Statehouse
Apr 2, 2025 10:19 PM

Topping the list of hot trends in 2014 were “Victimism” (i.e., posturing as a victim for political advantage and media attention) and “Annoy-Thy-Neighbor” activism. There were many groups bined both to great effect, so it would be difficult to choose the best representative case. But the lamest example of the year is much easier to find: it’s by Jex Blackmore and the Michigan Satanists.

Unfortunately, that’s not the name of a band trying to hard to be clever. Blackmore is a real person (I think, but who knows nowadays) and a member of the Detroit chapter of the Satanic Temple. As is typical of most modern-day “Satanists” they don’t really believe in Satan at all. On their Facebook page they explain, “As Satanists, we believe that elevating revolt against arbitrary authority and defiance in the face of oppression is the highest of callings. We stand in solidarity with groups who are subject to institutionalized forms of discrimination and state oppression.”

In other words, they’re the typical lefty Social Justice Warriors—only more clueless and annoying. Secular Satanists think they’re being edgy and ironic and sticking it to Christians, while everyone else considers them as cringe-worthy in their lack of self-awareness. Seriously, is there anything sadder than a secular Satanist? They’re so pathetic you want to give them a hug and offer them some hot cocoa. You want to tell them that if they’d just stop drawing pentagrams and scribbling “IRichard Dawkins” in their notebooks and go out into the Real World they too could make friends .

Instead, they try to hide their loneliness by doing stuff like erecting a “Satanic holiday display” at the Michigan statehouse:

The display, which depicts a snake wrapped around the Satanic cross presenting a book as a holiday gift, will be featured on the northeast lawn at the Capitol Dec. 21 to 23, said Jex Blackmore, a member of the Detroit chapter of the Satanic Temple. The cross reads, “The greatest gift is knowledge.”

“Encouraging families to have important discussions and to learn from each other and to spend the holidays promoting knowledge … is just something we think is important,” Blackmore, whose phone number begins with the digits 666, said today.

John Truscott, a member of the Michigan State Capitol Commission, which approved the display, said mission had to OK it because members were “constrained by the Constitution” and must “recognize everybody’s First Amendment rights.”

But Truscott added, “Personally, I think this is absolutely repulsive and I’m very frustrated by it. I don’t appreciate a group trying to hijack a Christian holiday.”

I understand Truscott’s frustration but surely he can’t be too surprised, can he? After all, showing disrespect for our neighbors has e as much a holiday tradition as Nativity scenes on the courthouse square.

And speaking of Nativity displays, there won’t be one at the Michigan Capitol this year. A person from out-of-state offered to pay for it but couldn’t find anyone to put up and tear down the display each day, a requirement since the Capitol rules forbid permanent displays.

Sure, the Satanists have more time on their hands this season put up and tear down their own display. After all, they probably don’t get a lot of invites to Yuletide parties. But we Christians shouldn’t get too upset about the Satanic holiday display when we’re too lazy to put up our own holiday scenery. Maybe we should even concede the secularists won the “War on Christmas,” or atleastlet the Satanistswin this particular skirmish. AsJesus said, “… and if any one would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well.”

Let ’em have the statehouse square and their silly display, and we’ll work on finding a way to show them what—and who—Christmas is really about.

Update: Christmas is saved! A Michigan state senator has stepped up to help with a Nativity display: Emphasizing he was putting up the nativity scene as “citizen Rick Jones, not Sen. Rick Jones,” he said he was happy to “represent the light and not the darkness.”

