Let us pray? South Jersey town at odds with faithful over prayer at meetings

For as long as locals can remember, the Woodbury City Council opened its business meetings with prayer.

But in the latest move to showcase the Gloucester County community as a welcoming place for people from all walks of life, city leaders have eliminated the prayer tradition. Instead, the council last month began its meeting with a moment of reflection under a policy announced in February.

"At that time, everybody can pray the way they want or they don't have to pray at all," said Mayor Jessica M. Floyd. "Nobody can be offended."

The issue has divided religious and political leaders in the city of nearly 10,000, which is home to more than two dozen places of worship, mostly Christian. It was founded in 1683 and settled as a Quaker religious center.

"It is sad that a tradition, which has existed for hundreds of years, has been stopped," council member Kenneth J. McIlvaine, who is Catholic, said Friday. "I am unhappy and disappointed the invocation has ended."

About 50 people, mostly from local churches, packed a meeting Monday with the newly created Human Rights Commission to share their concerns. Clergy members on both sides of the issue were passionate during the debate, which lasted about two hours.

"God is in full control of whether they have it or not," said the Rev. Norwood Cuff, pastor of Campbell AME Church. "I have my own convictions. I'm not going to fight it."

The seven-member commission earlier this year asked the city to change the prayer tradition, which is believed to date back hundreds of years, said Tony Doran, commission chairman. Some residents and city employees who were required to attend council meetings said they were uncomfortable with the prayer, he said.

"We really think that diversity and inclusion for everybody make us a better community," Doran said in an interview this week. "We're looking out for everybody."

Last year, the council adopted a citywide anti-discrimination policy and launched a promotional effort to brand Woodbury, the county seat, as a welcoming place for LGBTQ visitors and residents. Rainbow banners were placed along Broad Street, the city's main thoroughfare.

In a message on the city's website, Floyd, a Sunday school teacher at St. Stephen's Lutheran Church, says: "Woodbury is full of diversity, making it a great place to raise open-minded and tolerant children. Our residents take pride in being a welcoming community that embraces people of all walks of life."

"I go to church to practice my faith," said Floyd. "For anybody who's not Christian, I can see why it would be uncomfortable."

Doran said removing the prayer from the council meetings has nothing to do with the gay pride branding movement. The intent, he said, was to "bring more people together who historically felt excluded by the invocation."

Council President Tracey L. Parker made the decision to remove prayer from the February meeting agenda, a move that Floyd said she backed. Some council members were irked that they were not given a vote on the matter. Parker did not respond to a request for comment.

Only four Gloucester County towns – Clayton, Elk, Monroe and West Deptford –  currently open their meetings with an invocation, according to a survey conducted by Woodbury. Nine towns have a moment of silence, five allow a prayer only at the annual reorganization meeting and three on special occasions.

"I believe there has to be prayer, whether aloud or silent," the Rev. Glenn DeShields, of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Woodbury, said Friday. As a compromise, the council should consider a standardized prayer that doesn't mention "Jesus, Buddha or Muhammad," he said.

"There has to be something workable so that we can still pray," DeShields said.

The Freedom from Religion Foundation has rigorously opposed government bodies opening their meetings with prayer, arguing that it is inappropriate. The group, based in Madison, Wis., believes that citizens tending to business matters with their local government "should not be subjected to a religious show or test, or be expected to bow heads and demonstrate religious obeisance at a government function."

"We fail to see why divine guidance is needed over such earthly matters, anyway," the group argues on its website.

In 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that legislative bodies, including city councils, can begin their meetings with prayer, even if it plainly favors a specific religion. The court cited history and tradition in finding that Christian prayers said before meetings of an upstate New York town council did not violate the constitutional prohibition against government establishment of religion.

"Ceremonial prayer is but a recognition that, since this nation was founded and until the present day, many Americans deem that their own existence must be understood by precepts far beyond the authority of government," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in the decision.

The prayer practice in the New York town of Greece, just outside Rochester, bears resemblance to the custom that had been used in Woodbury for years. In both cases, the council regularly opened its meetings with a prayer delivered by a community member. The speakers, recruited from local houses of worship, were overwhelmingly Christian.

McIlvane said he would like to have the invocation reinstated, but agreed with some religious leaders in acknowledging that prayer could be offensive to those who may not share his Christian beliefs. He said he would likely feel uncomfortable if certain groups with views counter to his were invited to give the invocation.

During the moment of reflection, McIlvane said, he plans to "mindfully ask for my Lord's help in guiding the city council to deliberate and return moral, practical and prudent decisions that will benefit the citizens of our diverse and welcoming community. In doing this, I believe my father will reward all of us."