By Dave Leshtz, Iowa City
I’ve written about and gotten to know several members of Iowa’s Satanic Temple.
They are young and intelligent. They come mostly from small towns in Iowa, where their families still live. They have a sense of humor and like to dress in black. They consider the poet John Milton’s Paradise Lost their foundational text — their Bible, so to speak.
Most of all, they are sincere in their belief that government shouldn’t favor one religion over another, that public services or benefits to religious groups should not be denied because officials disagree with their beliefs.
I don’t personally know any members of the Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal denomination that Iowa gubernatorial candidate Adam Steen belongs to. It is an evangelical church which reported in 2022 a worldwide membership of 69 million. The Satanic Temple, according to Wikipedia, claims approximately 700,000 members. Its numbers in the state of Iowa are, well, considerably less. I’ve been to two public readings of Paradise Lost hosted by the Satanic Temple, boosting their combined attendance to approximately 19 loyal adherents.
Steen, the self-proclaimed “Jesus guy” and “faith guy,” did the Satanic Temple a tremendous favor in 2024. By banning its Christmas display in the rotunda of the Iowa Statehouse beside a state-allowed display by a Christian group, Steen (as director of the Department of Administrative Services) drew tremendous attention to a religion that few had heard of. Now, campaigning to be the Republican candidate for governor, Steen seems intent on building the Satanic Temple into an evil monster threatening the good townsfolk of a Christian state.
Steen just put up a TV ad titled “Good vs. Evil.” In it he says “I’m a Christian conservative … I’ll protect your kids against radical woke ideology. I’ll keep the Satanists out of the Capitol because our Iowa values are under attack.” He continues to build up the Satanic Temple, depicting them as a powerful army taking no prisoners as they march into our public schools and buildings. If Steen continues to provide the temple with free publicity, attendance at their next event could swell into the 20s.
Should “the faith guy” succeed in convincing Iowans that legions of Satanists are attacking our values, we might hear more about Steen’s way of looking at the world. As DAS director, he decreed the abrupt closing of the State Historical Society in Iowa City, declining to tell its stakeholders because “we didn’t have to.” And now he has created another monster in the fight between good and evil: “If I have to, I’ll sign an executive order on day one to ensure Sharia Law does not have any sort of foothold in any government.”
I’ll contribute $100 to Dr. Frankensteen’s campaign if he can document a single instance of Sharia law in any city council, school board, board of supervisors, or legislature in the United States of America. But what’s a little fear mongering when you’re in a battle of Good vs. Evil?