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Mea culpa (or, how I got pwned by public radio)
Last night as I was driving to an appointment, I was listening to our local NPR affiliate here in Grand Rapids, and specifically to the show Marketplace. I happened to hear a story about how the government and economists were concerned that the money given to taxpayers via the “economic stimulus package” may actually be used for purposes other than retail spending, thereby not causing the intended “stimulus.” Not the first story of this sort that I’ve heard over the...
CAGW names names
Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) has released their “Pig Book” for 2008, which is an pilation of the pork-barrel projects in the federal budget. The 2008 Pig Book identified 11,610 projects at a cost of $17.2 billion in the 12 Appropriations Acts for fiscal 2008. A ‘pork’ project is a line-item in an appropriations bill that designates tax dollars for a specific purpose in circumvention of established budgetary procedures.” According to CAGW, “despite last year’s ethics and lobbying ‘reform,’ pork-barrel...
Humans and hybrids
In recent years the UK has emerged as a key player in both genetic experimentation and in corresponding legal battles over the extent to which the government ought to regulate such research. The latest ing from across the pond involves passage of a bill legalizing the creation of human-animal hybrids with certain restrictions (regarding type and length of survival). Three members of the governing cabinet were “reportedly considering resignation if forced to back the Bill.” Controversy arose over the call...
Straight talk on poverty & the family
A call to end poverty through more spending by the federal government is forever professed by some candidates and politicians. Maybe, they say, if just more money was appropriated and distributed this time, the results and relief for those in financial need would be conclusively different? Former President Clinton at least ran for office as a “new Democrat,” went on to declare the end of the era of big government, and signed welfare reform. Clinton was the first Democrat to...
New Deal for April Fools
Last month marked the 75th anniversary of the beginning of FDR’s “New Deal”. The Great Depression is the most famous event in U.S. macro-economic history. Most or all of my students know that it happened in the first half of the 20th century. They have no sense of what caused it– except perhaps to lay blame on the 1929 stock market crash. And they have a vague sense that the New Deal policies of FDR were helpful in ending it....
The burden of Italian red tape
In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal Europe, Alberto Mingardi of Istituto Bruno Leoni (and long-time Acton friend) lists some of the reforms Italy needs to boost economic growth, which is forecast at a measly 0.6 – 0.8 percent for 2008. Mingardi advocates a number of tax cuts and a more determined privatization of state assets. Some of these issues are being discussed – timidly – in the current election campaign; Mingardi also focuses on de-regulation and de-bureaucratization, issues heretofore neglected by...
Global Warming Consensus alert: I hope your earth hour party was as crazy as mine!
It’s been a while since we’ve seen pletely meaningless gesture on behalf of the unsinkable global warming consensus. As such, it’s my pleasure to announce that the next meaningless gesture will occur… last Saturday? Oops. Yes, Saturday evening saw the arrival of Earth Hour, an 8-9 pm extravaganza of switching off lights that apparently not many people knew about. For example, here’s the local reaction from the Grand Rapids Press: …some of Grand Rapids’ most prominent environmentalists, including Mayor George...
Spending the stimulus
Last week the Providence Journal ran a piece by me on the ing “rebate” checks from the government intended to be an economic stimulus, “The mandate is to ‘spend all you can’.” I take issue with the idea that the government gives us money that is our own in the first place, and then tells us how we ought to spend it: on consumables and retail goods to spur growth in the economy. Instead, I propose that people “should use...
Anthony Bradley on headline news
Acton Research Fellow Anthony Bradley was featured on The Glenn Beck Program on Headline News Network to discuss black liberation theology with host Glenn Beck on Wednesday night. If you didn’t catch his appearance, you can watch it right here on the PowerBlog. And for more on the topic with Anthony Bradley and Rev. Robert A. Sirico, check out the most recent edition of Radio Free Acton – Obama and Religion, Part I. ...
Rev. Robert A. Sirico at the University Club of Chicago
Rev. Robert A. Sirico in Chicago This afternoon, Acton President Rev. Robert A. Sirico took his most recent address from the 2008 Acton Lecture Series on the road to Chicago, Illinois. Sirico addressed an audience at the University Club of Chicago on The Rise and Eventual Downfall of the New Religious Left. If you were in attendance and would like to listen again, or weren’t able to attend today either today or at last month’s ALS event, you can listen...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved