Alabama city council passes resolution declaring God 'owns' the city

(Photo: Neolyph)

The men and women of Winfield City Council in Alabama signalled their faith and devotion to God by recently passing a resolution declaring it to be a "City under God."

Part of the resolution read, "We acknowledge God is the owner of the City of Winfield and that it is a City under God.

We acknowledge that at all times, He is in control. We acknowledge that through His leadership, the Mayor and City Council will seek his wisdom and knowledge to be good stewards of the city."

"We acknowledge that though prayer, with His guidance and presence, that we will be able to trust that no problem will be too large or too small to overcome," it added.

It was unanimously passed last December and had gone largely unnoticed save for a positive review in the local newspaper the Marion County Journal Record, when the Friendly Atheist blogger got hold of the resolution, and posted it to the Patheos website, saying, "I promise you God has better things to do than take over your city."

Mayor Randy Price said in a telephone interview with Al.com on Tuesday: "It blew up on Facebook last night after the atheists got a hold of it."

However, Price said he and the council do not regret crafting the resolution as he believes it is necessary to defend the place of God in public life.

"It will continue to be bad if we don't start standing up for God and for what's right," he said.

Price also denies that the resolution excludes other religions since he argues that there is but one God.

"I'm going to step on a lot of people's toes but there's not but one God and, that one God, to Him be the glory," Price said.

"There's no other way; there's no other God. There are a lot of religions out there but only one God."