Satan Club Targeted in Bomb Threat

(NewsReady.com) – A Virginia elementary school that hosts a controversial “After School Satan Club” was sent into lockdown on Tuesday, after a bomb threat. The school has faced fierce criticism from locals after announcing the club, which is organized by the Satanic Temple. The emailed warning claims the school was targeted for being “unIslamic.”

JUST IN: A bomb threat was made against B.M. Williams Primary School and the homes of the Chesapeake Public Schools Superintendent, a Satan Club volunteer, and a lawyer with the ACLU of Virginia. https://t.co/U9NgDhxH5x pic.twitter.com/vjF11yufPY

— WTKR News 3 (@WTKR3) February 21, 2023

Last December, the BM Williams Primary School in Chesapeake, Virginia, canceled a planned first meeting of an After School Satan Club. After discussions with the ACLU, the club finally held its first meeting on February 16. The club is part of a national program organized by the Satanic Temple, a Salem, Massachusetts-based organization with a “nontheistic religion” founded in 2013.

The Satanic Temple (TST) says it doesn’t believe in a literal Satan, but uses “the literary Satan” — the Devil as portrayed in art and literature — as a metaphor; it doesn’t actually worship him (the older Church of Satan agrees, accusing TST of “giving Satanism a bad name” with its often-childish stunts). Its main activities are lobbying for religious freedom, supporting liberal political causes and running addiction recovery programs. It says its after-school clubs don’t teach about Satanism at all, but focus on community service, games and other typical youth organization activities.

Unfortunately, it seems not everyone in the community believes them. Early on February 21, the school received an emailed bomb threat calling it “evil” and accusing it of promoting “devil worship and unIslamic values.” The school immediately contacted the police and the fire department, put its students in lockdown and then dismissed classes at midday.

It seems the threat was a hoax, but with local feelings running high, the school doesn’t want to take any chances. Local cops and firefighters have now been joined by the FBI in trying to identify the source of the threat. It’s unknown if they’ve checked the email against Heaven’s IP address.