There are reports this year, of an emerging new religion “The Temple of Satan.” This group may have existed for years, but recently it has been getting attention, and apparently attracting many new members. One prominent community is in the city if Ottawa, the capital of Canada. Ottawa is usually a quiet city with tourists and politicians, and government workers. The new ‘Temple’ religion is new and different.

• RELATED: The Rise of the Satanic Temple in Canada: Global News

One of the practices of the group is to ‘unbaptize’ people from Christianity, to undo their conversion and remove them from that religion.

Christians should know that this is very different from traditional atheism and agnosticism. Those ideas have been at the center of western culture for several generations, and are usually called “liberal” and “modernist.” This modern thinking usually refers to ideas like Darwin’s theory of Evolution. Notice that Darwinian Evolution has a universe with no God, no creator. Darwin was trained to be a Christian minister, and he speculated about a universe like a huge machine, that just developed by chance. Somehow the pieces came together over billions of years, to produce us.

That ‘no God’ and ‘believe nothing’ thinking has controlled western culture for about a century, and it has pushed against believers. People who believe in God have been mocked because they believe, when the culture is pushing us to believe in nothing. That’s what educated and intellectual people have been telling us.

That’s how things were, but this new religion is something very different.

Members of the Temple of Satan and similar groups are believers, and they are honest about it. They rebel and oppose instead of rejecting and just not believing. The article about the new ‘Temple’ religion is followed by discussion from readers, and most of it is an argument between Christians and people who oppose Christianity. A few of the comments show the emerging new idea, rebellion.

For example:

“First off, I’m a liberal Jew, so satan is neither here nor there to me. If they are atheists..why belong to a religion at all? Why do you have to “undo” a rite you don’t believe in..if you don’t believe in it, it’s meaningless. Why spend time hailing a metaphor? It seems to me like people with bones to pick with their christian past shock jockeying for attention, and believe what you want, but be ready for people to pick the “theology” apart. Intellectual atheism would laugh its’ head off

 This is what i don’t get..if they are truly atheists and hate christianity, why have they invented a religion that’s an offshoot of it? I don’t care what people believe, but these people look more like kids i knew that skipped their evangelist church, hung out in the basement, dressed goth and listened to death metal to horrify mom and dad.”

Our culture has shifted back to something like the ideas in the Roman Empire, at the time of Jesus and the first Christians. The Romans did not have one God, they had a “Pantheon.” That translates as ‘all the gods’ and a Roman could worship any deity on the approved list. There was a god of war, and a god or goddess of love, and many other characters in the Pantheon.

Christians don’t have many gods, but we have many characters in the story; The three persons of the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son (Jesus), God the Holy Spirit, and the holy Angels, and the Saints (us), and the Devil and a host of demons, fallen angels. The ‘Temple’ religion does not reject everything, it selects one character to worship and obey, from the cast of characters. This is opposition to God, instead of denial and rejection.

The Bible has been predicting this for hundreds of years. Daniel told us about a leader, at the end of history, who would “speak out” and oppose and persecute. And he did not predict a world controlled by educated intellectuals who believe in nothing supernatural:

He will speak out against the Most High and oppress the saints of the Most High, intending to change the set times and laws, and the saints will be given into his hand for a time, and times, and half a time. (Daniel 7:25)

According to the Bible, that is our future; believers who oppose God, not unbelievers who ignore God.

Christians were also told about a rebellion at the end of this age:

Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us, whether by a prophecy or by word of mouth or by letter, asserting that the day of the Lord has already come. Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs (2 Thessalonians 2: 1, 2, and 3)

I don’t want to be a Christian who predicts the Antichrist every time I read the newspaper, but it is interesting that something that seemed impossible has begun to emerge among us. Something that the Bible predicted is now emerging among us, and this is a complete change from the ‘no God’ thinking that has dominated our culture for more than a century.

It appears that something old is new again, and this is a puzzle for non-believing atheists.

For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming. The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. (1 Thessalonians 2: 7 to 9)