"Great goddess Athena, great god Apollo, we ask that you impart wisdom in these proceedings today," Jennifer Zarpentine, a Wiccan priestess, prayed at the town board meeting of Greece, New York, in April 2008.
"Help the board to make the right, informed decisions that will benefit the greater good of this community. This we ask of you." As board members continued to bow their heads in prayer, several other meeting attendees responded with the pagan version of amen, "So mote it be."
Thus begins a Christianity Today editorial from a couple of months ago (subtitled "Why we pray before public meetings—and let pagans do the same"). It's a serious article, which is no doubt why the location of this town meeting passes without further comment. To the writer, I suppose, it might as well have been Chili, or Brighton, or any of the other suburbs of Rochester, New York. Being from that part of the state, however, and under no compulsion to be serious, my own first reaction was that nothing could be more appropriate in Greece than prayers to Athena and Apollo.
Why did the rest of the council respond as though they were pagans? Non-believers are not required to say "amen" to a Christian prayer. Why should they be? Good manners dictate respect for a foreign authority, but one should not bow before a king other than the one you swear allegiance to. Or am I overthinking that?
Since it was only "several other" attendees, I assumed some of them were also pagans, and others just thought it sounded good. You know, inclusive and tolerant and cool and all.
