A key battleground for local Christian Nationalism is the small Washington State community of Battle Ground. Sitting just north of the Columbia River that separates the Evergreen State from Oregon, it’s been the target of a Doug Wilson-inspired businessman who many believe is trying to transform the community of about 24,000 people into a Christian Nationalist enclave. The local city council recently voted to start official meetings with a prayer, with the first one occurring on Monday (Oct. 5). But it didn’t quite sound like how backers of the move thought it would.
“Hail Satan and hail yourself,” the person giving the prayer declared.
The first person selected to offer an official invocation at the city government meetings was a representative of The Satanic Temple. A similar city council invocation with a “Hail Satan” the next day in Ottumwa, Iowa, sparked outrage on social media from some Christian Nationalists. Like Micah Beckwith, a pastor who is also the lieutenant governor of Indiana: “This is what happens when Christians stay home and don’t engage in defending God’s Truth in the culture.”
Beckwith, as usual, got his facts backward. The “Hail Satan” invocations actually occurred precisely because some Christians tried to inject sectarian faith into government meetings. The new policies passed in the two communities this year to start government meetings with prayer were the result of advocacy by those pushing Christian Nationalism!
While the U.S. Supreme Court allowed sectarian prayers at city council meetings in its 2014 Town of Greece v. Galloway ruling, inviting local faith leaders to lead such prayers automatically opens the door for a variety of prayers in a pluralistic society. And that’s what happened this week in Washington and Iowa.
Screengrab of the invocation to start the city council meeting in Battle Ground, Washington, on Oct. 5, 2026.
The resolution passed by the Battle Ground City Council in August set the process for who prays as “a rotating, first-come, first-served basis.” And first up was The Satanic Temple. Similarly, the Ottumwa City Council passed its policy in January that any resident could request to be placed on the list on a “first-come, first-serve basis.” It took a bit longer, but The Satanic Temple made it on the schedule for this week after prayers by Baptist, Pentecostal, and other individuals and just ahead of a Catholic priest on the list for the next meeting.
The Washington case is particularly ironic given an ongoing effort to transform the community into a Christian city, much like Wilson is trying to do in Moscow, Idaho. Instead, the city council officially included for the first time an invocation to Satan. So this issue of A Public Witness pulls back the curtain to explore this self-defeating Christian Nationalist effort.
A Christian Nationalist Battle Ground
Over the past six years, close to three dozen properties in Battle Ground have been bought up by various corporations owned by Camden Spiller. He’s CEO of Maddox Industrial Transformer, the fast-growing company in the city as the AI-data center boom is increasing demand. Yet, as his company manufactures electrical transformers, many in Battle Ground are raising alarms that he’s trying to transform the community. Then in June, Spiller and his brother bought the city’s only newspaper.
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