Category: Guest Post

Guest Post: Satan in the Red Light District

~ Stephen Bradford Long ~ 2 Comments

This is a guest post by S, a reader of the blog and listener of Sacred Tension. If you would like to write a guest post for the blog, please send submissions via my contact page.

There is a strip club in the red light district of Amsterdam called the Banana Bar. 

At first glance it looks like any other sex business in the crowded tapestry of bright advertisements, with its illuminated signs of bananas and naked girls riding them. If you look more closely, you will notice that the windows are covered with tasteful art nouveau style nude paintings, and that the facade is completely black. The unusual appearance of the building, as well as the banana-gimmick for which the club is famous, belong to the legacy of a convent that used to house here: the Walburga Abbey of the Dutch Church of Satan, or Kerk van Satan. 

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Guest Post: The Seven Tenets Are Not a Sword

~ Stephen Bradford Long ~ 7 Comments

This is a guest post by Greg Stevens. Greg Stevens is a longtime leader in The Satanic Temple, and currently acts as Director of Ministry and Executive Producer of TST TV.

I thoroughly enjoy the passion I see in members of The Satanic Temple when they are unraveling the finer points and applications of The Seven Tenets. These tenets express strong core ethical priorities, while at the same time being general enough to allow each individual to develop and explore their own interpretation. For some people, the phrase “compassion and empathy toward all creatures” in Tenet I resonates naturally with their choice of veganism. For them, veganism is a part of their Satanism. But people may also interpret Tenet I differently, and many Satanists are not Vegan. So it goes with other moral questions, as well: from addiction intervention to euthenasia. It fills me with joy when Satanists talk through scenarios, often making discoveries: not only about the way other people interpret and balance the tenets, but oftentimes also about their own, often unconscious, assumptions and priorities.

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Guest Post: Why Are Evangelicals So Afraid of Halloween?

~ Stephen Bradford Long ~ 9 Comments

This is a guest post by John W. Morehead. John W. Morehead is the Director of Multi-faith Matters. He is the co-editor and contributing author for A Charitable Orthopathy: Christian Perspectives on Emotions in Multifaith Engagement, and Encountering New Religious Movements: A Holistic Evangelical Approach, and the editor of Beyond the Burning Times: A Pagan and Christian in Dialogue. He has been involved for many years in multi-faith relationships and conversations in the contexts of Islam, Mormonism, Paganism, and Atheism. His ongoing research in multi-faith engagement and religious conflict involves bringing social psychology and social neuroscience into conversation with a theology of love of our religious neighbors. Particular areas of interest are “us vs. them” intergroup conflict, evangelical concerns for purity in relation to syncretism, and Christian Nationalism.

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