Revising and Extending My Remarks on Georgia Governor Perdue’s Drought Prayer Service

I’ve taken a little heat, via comments and email, from a post I made Monday on the public prayer service in Georgia in response to the regional drought.

In that post, I sought to argue that such an event shouldn’t be viewed too negatively—assuming that the event was non-compulsory, didn’t consume significant state resources, and was interfaith/nondenominational—and that folks protesting the event might be viewed as too mean-spirited, and might actually damage their cause.

After all, under the circumstances, what harm could occur with holding such event…again, assuming that it is non-compulsory, multifaith/nondenominational, and not a significant expenditure of state resources.

While I stand by my assessment, I should point out that the event doesn’t seem to have met the criteria I described. For example, from the AJC I see:

A church choir belted out “What a Mighty God We Serve” and “Amazing Grace” as a keyboardist swayed to the rhythm. While preachers spoke, worshippers chanted “amen,” and some stood with eyes closed and arms outstretched.

“God, we need you,” Perdue said. “We need rain.”

The hourlong event was billed as an interfaith ceremony but only three Protestant ministers joined Perdue, who is a Baptist, and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle.

Some of the video I saw online last night reminded me of church services of a couple of particular flavors of conservative Christianity….and it seems that the benefit of the doubt I sought to extend to the event may have been naïve.

If I were a government official wishing to invoke the power of prayer, due to the direness of the situation, and a lack of anything else tangible that could be done, I’d try to make sure that all the bases were covered. In addition to a couple of bible-thumpers, let’s bring in some liberal Christian priests, a few rabbis, an Orthodox patriarch, a shaman, an imam, etc. (is the Dalai Lama still on campus at Emory?) … even an atheist or a secularist to exhort attendees to be more aggressive in their conservation measures and perhaps to plead for some cloud-seeding.

Sadly, it seems (from afar, at least) that Perdue’s prayer service was probably over-the-line in favoring one group of denominations of one religion over all others. And, while I’m not sure that attempting to hold an active protest is a response I’d choose to such semi-official bias… I think it’s also understandable for folks to express concern about a particular religious preference being semi-officially placed above others.

A silver lining in the black cloud of catastrophe or crisis is that trying times form a powerful basis to foster collaboration and a sense of community. It’s a shame to see a Governor wasting that potential by hosting an event that is inherently divisive and exclusive.