At event for Christian lawmakers, panelists insist Satanists can't be school chaplains

Satanism is "not a religion," said an ignorant panelist at a conference for the National Association of Christian Lawmakers

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During a meeting geared toward Christian lawmakers earlier this month at Liberty University, panelists promoted the idea of putting chaplains in public schools while rejecting the idea that non-Christians could take advantage of the new laws.

One panelist said Satanism was “not a religion,” therefore administrators wouldn’t have to hire them. Another said Muslims couldn’t be chaplains because there was no way for them to be “certified.” It was all a slap in the face to the idea of religious pluralism. It also confirmed the idea that these people are interested in Christian supremacy, not religious freedom.

(From L to R) Louisiana State Sen. Mark Abraham, Texas Board of Education and National School Chaplain Association board member Julie Pickren, and NCSA executive team member and legislative ambassador Jim Schmidt

If you’re not aware, getting chaplains in schools has been the latest (and arguably most effective) method for Christians to get their religion in front of impressionable children. At least 14 states have proposed or passed legislation to give public schools permission to hire chaplains on their staffs. Supporters say it’s a way to addressing staffing shortages and improve mental health. Opponents argue that students deserve qualified experts, not randos with questionable credentials who clearly want to proselytize.

Some Republicans have openly said this is all about tearing down the wall between church and state, like the Texas senator who said his goal in sponsoring such a bill was “representing God’s presence within our public schools.”

While the language of these bills vary from state to state, some of them would give schools the ability to bring in local pastors who have no formal certification to work with children while dismissing trained professionals.

In Texas, where this kind of bill has become law, more than 100 chaplains signed a letter urging state school boards not to take lawmakers up on this. After all, what’s stopping the most fundamentalist Christian churches from declaring all of their male members honorary “chaplains” for the sole purpose of placing them in schools? Why would a Muslim or atheist student be better off meeting with a Christian chaplain and not a trained social worker? What would these chaplains say to LGBTQ students who are struggling with the sexual orientation or gender identity?

Even if the chaplains were prohibited from evangelizing in the public schools, their very presence sends the message that Christianity alone can solve problems. The entire assumption that chaplains are beneficial rests on the idea that mental health problems are the result of a lack of proper spirituality.

Despite the pushback, one of the reasons these chaplain bills have gained traction is because of lobbying efforts by the National School Chaplain Association, an explicitly Christian ministry led by Rocky Malloy. In April, Malloy insisted that Satanists could never take advantage of these new laws because they don’t count as a real religion:

There's no such thing as a Satanic chaplain. I know they threaten that, but there are none. And there's not one Satanic chaplain hired by the federal government. Zero. They don't qualify.

… They have no resources. They have no chaplains—no chaplains recognized—because they don't qualify… A thing called black-letter laws, U.S. Constitution. If you blaspheme God, you do not qualify to be a religion. So no Satanist can get a job saying “equal access” because they're not in that group.

As I explained at the time, everything he said was bullshit.

And yet chaplain bills have been signed into law in Texas, Florida, and Louisiana. Several other states could join them in the year ahead.

That’s why, earlier this month, chaplain programs were a topic of discussion during the National Association of Christian Lawmakers’ 2024 National Policy Conference at (where else?) Liberty University. This is the group run by Jason Rapert, the Christian Nationalist, former Arkansas legislator, and failed candidate for lieutenant governor.

Given the audience of Christian lawmakers, a panel of “experts” explained the purported benefits of these laws, how they got them passed, and what obstacles they faced. Those obstacles include the possibility that non-Christians might want to take advantage of these laws, too, and Christians would have no way of stopping them. After all, if you let one religion in, you have to open the door for everyone, right?

Nope. Not in their eyes. They explained how the game could be rigged in Christians’ favor by dismissing minority religions as non-religions and by arguing even major non-Christian religions couldn’t meet the Christians’ standards. (The full discussion begins around the 2:27:00 mark of this video.)

In the clipped video below, we see (from left to right) Louisiana State Sen. Mark Abraham, Texas Board of Education and National School Chaplain Association board member Julie Pickren, and NCSA executive team member and legislative ambassador Jim Schmidt.

SCHMIDT: But the left side will make innuendos... “Well, now we're gonna have Satanists as chaplains!” First, Satan, Satanic [sic] is not a church, it's not a religion, it's anti-God. So you just say, “Okay,” and move on to the next one. Because I don't know any of you that would hire a Satanist. So you just look at their background and don't hire them.

I don't know people in their engineering firm or teachers or baseball coaches that have an outright Satanist, and say, “Oh, yeah, we'll hire you.” So it's not an argument, it's a narrative…

…

ABRAHAM: The only other comment, one of the oppositions [sic], “Well, anybody can be a chaplain then. I mean, a Muslim can come in to be a chaplain!” And we just said, “No, it has to be a certified chaplain.” So that's how we kind of got around that.

