The Double Standard

"The separate treatment of Satanism becomes most evident in the reaction by the media and scholars to the recently announced and then canceled black mass, which was to be hosted by the Harvard extension school. The black mass has a complex history that goes back allegedly for centuries. To follow-up on the success of The Satanic Bible, Anton LaVey released The Satanic Rituals in 1972. It contained a series of rites and ceremonies, the most central was a version of the black mass called “Le Messe Noir.” The LaVey mass is constructed, like most black masses, to insult and parody versions of the Christian, particularly Catholic, Eucharist ceremony. What is important about this event is that while Drew Faust, the President of Harvard, upheld the value of free speech and public debate regarding its performance, she dismissed the mass itself, calling it “abhorrent” and “denigrating the Catholic Church” and “highly offensive to many in the Church and beyond.” In contrast, however, we do not see Dr. Faust denouncing other religions, such as Protestant Christianity, who denigrate the Catholic Church, calling its transubstantiation claims magic and its celebration of Christmas as pagan, claims that have existed for centuries and which the Catholic Church finds offensive. Why are Satanic insults “abhorrent” but not Protestants insults? Harvard hosts thePluralism Project, a project “to consider the real challenges and opportunities of a public commitment to pluralism in the light of the new religious contours of America.” Shouldn’t the black mass be accorded the same religious consideration as other religious ceremonies highlighted by the Pluralism Project? Diana Eck, in her book, A New Religious America, writes of a new vision of American pluralism, one in which myriad traditions co-exist and how the stories of different religious traditions are the story of America. Is Satanism, its history and its story, part of that vision? Why do Satanists lack a seat at the table of Harvard’s Pluralism Project?"

http://usreligion.blogspot.kr/2014/07/satanism-and-scholars-of-american.html

http://www.johnlcrow.com/2014/09/satanism-and-scholars-of-religion-revisited/