Monica Yant Kinney | In Coatesville, Jesus governs

Lord knows, Coatesville could use a miracle or two. But could ministers moonlighting as City Council members wind up costing the struggling city big bucks for crossing the line between church and state?

Anyone who's ever attended a government meeting knows they often begin with a short, intentionally generic prayer. In Coatesville, recent council sessions sound like a Sunday service.

There's City Council President Patsy Ray comparing herself to Jesus and urging citizens to stand up, join hands and pray.

There's City Councilman Kurt Schenk vowing, "I will die before I deny my savior."

Amens and applause fill the audience. Especially when Linda Lavender - a $29,926 aide to State Rep. Tim Hennessey (R., Chester), who told me she was "representing Jesus" on her own time - takes the microphone as "a Christian struggling to be the very best I can."

Ray is a Democrat, Schenk a Republican. Both are ministers, devout and devoted to their day jobs.

Ray leads a self-described Home Gospel Mission. Schenk preaches at Union United Methodist in Nottingham. His business card says "God Is Good All the Time."

That includes the second and fourth Monday nights of the month, at council meetings in Coatesville, a town of 11,000 and what's left of Lukens Steel.

Ten years ago, I wrote a 1,298-word front-page story with the headline, "Coatesville awaits its downtown renaissance." Guess what? Still waiting.

When Schenk took office last year, the city was $19 million in debt and had no money to open its pools. The police chief had left in May. Both the city manager and his assistant recently had been charged with DUI.

As you can see, Schenk said, "Our city is in desperate need of prayer."

Schenk thinks council meetings are as good a place as any to pray. Especially with ministers leading the proceedings.

"This is who I am," he said. "I can't change that."

At the Feb. 12 meeting, Schenk began with, "Holy Father, we commend this city into your hands."

Ray proclaimed, "I am like Jesus, I'll stand!" and, "I will serve the people as my God."

After receiving a complaint from local citizens, an atheist who leads the Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia came to Coatesville, gently urging "a policy of neutrality."

"Invocations, no matter how comforting or traditional, no matter how generic or nondenominational, always exclude someone," Margaret Downey of the church-state watchdog group said at the Feb. 26 meeting.

Schenk insisted he never meant to offend, but wouldn't stop praying. Ray refused to apologize, saying, "God is the head of my house. God is who made me what I am."

I e-mailed audio clips of recent council meetings to Florida State University law professor Steven Gey, a leading church-state scholar.

"What a trip," he said by phone yesterday after listening to the recordings and reading about the debate.

Courts high and low have consistently ruled that government prayer is constitutional only if non-sectarian, non-coercive, and in no way an official endorsement of any faith.

"In Coatesville," he told me, "it looks like they violated all three."

Mentioning Jesus is a no-no. So is having citizens stand and hold hands.

"They're clearly endorsing religion," Gey explained. "They said it's God's government."

Well, isn't it? Schenk asks, quoting from a God-loving part of the Pennsylvania Constitution that he thinks the atheists ignore on purpose.

Instead of chatting with the city solicitor, Schenk told me, he consulted a team of church-affiliated lawyers for the green light to keep the faith.

The lawyers are even helping him craft a resolution so the council can affirm its belief in the power of prayer - ACLU and atheists be damned.

"If this would go to court," Schenk said, "it would set a precedent."

But if the precedent costs so much it keeps Coatesville in the red and near-dead, will they say it's God's will?