{"id":87281,"date":"2026-10-08T08:33:37","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T12:33:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/?p=87281"},"modified":"2026-10-08T08:33:37","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T12:33:37","slug":"a-satanic-invocation-at-city-council-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/a-satanic-invocation-at-city-council-meeting\/","title":{"rendered":"A Satanic Invocation At City Council Meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>From Ottumwa Courier:<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"subscriber-preview\">\n<p>An invocation at the beginning of Tuesday&#8217;s Ottumwa City Council meeting overshadowed everything else that took place over the course of 80 minutes. Resident and former council member Matt Dalbey read a satanic prayer \u2014 capped off by &#8220;Hail Satan&#8221; \u2014 to kick off the meeting at City Hall, leading to a reaction from New Life Center pastor Rick Bick during a contentious opening few minutes of the meeting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"subscriber-only\">\n<p>In a private message, Dalbey said the prayer is used by the Satanic Temple of Iowa, of which he is a member, &#8220;but has nothing to do with the <span style=\"color: #000000;\">belief in a satanic deity.&#8221; The Satanic Temple of Iowa is &#8220;a resolutely non-theistic&#8221; religious organization that follows seven core tenants, <a style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"https:\/\/thesatanictemple.com\/pages\/church-of-satan-vs-satanic-temple\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">according to its website<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From Ottumwa Courier: An invocation at the beginning of Tuesday&#8217;s Ottumwa City Council meeting overshadowed everything else that took place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-news","entry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87281"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87282,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87281\/revisions\/87282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}