…

SCHMIDT: Yeah, thank you, Florida, for saying yes to it… It was the NACL that really helped move it forward. And Ron DeSantis, upon signing it, said, “Satanists don't even apply.” [Laughter] That's what he said to the media!

…

PICKREN: If you look at the Department of Defense list of approved chaplains for the DOD, there's not any Satanists. They're not there. They're not, according to the Supreme Court, they're not… an organized religion. So it's just… it’s a lot of fear-mongering among the narrative.

…

UNKNOWN: There are crazy people. We had the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster… and a minister from the Church of Satan actually showed up and told all my school board members that, in fact, that they were gonna apply to be a chaplain and all this kind of stuff… But I think there's actually, what I was told, is that there actually are, appeals court, at the federal level, precedents out there that basically make it clear that the Church of Satan is not a legitimate religious faith and is not entitled to protection as Christianity would be.

It’s almost incredible how much shared ignorance there is in this room.

Perhaps it’s a given since they’ve never read a second book.

For what it’s worth, the IRS specifically recognizes The Satanic Temple as a church. And even if the question of whether atheism is a religion is a philosophical one, the U.S. effectively treats it as one when it comes to First Amendment protections. In 2017, when the U.S. military expanded its list of “faith groups,” the recognized labels now included Humanist, Atheist, Agnostic, No Religion, No Preference, Pagan, etc. While Satanism wasn’t explicitly on that list, there were plenty of categories under which Satanists could insert themselves.

So if groups representing non-theistic people decide to bestow the title of chaplain on anyone, they’re good to go. These laws give them the ability to do so no matter who says otherwise.

You know who else agrees with that? Florida State Sen. Erin Grall, the Republican who sponsored the chaplain bill. (And a Republican who DeSantis just ignored.)

"But I think that as soon as we get in the middle of defining what is religion and what is not, and whether or not someone can be available and be on a list, we start to run up to constitutional problems," Grall said, according to The Tallahassee Democrat.

"So I think that us making sure that it's open and available to anybody who wants to put themselves through the background screening, and let parents know they're available for that service, is the best way to go," she added.

Because the Florida law won’t go into effect until July 1 and the school year doesn’t begin until after that, it may be a while until lawsuits commence there. Before that, Satanists and Humanists will have to try to get their own chaplains into public schools. (They’ve told me they have every intention of doing that.)

The same principles apply in the other states as well.

As for Muslims, they can be certified chaplains too. While there are very few in the military, they are indeed there. There’s no legal way to “get around that,” as the Louisiana lawmaker claimed. (Incidentally, while his own bill says chaplains must be “certified,” nothing in it explains what that means, which allows groups to just make up their own rules and declare people certified.)

The National Association of Christian Lawmakers is urging lawmakers to pass these bills in their state without giving any thought to how they’re legally sound. They think they’ll get away with it because the lawsuits haven’t come yet (it’s too early!) and because they’ve convinced themselves the bills are legitimate.

But when they’re in front of a crowd of fellow Christians, the masks come off and they laugh about how these bills are nothing more than new ways to shove Jesus into public schools while (in their minds) excluding non-Christians.

Chris Line, a staff attorney with the Freedom From Religion Foundation, told me last night that these panelists were clearly mistaken—and that their desired exclusion of non-Christian chaplains would create all kinds of legal problems. Furthermore, their comments illustrate how their true desire is subjecting students to religious proselytization during the school day. (His comments are slightly edited below.)

It's hard to imagine how a state could possibly implement a chaplain program that doesn't flagrantly violate the constitutional rights of students and parents, but as these panelists illustrate, the Christian nationalists behind public school chaplain programs have no intention of trying to follow the law or creating chaplain programs that are anything more than an excuse for Christian pastors to target public school students.

The fact that they admit they want to prohibit chaplains who have a “scary” religion like [members of] The Satanic Temple confirms that they envision chaplains promoting religion to students who do not already share the chaplain’s religious beliefs.

If they thought chaplains would not proselytize [to] non-adherents, there would be no need to worry about disfavored minority religions. But the reality is that they know Christian chaplains will be promoting Christianity—and they want to make sure that’s the only game in town.

Line is correct. None of the panelists care about getting trained professionals in public schools because they’re not actually interested in improving kids’ mental health in a secular way. They see schools as indoctrination playgrounds, and they believe right-wing legislatures and right-wing judges will give them all the leeway they need to push their religion—and only their religion—onto children.

(Portions of this article were published earlier)

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