The conservative community in Texas, in the United States, was divided over the incident. The self-described “unbaptized” occurred in Tyler. There is a false dichotomy between the positive absolute of Christianity and the negative absolute of Satanism, according to Lucien Greaves, co-founder of the non-theistic religious group Satanic Temple: “It is a mistake to think that one is perfect and the other totally bad”.
Catholics and Christians are unbaptized by Satanic Church for $10
“In the end, whether religion is positive or negative depends on the individual, because people use their faith to excuse any heinous act. We believe our religion is positive, but there may be someone with mental health issues who sees it differently.
The same goes for people of other religions or no faith. Our philosophy is based on affirmative values that, when properly developed, result in constructive methods. In any case, we do not revere evil or death,” he said in a conversation with the newspaper “El Mundo”.
But even though the world is constantly evolving, Satanism is still seen as the antithesis of morality and its most famous work, “The Satanic Bible,” is considered blasphemous by many monotheistic religions.
The response of the churches to a meeting held by the Satanic Temple of Dallas-Fort Worth in the Texan city of Tyler serves to illustrate this conflict (USA).
Unbaptism
According to freelance journalist Tayler Hansen, the group of atheists gathered to hold an “unbaptized” in a city square.
People who felt remorseful for having received the cross of Christ as a child’s mark could go to various stalls to be “unbaptized”.
The journalist posted on his Twitter account a video of two people wearing masks “unbaptized” a long line of attendees, saying, “After drawing an inverted cross on their foreheads, they sing the “Hail Satan.” In addition, a certificate of “unbaptized” could be purchased for $10.
Shortly after it was announced that this would happen, there were reactions, mostly from nearby religious groups who took to the streets to praise God after learning of the Satanic Temple event.
Many did so from their cars in motorcades and some even circled the square while blessing the area.
According to Lauren Ethredge-Langas, a member of the Pines, Tyler, church:
“I wanted to get a group together to go before the event tomorrow and pray and exercise our freedom of religion (…) As Christians, we are called to a spiritual battlefield and I think this is an opportunity to exercise our strength in our relationship with Christ.”
Others stated that they only came out to pray to praise God and demonstrate their faith to the public, not to conflict with or disparage other people’s religions.
The great feast of the pagan and satanic world
Father Francisco Torres Ruiz, a priest of the Spanish diocese of Plasencia, was interviewed by the Catholic news organization “ACI Prensa”.
The person in charge of the “pastoral of exorcism” made sure that this celebration was held on dates close to Halloween, which he described as “the great feast of the pagan and satanic world”.
During these days a particular strategy is used to “attract followers for their sects and seduce the ignorant masses to offer cults (more or less explicit) to the devil, even if they present it innocently for pure amusement,” the author further warned.
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With information from the newspaper El Comercio Peru
