The Tenets function as the Temple's statement of values and underpin its activism for bodily autonomy, science, and equal treatment of belief. Their emphasis on empathy, personal responsibility, and evidence sets The Satanic Temple's non-theistic Satanism close, in ethical substance, to secular humanism, while its Satanic framing signals opposition to authoritarian religion. The affirmation is described here as the Temple's own declared code, expressing a morality grounded in compassion and reason rather than in divine command.
The Temple's formal status as a religion was contested for years: after an earlier application was rejected, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service granted The Satanic Temple recognition as a tax-exempt church in 2019, a decision the organisation had actively sought as both a practical and a symbolic victory, since it placed Satanic Temple congregations on the same federal legal footing as any conventional church, synagogue, or mosque. The recognition did not resolve the more informal public debate over whether an explicitly non-theistic organisation using Satanic imagery is a "real" religion, a question the Temple's own leadership has answered by pointing to the sincerity of its members' ethical commitments as the relevant test, consistent with how the Tenets themselves function as its actual creed.