A local pastor who prayed Thursday at the start of the City Council meeting declared only two types of people exist on Earth — those who work for God and those who work for the devil.

The invocation, the standard kickoff to all Thursday council meetings, typically is an inclusive prayer.

Religious leaders from various denominations and religions are invited by individual council members and the mayor. The pastors, rabbis, imams and others mostly invoke God for his wisdom. Some mention Jesus in passing.

Rarely do they offer prayer that excludes entire groups of people. But Pastor Theo Wolmarans from Christian Family Church of San Antonio seemed to do just that in his brief invocation.

“Father, we thank you for the privilege we have for being your children. We know that there are many different races and colors and creeds and languages in our world, of which you are the creator of all of these,” he said during the brief invocation. “But even so, out of all of your creation are your children because only those who accept Jesus as their lord and savior are born into your family.

“And so, when you look down upon us today, you see two kinds of people only — those who believe in you and those who don’t know you. Those who believe in you are your children, and you work through your children to bring peace and love and blessing to the earth,” he said. “And the devil works through those who don’t know you to bring confusion and strife and division, the work of the enemy, because he came to steal, to kill and to destroy.”

The nuance of the message delivered by Wolmarans caught some off guard.

State Rep. Diego Bernal, D-San Antonio, a former City Council member who happened to be in council chambers Thursday, said the specific point of the invocation is to bestow blessings and good wishes on the council members who represent all San Antonians. Bifurcating the population with an “us vs. them” mentality doesn’t help matters, he said.

“The invocation is there not for ceremonial purposes … it’s to give the council the strength and wisdom to make decisions in the best interest of the entire community,” he said. “When you draw a line in the sand — or the sky, as it might be — then that defeats the entire purpose.”

Wolmarans did not return calls, placed to his church and personal assistant, seeking comment.

But Mayor Ivy Taylor, who invited the pastor to give the invocation, defended his message.

“I may not have said it in the way he did, but I appreciate his willingness to come down and share from his heart what he felt with San Antonio, and I don’t believe he meant it to be divisive,” she said.

Taylor said she didn’t believe Wolmarans was saying that those who haven’t accepted Jesus are therefore working with the devil. She declined to explain why, however.

“I’m not going to explain to why. I think there are a lot more important things going on down here at City Hall that you can be writing about,” she said.

In her tenure as mayor, Taylor has invited five religious leaders to give the invocation — four protestant pastors and one imam.

“We invite people from varying perspectives and faith walks. I have invited a variety of people to pray, and I can’t dictate what they say and it may be difficult for you to understand, but for some of us, we don’t put this down and take it up when it’s convenient,” she said in an interview. “If you have these beliefs, they are your beliefs when you are praying in front of a City Council or when you’re pastoring at your church or when you’re at the supermarket or when you’re dealing with people who disagree with you.”

Many of her council colleagues, however, reacted a bit differently.

Roberto Treviño, who already had invited Dr. G.P. Singh from the Sikh Center of San Antonio to give next week’s invocation, said he “didn’t like” the message from this week’s prayer.

“I think the idea of the invocation should be an inclusive message, a message of peace. I didn’t like it,” he said. “I think it’s unfortunate. I don’t subscribe to anything that says ‘us vs. them.’ That’s why I felt it’s important that I have a Sikh gentleman coming next week. I want to be inclusive of everyone.”

Others, too, said the pastor’s invocation gave them pause.

“I’m a representative for neighbors who are Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus and more,” said Councilman Ron Nirenberg, whose Northwest Side district is one of the city’s most diverse. “It’s OK that a particular invocation does not speak for all of them. However, it’s entirely different to say that any of them are lesser than the other.”

Others, such as Cris Medina, Ray Lopez and Alan Warrick, had varying reactions. Medina said he always prays for himself during the invocation but that he was “a little surprised” by the pastor’s comments about the devil and those who work with him. Lopez, a devout Catholic, said he was “taken aback to some extent” and he believes there certainly are more than two categories of people on Earth.

“I go back to the pope saying, ‘Who am I to judge.’ He made that very, very clear to us who follow the Catholic teachings,” Lopez said. “That (pastor’s) kind of an attitude seems to imply you’re passing judgment, and my religious leader says I’m not in the position to make that judgment.”

Warrick, meanwhile, said he didn’t take the prayer too seriously, but didn’t think its message brought people together.

“I could see how it could be offensive to others because the majority of the world is not Christian,” he said.

Indeed. According to a Pew Research Center study, in 2010, Christians made up 31.5 percent of the world population. Those numbers track higher in the U.S., other Pew studies show. According to another Pew Research Center study, the U.S. Christian population is on the decline, dropping from 78.4 percent of the population to 70.6 percent between 2007 and 2014.

jbaugh@express-news.net

Twitter: @jbaugh