Posted on 10/13/2026 2:22:07 AM PDT by Cronos
A city council meeting in Iowa took a dark turn earlier this week when a former member opened the meeting by praising Satan in his invocation.
Onetime Ottumwa City Council member Matt Dalbey began the meeting by praying to the “dark father” to “embrace the Luciferian impulse to eat from the tree of knowledge” before concluding his prayer with “Hail Satan.”
But New Life Center Pastor Rick Bick did not go along to get along. As soon as the council concluded their recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance following the demonic prayer, Bick interrupted the meeting by demanding that Dalbey’s evil prayer be renounced.
“Let’s just reverse this curse that was put on our city,” Bick exclaimed. “That ending with ‘Hail Satan’ or ‘Hail dark god,’ that’s not welcome here.”
City Council member Cara Galloway asked Bick to refrain from further comments until such time scheduled later in the meeting for public feedback. But Bick refused.
“It needs to be done now,” he said. “I appreciate what Ms. Galloway is saying, but that was a curse put on the city. When he said, ‘Hail Satan’… most of you know that, and we need to just stop and reverse it.”
Mayor Benjamin Foote responded by overruling Galloway and asked for 30 seconds of silence to allow for prayer and reflection. What does the town believe?
Foote told Fox News Digital: “This is not a reflection of our community,” he said. “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.”
The Ottumwa Courier reports that the city’s invocation policy, adopted in January, does not endorse any faith or religious denomination but is intended “to acknowledge and express the City Council’s respect for the diversity of both organized and unorganized religious denominations, as well as other faiths, belief systems, or the lack thereof, represented and practiced among the citizens of the City of Ottumwa.”
After the meeting, Galloway said that facilitating an invocation before city council meetings invites such controversy.
“I just want to remind us that again, sometimes things are said that we may not agree with ... and while you're allowed to do the moment of silence and that kind of thing too, I think we’ve opened ourselves up for others to object or respond to others’ invocations,” she continued. “And we need to remember that we are up here to be neutral and allow viewpoints because we’ve opened up invocations.”
Council member Bill Hoffman told Fox News Digital that he left the meeting once Dalbey began his remarks and returned in time for the Pledge of Allegiance.
“I’m a Christian, with Christian values,” Hoffman said. “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.”
These three evil sects are at odds with, and seek to DESTROY, the Constitution.
Therefore they do NOT deserve First Amendment Protection against religious persecution or curtailed free speech.
They are neither. They seek to imprison and kill all of us normals.
They are advocating the overthrow of the United States and its laws, courts, and Constitution.
Just listen to them -- they will confirm this.
There is no "Coexist" possible -- all three clearly state rebellion from, and destruction of, all practitioners of Christianity and Judaism as their goals.
People need to understand and internalize this, and our laws need to codify this reality, and step one is to go back to church and start internalizing the Bible.
Without a strong mental foundation of what the US is (a nation built on the Bible) we will be defeated by these people, who heretofore were content to merely watch us decline. NOW, however, they are on the move!
We must not bend ourselves into a twisted heap to make Communists, Moose Limbs, and satanists at home here in America.
We are NOT a country of atheists and agnostics and deists.
We either defend this reality from their attacks or THEY will impose THEIR reality on us by force. That means enslavement and death at their hands.
It is that simple.
This is not a problem that the Founding Fathers faced; it is different. But it is no less a total and iminent threat to our survival.
The First Amendment is not an affirmative defense of religion. The First Amendment is a blocker against the government from instituting laws regarding establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. You have to read the Bill of Rights as an affirmation that we have these rights and there’s nothing government can do about it. That means, unfortunately, that Satanists and Islamists are free to practice their faith without government intervention.
This is not a tent into which we want to introduce the camel’s nose, and SCOTUS has been pretty solid on this for centuries. Remember that the First Amendment means you can say whatever you want. That doesn’t mean that others have to like it, believe it, share it, embrace it, or otherwise, but it does protect those individuals. Establishing any laws banning Satanism or Islam would mean that jurisprudence allows for banning of other religions as well, and the government cannot establish a religion vis-a-vis Christianity despite our founding being based thereupon.
We push back against these evils by being out and out adherent and proselytizers of Christ’s word. THAT is our fundamental problem right now. Christianity is on the wane because Americans forgot what it means to be Christian. We need to get butts into pews again and bring back the love of God across our nation.
Notice I didn’t mention communism? Communism isn’t a religion, and if memory serves, there were laws passed in the 50s banning communism and, I believe, socialism as political ethics. I think that’s why the DSA is being cute with their wording; they know they’ll face court challenges if they outright acclaimed state communism.
The question that people like this should be asked at all times is, "What, exactly, is that supposed to mean? What are the fruits of the tree?"
A serious religious faith, a serious philosphical or ethical system, a morally serious clinical or social psychologist will very quickly develop creeds, a body of teaching, and sets of rules for living both as individuals alone and in community.
I've never met a Satanist, but from the occasional public exhibitions they put on, I get the impression that it all amounts to ... nothing. Underlying nothing will be pure selfishness, a rejection of duties and obligations to others, and an affirmation of egotism. And in today's world, 99 percent of that will be a demand for complete sexual license without consequences.
Has a Satanist ever laid down his life for others, or for an abstract principle understood as a duty to truth or to God? For the Satanist, there is nothing but the almighty ME.
A preview of things to come in the House and Senate if Dems take over. Nearly half of America will be fine with it, as our nation descends into the abyss.
Children playing with matches and trying to frighten the little sister.
Must be a Democrat!!!
That’s the absolute truth.
That’s because satanism follows in the footsteps of the father of lies.
As usual for the libtards.
It is actually a very nice, clean, low crime city.
The weather is problematic.
It can get shockingly cold in winter (-30 F) and really hot and humid in summer.
This story is in Ottumwa, not Iowa City.
The headline refers to Iowa City, which is a real and well known city in Iowa!
It is quite literally not an establishment of religion.
Satanism is a reactionary community that is built upon mocking Christianity exclusively.
It is not contemplated by the establishment clause. Same thing for Flying Spaghetti Monster
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