In the town of Marysville, a suburb of Columbus, Edgewood Elementary School has been forced to allow the Satanic Temple to introduce its program known as HAIL, or Hellion Academy of Independent Learning.
Columbus-based activist Linda Harvey, of Mission America, says Edgewood Elementary was targeted after Satanists targeted schools in Wilmington and Lebanon. Their strategy, she says, is to punish schools that allow LifeWise, a Bible-reading program for children.
“It's basically to counteract what they consider to be too much Christianity,” she says. “It's one more of Satan's many tactics to try to prevent children, especially, from ever hearing about the Lord."
It also follows the Bible’s description of Satan, in Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church, that Satan disguises himself “as an angel of light.”
According to the LifeWise website, each lesson teaches children a character trait, such as honesty or gratitude, based on a biblical passage.
According to the Satanic Temple’s own press release, its HAIL program similarly teaches students “about Satanic values, such as empathy, compassion, and justice.”
It is not clear from the Satanic Temple what it bases those admirable human traits on, or why they're admirable, from a subjective, humanistic worldview.
A tenet of the Satanic Temple similarly states people should act with “compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason," a related Breitbart story reports.
According to Harvey, the public school district is taking a “calm” approach to the Satanic Temple’s demands because there will likely be very low participation from Edgewood students.
