Illinois district defends offering ‘After School Satan Club’ at elementary school

Assessment: 1st grade children are 6 years old. 5th grade children are 10 years old. Satan must be delighted at how easy these teachers and parents are making his job …

An Illinois school district is defending an elementary school offering “After School Satan Club,” an extracurricular educational program sponsored by the Satanic Temple of the United States.

The program, for children in grades first through fifth, will be taught by volunteers at The Jane Addams Elementary School in Moline, and will meet five times this year beginning Thursday, flyers circulating on social media claim.

“If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Matthew 18:16 NIV

According to the flyer, the club will consist of science projects, puzzles, games, arts and crafts and outdoor nature activities. The club says it will help children learn benevolence and empathy, critical thinking, problem solving, creative expression and personal sovereignty.

The Satanic Temple – essentially an activist group and think tank more than a religious institution – said the program is available at select public schools where Good News programs exist, and is meant to be educationally enriching. Members have no intention of converting children to Satanism.

“Proselytization is not our goal, and we’re not interested in converting children to Satanism,” the temple says about the program on its website. “After School Satan Clubs will focus on free inquiry and rationalism, the scientific basis for which we know what we know about the world around us.