TULSA — An atheist will give the opening prayer Thursday before the Tulsa City Council meeting.

“As far as I know, I’ll be the first to offer a secular invocation,” said Dan Nerren, one of the founders of the Humanist Association of Tulsa.

Nerren is a retired railroad employee and a former Southern Baptist who said he became an atheist after reading a book about contradictions in the Bible.

He said several atheist groups have been petitioning the council for several years to halt sectarian prayers without success, but the council did agree to allow an invocation by a nontheist group.