Christian Governer of GA Wants the Holy Ghost to Bring Rain

Post Reply New Topic

(Ain't no rain gonna come from da plastic guy on a cross Rev. Gotta learn how to drop yer idols and trust in One God. One Creator. The one Who made the rain and everything else in the cosmos....got idols - no rain.)


By Harris Blackwood
[email protected]
770-718-3423
POSTED Nov. 13, 2007 4:05 a.m.


God knows we’re dry.

But, the Rev. Dr. Terry Walton said he and other ministers will still pray and ask God to send rain to the region, but not before offering prayers of thanksgiving and confession.

Walton, senior pastor of First United Methodist Church, will join five other ministers today at Roosevelt Square to pray about the ongoing drought.

"We are in no way making a statement that we don’t trust God," Walton said. "But we probably contributed to this. We’ve probably done some things to the environment and have probably taken for granted our lake and our resources."

He said that God specifically said to bring our needs to Him.

"We need some water," Walton said.

But he made clear that the prayers won’t be a wish list.

"One person will offer a prayer of thanksgiving, and one person will offer a prayer of confession and then, a prayer of supplication," he said.

The 11:45 a.m. service is being held simultaneously with a prayer service called by Gov. Sonny Perdue at the state Capitol in Atlanta.

Walton will be joined by the Rev. Jim Bocian of St. Paul United Methodist on Washington Street, the Rev. Marcus Dixon of St. Paul United Methodist on Summit Street, the Rev. Josh Hughes of First Baptist Church on Green Street, the Rev. Dr. Thomas R. Smiley of Lakewood Baptist Church and the Rev. Fabio Sotelo of St. Michael Catholic Church.

While public prayer vigils may turn heads elsewhere, they’re not unusual in the South, where turning to the heavens for help is common, and sometimes politically expedient.

"It’s just more acceptable in the South. Christianity has more of a place in the culture here than in some other region," said Ray Van Neste, a professor of Christian studies at Union University in Jackson, Tenn.

"And it’s only natural, in a way, for the public to pray for rain."

Perdue won’t be the first governor to hold a call for public prayer during the epic drought gripping the Southeast. Alabama Gov. Bob Riley issued a proclamation declaring a week in July as "Days of Prayer for Rain" to "humbly ask for His blessings and to hold us steady in times of difficulty."

And Perdue’s move certainly hasn’t provoked much opposition. The loudest critic has been the Atlanta Freethought Society, a secular group that is expecting about a dozen of its 125 members to protest at the vigil.

"The governor can pray when he wants to," said Ed Buckner, who is organizing the protest. "What he can’t do is lead prayers in the name of the people of Georgia."

The political instinct to pray for rain in the South isn’t hard to understand, said Charles Bullock, a University of Georgia political scientist. Studies show religion plays a more active role in the lives of residents here, politicians included.

"I don’t know if it would really hurt a politician outside the South, but they’d be less likely to think about it," said Bullock, who specializes in Southern politics. "If religion plays less of a role in your daily life, then turning to religion in a crisis would be less likely to occur to you."

Political heavyweights outside the United States are known to occasionally plead to the heavens for rain. In May, Australian Prime Minister John Howard asked churchgoers to pray for rain in hopes of snapping a drought that has devastated crops and bankrupted farmers. It’s one of the worst droughts to hit Australia in a century.

In the United States, public pleas for rain have sometimes gotten snagged in the familiar church-versus-state argument.

Thomas Jefferson, for one, long bucked the calls for a federal day of prayer. But he was an exception.

From George Washington — who declared "a day of prayer and thanksgiving" — to Harry Truman, who established a National Day of Prayer — American politicians have not been shy about associating themselves with petitions to the Almighty.

About a third of the Southeast is now mired in the worst stages of drought. As dry conditions linger and water levels drop, prayer vigils for rain are springing up around the region.

A Baptist, Perdue has several times mentioned the need for prayer — along with water conservation — as the state’s drought crisis has worsened. Over the summer, he participated in day of prayer for agriculture at a gathering of the Georgia Farm Bureau in Macon.

At Tuesday’s event, several Protestant ministers will join Perdue and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle of Chestnut Mountain on the steps of the Capitol to ask God for help.

"Hopefully people have been praying," Perdue said before organizing the vigil. "We are really considering a statewide vigil in that effort."

A few steps away, the secular activists will stand in protest, a reminder of sorts that not everyone is OK with the public prayer vigil.

"We don’t elect officials to lead us on religious issues," Buckner said. "I’d be just as opposed to the governor convening a bunch of atheists on state grounds to talk about how foolish prayer is."


Information from the Associated Press was used in this story.

Contents of this site are © Copyright 2007 The Times, Gainesville
http://www.gainesvilletimes.com/news/article/1231/

I immediately thought of this...
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfFzLfO5o3g[/youtube]

Ezekiel 34

Therefore, thus said the Lord Hashem/Elohim to them: Behold, I Am here, and I Shall Judge between the robust lamb and the famished lamb; (

because you push with flank and shoulder and you gore all the frail ones with your horns until you have scattered them away.

So I Will Save My sheep and they will no longer be for spoils, and I Will Judge between lamb and lamb.

I Will Establish over them a single shepherd and he will tend them--My servant David; he will tend them and he will be a shepherd unto them.

And I, Hashem, I Will Be a G-d to them, and my servant David a prince among them. I, Hashem, have Spoken.

I Will Seal a Covenant of peace with them and Abolish evil beast from the Land; and they will dwell securely in the wilderness, and sleep in the forests.

Then I Will Make them and the surroundings of My hill into a Blessing, and I Will Bring the rain in its time; they will be rains of Blessing.

The tree of the field will yield its fruit, and the earth will yield its produce, and they will be secure upon their Land. Then they will know that I Am G-d, when I Break the rods of their yoke and Rescue them from the hand of the those who enslave them.

They will no longer be spoils for the nations, and the beast of the Land will no longer devour them; they will dwell securely, and none will make [them] afraid.

I Will Establish for them a planting of renown, and they will no longer be decimated by famine in the Land, and they will no longer bear the shame of the nations.

Then they will know that I, the Lord their Judge, Am With them, and that they are My people, the House of Israel--the Word of the Lord Hashem/Elohim.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ezekiel from the Amichai website - http://www.amichai.com/war/torah/

I heard about this.

Tim

The video was a nice example of how a person can act like the God that he supposedly believes in is less than a God to him. It's like he just expected him to imediatly meat his demand for rain despite the fact that he is supposed to be meating the deities demands foremost.

Oh yeah, the kind of praying mentioned in the first post is pretty common in my area of the world to. I think though, that there is supposed to be another hot period for the globe, so I don't really pray for rain, just hope for it. Yes, another hot, dry period of years. Good thing that it gets us destructive humans to think about what we are doing to the planet and what else.

To be honest I think it's a pretty desperate and foolish attempt to solve the problem.

If prayer makes them feel better, then I am all for them doing it -- I doubt that that it will have any commensurate impact on what nature wants to do.

~CGKings317