Criticism of Satanism and Satanists tends to fall into one of only two types.

The first and most common generally is just right-wing reactionary paranoia; it’s typical antisemitic tropes dressed up in horns, a tail, and handed a pitchfork to be able to be shouted openly with only people in-the-know understanding the implicit Judenhass.

But if you’re outside of the right-wing bubble, you’re more likely to actually run into people saying, “Well, those aren’t real Satanists” as their main form of criticism.

Now, that could be The Church of Satan pretending it can hold on to a monopoly of Satanism in perpetuity, even as it becomes increasingly less relevant to people. “True Satanism isn’t political.” Or it could be addressing the white nationalist history within the Church of Satan itself, saying those people don’t count. It could be responding to the Order of Nine Angles and other esoteric fascist strains. “These aren’t part of actual Satanism.”

The point of our criticism is always that all of these are true Satanism — but some of them are bad. Antifascist Satanists are not more legitimate than cryptofascist Satanists, but antifascism is better than fascism. The important thing in creating and maintaining a community is push out and make uncomfortable the fascists, their apologists, and their other enablers.

This goes for rednecks, goths, Christians, punks, etc. It doesn’t matter what you think counts as “really” one of your subculture because there are a bunch of real white supremacist motherfuckers or other bigots in all of those groups. The work of community-building is to make sure vulnerable minority groups can feel physically safe, which is best accomplished by making sure the people who want to eradicate them feel decidedly physically unsafe and seek another community to ingratiate themselves with.

But this is real work, and the work is never completed.

In reality, no one gives a shit about who the “true Satanists” are or what a “real Satanist” believes except for like 30 of the most mutually insufferable people in the entire world.

If this is difficult to understand, just think of it like you are already prepared to do for Christianity. The Nicene Creed has defined Christianity for 18 centuries, and yet Christianities existed and flourished before it (Marcionism, Arianism), exist now with very different canons (Protestant, Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox) to say nothing of textual traditions and translations, exist disagreeing on the nature of the hypostatic union (miaphysitism, monophysitism, dyophysitism), and exist now rejecting the Nicene Creed entirely (Latter-Day Saints, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Unitarians).

Hell, there are even non-theistic Christians like in the Society of Friends (“Quakers”) or self-described “culturally Christian atheists” like Richard Dawkins.

Now remember how much influence and power Christians actually have in the world around you and contrast that with every self-described Satanist you can think of.

If Christians, with all of their enormous coercive power, can’t even settle on a single unequivocal definition of their religious beliefs after hundreds of years of torturing and killing each other over it, how can any one Satanist group claim they and their keyboards — or even their lawyers — have the final say?

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Sheila Gregoire @sheilagregoire
So are you saying that as long as a person says they’re a Christian, they’re a Christian?

I don’t think we can judge someone’s salvation. But we can tell whether someone is living and acting in line with Jesus’ general teachings. Doesn’t mean they’re perfect

Jessica Price @Delfina777
Yes.

You have a religion in which membership is defined by belief. I’m not psychic, so when someone tells me they’re a believer, as far as I’m concerned, that’s what they are. The rest of us aren’t interested in your denominational dispute inside baseball. If someone self-identifies as Christian, as far as any non-Christians are concerned, they’re Christian.

Like none of us give a shit that evangelicals don’t consider Catholics Christian, that some Baptists consider other Baptists heretics–that’s all your own intracommunity BS.

Each Christian (with very few exceptions) seems to want the rest of us to define “Christian” in the way they, personally and individually, define it. Which would essentially mean converting to that person’s specific brand of Christianity.

It’s the same move as citing New Testament verses to try to convince non-Christians of some Christian belief. I don’t view the New Testament having any authority, so quoting it at me means nothing to me. It’s not going to convince me of anything except that you’re annoying.

As I was just saying in response to a comment, specific brands of Christianity have specific, more concrete, requirements for membership. Like in order to be a Catholic in good standing, there’s stuff you need to do.

And Christians often get upset with non-Christians when we tell you to clean your own house instead of just claiming that anyone who tracked mud on the floor doesn’t actually live there. The argument is “as a non-member, you don’t get to define membership.”

On its face, sure.

But the thing is that “Christianity” is such a broad umbrella term, encompassing so many different beliefs and forms, that no one actually has the authority to declare what the requirements for membership are, beyond the basic, central one, which is belief in a few key points.

So like, yeah, Catholics and Presbyterians and Episcopalians and whatever have a plausible basis to say “this person isn’t Catholic/Presbyterian/etc. But there’s no central body that “owns” Christianity. And belief isn’t something that’s testable. So yeah, from an outside perspective, anyone who believes they’re Christian is Christian, whether or not Christians in other brands of Christianity agree with them. And you don’t get to demand that non-Christians adopt your brand’s specific beliefs about who counts.

And if you don’t like that, brace yourself. Because in addition to believing that anyone who says they’re Christian is Christian, most non-Christians also believe that Christianity is what Christians do, not what Christians say it should be.

Like, you can say that being anti-gay isn’t Christianity, but when the majority of Christians are doing it, as a non-Christian, I am convinced that it absolutely is Christianity.

Like one of the things that’s so telling about Christian hegemony is that so many Christians seem incapable of understanding that people believe differently than they do.

“I don’t believe Jesus rose from the dead.”

“But the gospels SAY he did.”

So? I don’t believe them.

“Christians aren’t anti-gay! My church is welcoming!”

So? I can find plenty of churches that aren’t, that believe they’re doing the right thing as strongly as you do.

Your insistence that they aren’t Christian means nothing to me.

— Jessica Price (@Delafina777) October 25, 2021