Iowa city council erupts after ‘hail Satan’ opening — but does the Establishment Clause protect it?
On October 6, at an Ottumwa, Iowa, City Council meeting, former council member Matt Dalbey — a member of The Satanic Temple of Iowa — delivered the opening invocation. In it, he addressed the “dark father,” referred to the “Luciferian impulse to eat of the tree of knowledge,” and concluded with the words “It is done. Hail Satan.”Despite the Satanic Temple’s claims to be non-theistic, local pastor Rick Bick called it a curse on the city that needed to be reversed.BlazeTV host of "Strange Encounters" Rick Burgess agrees. Even though he believes the Satanic Temple “really is more of an agnostic movement” designed to test the limits of “freedom of religion,” he nonetheless takes invocations of Satan as matters of spiritual seriousness.Council Member Bill Hoffman, however, disagreed with Bick, saying, “I'm a Christian man with Christian values. That doesn't mean I don't want to observe his First Amendment right. It just means that I want to use my rights not to observe that.”Rick agrees with this sentiment too, but with a caveat.“I'd certainly agree with that, but I think that we think that somehow freedom of religion would include something as dark and blasphemous as this, and honestly, if you look at the history of our country, it just never did,” he says. “The Establishment Clause was designed for one thing and one thing only,” Rick explains, “that we would not have a government-sanctioned denomination of the Christian faith.”“You find nowhere in our history — nowhere — that anybody outside of Christianity was ever allowed to have a devotion” or “pray,” he adds.Our founding fathers, he says, made this clear.“We know that Thomas Jefferson … didn't believe in the miracles of the Bible, but even he said that the separation of the church and the state is a one-way wall and is protecting the Christian church from the government, not the government from the influence of Christian values,” Rick says.“So for us to think that our Constitution allows for satanic prayer at any kind of government meeting is just not true. It was never the intent because [the founders] never did it. They didn't even allow other religions,” he continues. “All that was allowed was Christianity, and this was more of a discussion that we're not going to have an official denomination — not that anybody with any claim of a religious belief can now have the floor.”As for Dalbey’s prayer, Rick believes it doesn’t matter if he worships Satan or not; the words he speaks still hold power.“I would give him a stern warning,” he says.“He's playing with a very dark powerful force that is real, whether he believes it or not. And if you choose to be agnostic, well, then it's the same thing as being a satanist, because there is no middle ground. You're either for God and you stand with God and you believe in the one and only living God or you don't.”To hear more, watch the episode above.Want more from Rick Burgess?To enjoy more bold talk and big laughs, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
An opening invocation by a member of The Satanic Temple at an Iowa City Council meeting has ignited debate regarding religious freedom and the Establishment Clause. While some view it as a blasphemous act that historical precedent does not permit, others defend the speaker’s First Amendment rights, even if they disagree with the content. The core of the argument rests on the interpretation of the Establishment Clause, with claims that it was intended solely to prevent a government-sanctioned denomination of Christianity, not to open the floor to all religious or non-religious invocations.
- A member of The Satanic Temple delivered an invocation at an Ottumwa, Iowa, City Council meeting, concluding with “Hail Satan.”
- Local pastor Rick Bick condemned the invocation as a curse, while Council Member Bill Hoffman defended the speaker’s First Amendment rights.
- BlazeTV host Rick Burgess believes the Satanic Temple tests the limits of religious freedom but takes Satanic invocations seriously.
- Burgess argues that the Establishment Clause was intended to prevent a government-sanctioned Christian denomination, not to allow all forms of prayer.
- He contends that historical precedent shows only Christianity was permitted for devotions or prayers at government meetings.
- Burgess warns that the words spoken in the invocation hold power, regardless of the speaker’s personal beliefs, and equates agnosticism with satanism due to a lack of middle ground between believing in God or not.
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