A Bournemouth councillor is urging his colleagues to resist the destruction of their tradition following a legal ruling banning prayers at the start of council meetings.

The High Court backed an anti-religious campaign to abolish official acts of worship last week, and Councillor Blair Crawford has written to colleagues asking them to ‘act together in diverse harmony to uphold their right to pray together’.

In Bournemouth, the prayers are not included in the council summons or reflected in the formal minutes but are said before the formal meeting commences, so that anyone can choose to opt out of the prayers.

They are led by the mayor’s chaplain, currently a Church of England vicar.

Blair, a Christian and ordained minister, led council in prayer at their last full council meeting because the chaplain was not there.

He points out that, based on the 2001 Census, the majority of people in our community subscribe to some form of religious belief.

“If we truly stand for democratic freedom and religious tolerance, we should avoid being manipulated by minority viewpoints, however vocal and militant the position taken,” Cllr Crawford writes in his letter to colleagues.

“When we stand in the council chamber we represent everyone. The fact that we can all stand together, irrespective of our personal religious viewpoint or lack of the same reflects our unity in diversity.

“It is tolerance and respect of the highest order. We seek to promote religious and multi-racial tolerance in our community. When we pray together in the chamber, we demonstrate a tolerance that we would hope to see reflected here.

“Is this not a commendable example for us to uphold?”

But chair of Dorset Humanists David Warden supported the High Court judgment. He asks why any Christian would want to impose Christian prayers on non-Christians in a secular setting.

“The integrity of Christianity is at stake,” he said. “Christian practice is not something to be imposed on others in a public setting.

“That looks like bullying. The judgment leaves open the option for prayers in the chamber just before the formal meeting, and for silent reflection at the start of the formal meeting.

“What could be fairer than that?”

Rev Ian Terry, team rector of Bournemouth Town Centre Parish believes a foundation stone of our understanding of how human beings are ‘wired-up’ is being taken away.

“Laws, and their interpretation and implementation in local government, are necessary for the thriving of human community,” he says. “An unreflective interpretation of law could be disastrous. Prayer offers opportunity for reflection.

“ Further, it is taking law out of the context of the divine law of mercy, and of the divine cherishing of each individual, to remove prayer from the borough council’s deliberations.

“These divine imperatives should assist us in safeguarding the needy and vulnerable, so that all are not crushed under the merciless hammer of cost-effectiveness.”

“However, it is the basic misunderstanding of humanity that is most at fault.

“All human beings have spiritual capacity. That capacity is richly diverse.

“I am sure we should resist most strongly suggestions of spiritual or religious uniformity.

“I am equally sure that we should resist, with no less strength, the forceful removal of spirituality from the interpretation and implementation of our laws.

“Put simply, open-ended prayers – which connect with our spiritual capacities without pre-empting the result – are a very good thing.”