Pastor Responds to Ex-City Council Member Hailing Satan

During the opening prayer at the Ottumwa, Iowa, city council meeting on October 6, 2026, former city council member Matthew Dalbey, a member of the Church of Satan, delivered a prayer hailing Satan.

He addressed the “dark father” and urged listeners to “embrace the Luciferian impulse to eat of the tree of knowledge, and dissipate our blissful and comforting delusions of old.”

Dalbey continued: “Dear dark father, let us stand now, unbowed and unfed by arcane doctrines born of fearful minds in darkened times. 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.”

The prayer concluded with: “That which will not bend must break, and that which can be destroyed by truth should never be spared its demise. It is done. Hail satan.” Following this, the crowd proceeded to the Pledge of Allegiance.

A pastor at the meeting stood up and stated: “Let’s just reverse that curse that was just put on our city, that ending with hail Satan and hail dark god, that’s not welcome here.”

Councilmember Cara Galloway objected, saying the response needed to wait until the end of the meeting, but the pastor insisted: “That needs to be done now.”

Mayor Benjamin Foote overruled the objection and allowed a 30-second period for prayer or silence “to reflect on whatever it is we need to reflect on at this time.”

Dalbey has said that Satanists do not actually worship Satan, stating: “Yeah, they call themselves Satanist. But, you know, I understand their metaphor there, but that’s no big deal. I like what they stand for.”

Councilmember Cara Galloway defended the invocation, saying: “I think we’ve opened ourselves up for others to object or respond to others’ invocations, and we need to remember that we are up here to be neutral and allow viewpoints, because we’ve opened up invocations.”