The Satanic Temple has announced that it is opening its international headquarters in Salem, Massachusetts on Friday, an upsetting development for Christians.
This has elicited a reaction from Pastor Arthur Savage of Wesley United Methodist Church, who says they are going to employ a godly response.
The new headquarters will be located at an old Victorian mansion that was once a funeral parlour, according to ABC News.
"Salem is definitely a place of spiritual warfare, and a place where it's important for Christians to gather to pray and to be in unity, and to preach Christ," Savage tells The Christian Post. "There's a lot of spiritual confusion and a lot of people who come in that are dabbling in it and looking — a curiosity. Some are just coming in to party."
Savage notes that Salem is known for the infamous witch trials during the 1690s, when over a dozen people were killed after they were accused of witchcraft. With such an upsetting history, Savage says it's important for the love of Christianity to change Salem's image.
"We are praying and waiting on the Lord about how to respond and talking about it amongst ourselves," says Savage. "And we have a ministry here for people who are searching, some of them coming out of occultism of various forms."
He says his church is going to step up its ministries come October, when there are tons of Haunted Happening events awaiting. Savage says since they are not really confrontational, the best thing they can do with the opening of the Satanic Temple headquarters is to pray.
Meanwhile, Satanic Temple members say their organisation is often misconstrued by people. They complain that they are often given a bad rap even though they are not doing anything wrong.
"Satanism is widely misunderstood because traditional religious organisations who, against all historical insight, believe themselves to be the arbiters of morality, see satanism as their opposite, therefore embodying a philosophy of immorality," says Lucien Greaves, the spokesman and co-founder of the Satanic Temple.
