Theistic Satanists and Satanic Panic

My friend and colleague, John Smulo, pastor of LifeSong Church in Elk Grove, California, and fellow contributor to Sacred Tribes journal and the Lausanne issue group on postmodern and alternative spiritualities in the West recently made me aware of an online article of interest. The article is by Diane Verna, a theistic Satanist, who wrote the piece titled "Why it behooves Pagans and occultists to oppose a Satanic panic." The article mentions favorably the work of Smulo, Philip Johnson, and myself in the following paragraph:

Among conservative Christian evangelists and apologists, a non-panicky attitude toward Wicca is likely to reflect a non-panicky attitude toward Satanism too. For example, in Wiccans and Christians: some mutual challenges by Philip S. Johnson, the section False witness? briefly mentions a few Satanic-conspiracy scaremongers and the debunking thereof. Johnson's article is on a Christian website which also has an unusually good collection of links on Satanism. A few of the articles listed on that Satanism links page are by John Smulo, an Australian Baptist minister who has debunked common Christian misconceptions about Satanism and is now working to debunk common Christian misconceptions about Wicca. Likewise John Morehead, a Southern Baptist minister here in the U.S.A., has written the article Giving the
Devil More than His Due: Supernatural Sensationalism and the Need for Discernment, debunking some Christians' slanders against a northern California Pagan bookstore while at the same time debunking some anti-Satanist claims.

I am glad to hear that a Satanist appreciates the careful work of some evangelicals as they approach a topic more prone to sensationalism than accuracy in description and analysis.