DARWIN City Council has rejected a push to remove the Lord’s Prayer from the start of its meetings after receiving letters from religious objectors.

They now plan to open their meetings with a “welcome to country” message acknowledging the “Larrakia people” as Darwin’s  “traditional owners”:

“We the members of Darwin City Council acknowledge that we are meeting on Larrakia country. We pay our respects to all Larrakia people both past and present. We are committed to working together with the Larrakia to care for this land and sea for our shared future.”

Then will come the Lord’s Prayer. Then the meeting will start.

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Darwin mayor, Graeme Sawyer, has announced that the Lord’s Prayer will remain, “not as a religious artefact — it’s there as an artefact of the Western democratic principles that Local Government comes out of.”

Perhaps he hasn’t thought about the words of that prayer:

“OUR FATHER, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy Kingdom come; thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

“Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.  Amen.”

This prayer, devised by Jesus Christ himself, firstly acknowledges God as King of the Universe and that his will must prevail — not the will of the Larrakia people or of Western democratic processes.

It then asks God to make us fit to be participants in setting up his Kingdom. Saying this prayer is to pledge oneself to strive for absolute perfection in obeying the Christian God.

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It’s great that Darwin’s councillors will be committing themselves to this prayer at their meetings. May God help them — and all of us — to be genuine in our commitment to God in everything we do.