Rain Man: Ga. Governor’s Prayer For Precipitation Flouts Founders’ Aims

“It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man is snoring. Bumped his head as he went to bed and couldn’t get up in the morning!”

Oh, how Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue wishes he were the old man in that nursery rhyme, falling asleep to the pitter-patter of raindrops on his window! On Tuesday, Perdue gathered three Protestant ministers, a gospel choir and a crowd of nearly 250 citizens on the steps of the state capitol building to pray for rain.

Georgia is indeed experiencing a devastating drought, but merging religion and government isn’t going to fix it. Government prayer proclamations are bad in general, but this one was particularly egregious because of its overwhelming Christian nature.

The Los Angeles Times reports that Gov. Perdue first led the group in prayer, begging for forgiveness for “our wastefulness” and pledging the “provider of water and land…that we will do better.”

Three Protestant ministers followed Perdue, and a choir led the crowd in “Amazing Grace,” a classic Christian hymn about salvation.

Thomas Jefferson and James Madison must be rolling in their graves. Both founding fathers abhorred government officials directing religious exercises. As president, Jefferson refused to declare days of prayer and fasting. In 1803, he wrote, “I do not believe it is for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct its exercises, its discipline, or its doctrines; nor of the religious societies that the general government should be invested with the power of affecting any uniformity of time or matter among them….”

Many people may not see the harm in a governor publicly praying for rain. The state is in desperate need of precipitation; what’s a little prayer to bring people together?

Jefferson knew that any government-sanctioned religious exercise, even if merely recommended, would endanger citizens’ rights.

In the same 1803 missive, he wrote, “But it is only proposed that I should recommend, not prescribe a day of fasting & prayer. That is, that I should indirectly assume to the U.S. an authority over religious exercises which the Constitution has directly precluded them from. It must be meant too that this recommendation is to carry some authority, and to be sanctioned by some penalty on those who disregard it; not indeed of fine and imprisonment, but of some degree of proscription perhaps in public opinion.”

Madison also tried to avoid government meddling in religion. Although he acquiesced to Congress’ requests for prayer proclamations during the War of 1812, he expressed sincere regret after leaving office.

Prayer proclamations, he wrote in his Detached Memoranda, “seem to imply and certainly nourish the erroneous idea of a national religion….The last & not the least objection is the liability of the practice to a subserviency to political views; to the scandal of religion, as well as the increase of party animosities.”

Two of our greatest founders struggled with government-led prayers over 200 years ago. They came down firmly on the side of church-state separation in order to preserve government’s secular duties and citizens’ religious liberties. It’s ridiculous, really, that our leaders aren’t doing the same today.

On a side note, areas across northern Georgia did receive a half-inch of rain last night. Coincidence? I think so. Local weather reports predicted a 10 to 20 percent chance of rain in the days immediately after the event.

That begs the question, though – what if it doesn’t rain?

By Lauren Smith