Republican Governor Sonny Perdue of Georgia brought hundreds of the faithful to the steps of the Georgia Capitol building to participate in a state-sponsored, Christian-inflected prayer for rain on Tuesday, November 13. Perdue adopted the role of minister as he intoned:
Our Father, as we come before you today, we acknowledge that we are needy people, and we need you. It is you that we need, and it is your power and your miracles that we need.
And, Father, we call upon you today to meet that need. Father, we acknowledge our wastefulness. We acknowledge that we have not done those things that we should. And, God, we call upon you today to meet that need. We do believe in miracles. We do believe that you are the miracle Creator, the Creator that established the water and the land and the air and even us.
God, we need you. We need rain. Father, may we go forth in this place today with bended hearts towards you, acknowledging our total and utter dependence upon you moment by moment for your blessings. Father, forgive us, and lead us to honor you, as you honor us with the showers of blessings.
Thank you, Lord, for the rain to come. Amen.
Yes, said Perdue, the people of Georgia are totally and utterly dependent upon God for the situation in which they find themselves. It’s not like they’ve had anything to do with their current water shortage. And Perdue has called down God’s power as the miracle Creator to solve Georgia’s water problems with a prayer vigil including hundreds of religious and political leaders and headed by himself.
This offers the opportunity for a great empirical test. Will the prayers of these religious and political leaders bring any unusual rain to Georgia? Sonny Perdue has acknowledged himself that this is a test of sorts. When 0.21 inches of rain fell on Atlanta on Thursday, Perdue responded to the news by calling it a “great affirmation of what we asked for…. I am just a person who believes it comes from God.”
Here’s the test. The average rainfall for the city of Atlanta in the month of November is 4.10 inches. Divided by thirty for each of the thirty days of November, that gives us an average expected rainfall each day of 0.13666 inches. If Governor Sonny Perdue and his coterie of publicly devout religious leaders (whatever happened to Matthew 6:5?) have succeeded in their prayers, then Georgia should receive an above-average rainfall during the succeeding days. If, on the other hand, Georgia receives less rainfall than average in the remaining days of November, it’s a sign that either a) the power of prayer proved bogus in this instance, or b) God has rejected Republican Governor Sonny Perdue and his politically religious pals.
On November 13, the day that Sonny Perdue and his hundreds of political and religious allies prayed so publicly (with the apparently magnifying tools of microphones and cameras), there was no rain whatsoever. But we’ll give them a pass. Maybe there’s a processing delay up in Heaven, you know, like a bandwidth issue, or a spam filter, or something else like that. From November 14 to November 30, we’ll track the actual rainfall in Atlanta and compare it to the expected amount so far. We’ll also track results for each day to see the great or not so great effect Perdue’s prayers wrought.
Two full days, November 14 and November 15, have passed so far. Let’s see the great effect wrought by the prayer of Sonny and The Gang:
Well, one out of two days — the one day that Republican Governor Sonny Perdue told the press was an affirmation of his prayer — was above average in rainfall. But the other day was below average. Overall, Atlanta has had 0.017 fewer inches of rain than average since Governor Perdue and his ministerial supporters set up their prayer show.
We’ll keep tracking as the days march on, but it doesn’t look good for either God, or Sonny Perdue, or perhaps both: there are only a few hours left to November 16, and the average hasn’t been met. The forecast for Atlanta tomorrow? Sunny with a 10 percent chance of precipitation.
(Sources: Atlanta Journal-Constitution November 15 2007; Weather records for Georgia November 2007; CNN November 13 2007)
They’ve obviously got the wrong denomination praying on this one. My uncle can pray for rain before a meal during a drought and have water overflowing the gutters before dessert.
These guys are lightweights.
Seems god went and petered himself out. Am I the only one who thought “Maybe they should call up some Indians and ask them to preform a rain dance?”
Of course the religious people have an out in the time factor (it could take longer than your imposed time limit), that God works in mysterious ways (ie. silly humans can’t understand him – which of course leads to agnosticism – but they don’t see it that way), and that maybe they are being punished for their transgressions (no, not to the obvious environment, you know – SINS), which means they’re rationalizing the non-answer to their prayers, but not giving up on them. They’re just full of hypocrisies.