An Iowa pastor fought back after a city council meeting was opened with a Satanic prayer on Tuesday, saying it was a “curse” on the city.
Former council member Matt Dalbey, who is reportedly a member of the Satanic Temple of Iowa, opened the meeting with an invocation, Fox News reported Wednesday.
“Let us pray. Dear dark father,” he continued:
Let us embrace the Luciferian impulse to eat of the tree of knowledge and dissipate our blissful and comforting delusions of old. Let us demand that individuals be judged for their concrete actions, not their fealty to arbitrary social norms and illusory categorizations. Let us reason our solutions with agnosticism in all things, holding fast only to that which is demonstrably true. Let us stand firm against any and all arbitrary authority that threatens the personal sovereignty of one or all. That which will not bend must break, and that which can be destroyed by truth should never be spared its demise. It is done.
Dalbey conclude with “Hail Satan,” before walking away from the podium:
Moments later, New Life Center Pastor Rick Bick stood behind the microphone and stated that such a prayer was not welcome.
“Let’s just reverse that curse that was put on our city. That ending with ‘Hail Satan’ and ‘Hail dark god,’ that’s not welcome here,” he declared:
However, even though City Council member Cara Galloway said Bick’s comments should be dealt with at the end of the meeting, the pastor continued to push back.
He said, “It needs to be done now. I appreciate what Ms. Galloway is saying, but that was a curse put on the city. When he said ‘Hail Satan’ and ‘Oh dark god,’ most of you know that, and we need to just stop and reverse it.”
Ottumwa Mayor Benjamin Foote asked for a few moments of silence for prayer and reflection despite Galloway trying to move past the issue.
The Satanic Temple had erected a holiday homage to the occult “deity” Baphomet in the Iowa Statehouse in late 2023, and a Christian U.S. Navy veteran was later charged with a hate crime after admitting to beheading the statue, Breitbart News reported.
Michael Cassidy said he tore down the statue to “awaken Christians to the anti-Christian acts promoted by our government.”
In August, Breitbart News reported, “The left-wing American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Iowa is joining forces with the Satanic Temple in a lawsuit over requests regarding a ‘family-friendly’ holiday event in the state’s Capitol rotunda.”
In a statement to Fox about the recent prayer incident, Foote stated, “This is not a reflection of our community. As the mayor of my hometown in Iowa, I know the people of Ottumwa, and the invocation read at the start of Tuesday’s meeting does not represent the faith or the values of families who call this city home.”
Ottumwa reportedly adopted an invocation policy earlier this year that said it does not endorse a particular faith or religious denomination.
Click here to read more about the pro-abortion Satanic Temple.
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