CLEMSON — Will Clemson City Council meetings open with prayer or won’t they?

That is a question Clemson Council members will take up at a future meeting, but discussions Monday showed council members will bring strong opinions to the table.

Prayer at council meetings was discontinued perhaps 20 years ago, and for a reason, said Mayor Larry Abernathy.

“It was extremely difficult to make sure all faiths were represented,” Abernathy said. “It’s a much, much, much more complicated issue than you might think in a community as diverse as Clemson.”

Abernathy’s comments came after City Administrator Rick Cotton outlined to the council the law passed last spring by the General Assembly allowing public meetings to open with prayer, with three defined methods of delivery. Council member Nancy Bennett, who was absent from Monday’s meeting, had asked at the council’s last meeting that the prayer provision be presented for the council’s consideration.

The council members could rotate the offering of prayer among themselves, elect a chaplain from among them, or invite members of the clergy from the community at large to form a pool among whom the prayer would be rotated, Cotton said.

Before the issue was addressed, Roger Rawlings, with the local Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, implored to council to consider the issue carefully.

The General Assembly’s act did not specify that the invocation be nonsectarian, Rawlings said.

He referred the council to case law stemming from the 2005 case from Great Falls in Chester County. Great Falls lost a lawsuit filed in 2001 claiming it violated the separation between church and state when it used the name Jesus Christ in prayers.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the town's appeal in 2005.

Mayor Abernathy questioned whether the General Assembly’s act would ultimately stand up in court if it were challenged.

“I’m not sure I want to cheapen spirituality by bringing politics into it,” he said.

The mayor suggested as a possible alternative that if council members wanted prayer before meetings they could meet in another room and pray among themselves. Council member J.C. Cook suggested a moment of silence as an alternative.

Mayor Pro Tem Butch Trent disagreed that prayer was out of order at meetings.

“You can do nonsectarian prayers,” Trent said.

Trent cited disparities that troubled him about the issue of prayer, for example, instances of Muslims demanding and getting concessions for their prayers while mentioning Christ was specifically ruled out of prayers.

Trent asked the council to consider the matter at a time when Council member Bennett was attending.

“I want Nancy to have her say,” he said.