A Pastafarian Pastor Led A Government-Sponsored Prayer Session In Alaska
Believe it or not, one of the funniest news headlines of 2019 came from a Pastafarian pastor who led a live, government-sponsored prayer session.
The session was reportedly intended to mock the absurdity of the obvious attachment between church and state in daily government business but the result was one of the best satirical performances of the year.
Not many are familiar with Pastafarianism ,which was founded under the Church of The Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) back in 2005. Since then, the FSM has garnered a sizable following of people who are frustrated with organized religion.
Among them is Barrett Fletcher, who founded his local Pastafarian chapter in 2016 after the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly implemented a policy allowing nontraditional religions to conduct pre-meeting invocations. Fletcher argued that the invocation of any religious prayer before state-sponsored meetings was “offensive.”
Thus in September, Fletcher led a public prayer before a government meeting on behalf of the Pastafarians. The Alaska Supreme Court ruled last year that nontraditional faiths were allowed to participate in these sessions after Nebraska U.S. District Court Judge John Gerard denied the Spaghetti Monster church’s standing as a religion in America on the basis that the religion was “satire,” which the FSM’s own website seems to confirm.
“A few of the assembly members seem to feel that they can’t do this work without being overseen by a higher authority,” Fletcher began in his “prayer,” “So I”m called to invoke the power of the true inebriated creator of the universe, drunken tolerator of the all lesser and more recent gods, and maintainer of gravity here on Earth.”
He added: “May the great Flying Spaghetti Monster rouse himself from his stupor and let his noodle appendages ground each assembly member in their seats.”
Fletcher’s facetious speech lasted around 90 seconds but was enough to rouse some chuckles and even offend some people inside the meeting room who turned their backs during the prayer.
