'AHS: Apocalypse' Under Fire By The Church of Satan for Inaccurate Portrayal of Founder
By TheBlast Staff on October 18, 2018 at 10:21 PM EDT
"American Horror Story: Apocalypse" upset the wrong crowd when they depicted the Church of Satan's notorious founder to promote the show's "Devil worship drivel" that the organization has been working to dispel for years, and now the Church is summoning up some hellfire.
"Anton LaVey didn’t believe in Christ or an Anti-Christ and sacrifice plays no role in Satanism. Lazy writers appropriated his name and image for their Devil worship drivel is unimpressive and boring," a spokesperson for the 50-year-old organization wrote in response to this week's episode.
LaVey was a popular occultist who founded the Church of Satan in 1966.
The Church, which has made an effort to distance itself from the inaccurate portrayal in media that links the organization and Devil-worshipping, aired it's grievances in a lengthy post: "I’m confident that he’d not be pleased with the portrayal of himself and the organization that was his life’s work in this AHS episode. He designed Satanism as an atheist philosophy of individualism, rational self-interest and personal fulfillment and he did not want that confused with Devil-worshipping, reverse Christianity. Our organization’s spokespersons have long been dispelling that misapprehension, particularly during the years of “The Satanic Panic” when talk shows were promoting urban legend and Christian-fostered hysteria as fact," a spokesperson wrote.
In case you missed it, this week's episode of the popular FX series centered on the upbringing of season 7 antagonist Michael Langdon. His grisly backstory was rife with murder and mayhem which apparently took off after Langdon was taken in by the Church of Satan and its founder, LaVey.
A key scene shows Langdon, LaVey and two followers participating in human sacrifice. The Church of Satan official says that assuming LaVey was a "Devil-worshipping boogeyman" is "both a disservice and an insult to the memory of a true iconoclast who had a fine sense of humor, but who also was deeply serious about offering an alternative to the world’s spiritual doctrines."
The Church also threw in an opinion that fans of all faiths can all get behind: Jessica Lange, Frances Conroy and Sarah Paulson are amaaaazing.
