Satan is a Christian?

Who knew?

The following is from John Daniel Davidson’s Pagan America:

The new occultists of the Satanic Temple do not believe Satanism is at all dark or sinister, but rather a celebration of enlightened humanism, individual liberty, and scientific understanding. The first of their seven fundamental tenets could be lifted from any woke corporate or nonprofit mission statement: “One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.” And the second could just as easily come from a Black Lives Matter or Antifa manifesto: “The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.” Unlike its older cousin, the Satanic Temple is an altogether more liberal and rationalist expression of Satanism, in which Satan is nothing more than a literary archetype used to promote a materialist philosophy that espouses egalitarianism, social justice, and the separation of church and state.

Where did the Satanists’ tenets come from? None of them are self-evident on purely materialist terms. Indeed, a variety of social Darwinism would say the tenets are anti-nature, where survival of the fittest and unrelenting competition in the struggle for life are the only “rules.” So, why is it that these Satanists’ ethic is so kum ba yah? Could it be because they live in a Western culture thoroughly infused with a Christian ethic?

It turns out that, at least according to his followers, Satan is a Christian. Who knew? Or, maybe the Satanists, like all so-called humanists, are parasites on the Christian ethic and want to have Christianity without Christ? What happens if the parasites are successful in killing the host? The point of Davidson’s book is that unless, as a culture, we have a drastic course correction, we are about to find out, and it won’t be pretty.