PRAYER FOR RAIN

Waikato Times, Volume 108, Issue 18165, 1 November 1930, Page 14 (Supplement)

PRAYER FOR RAIN

Clergymen Differ on Efficacy. Six in

Symposium Hold It Is Futile.

Nine Protestant clergymen and .theological teachers, replying in The Christian Century to ■ the question: “Does Prayer Change the Weather?" reached opposite conclusions, with six of the nine answering the question with an unqualified "No.” Only two replied in the affirmative. The ninth responded * that a “Christ-like God” would not need “to be importuned as to the weather.”

The symposium, the editors of the magazine' explain in an introductory note,_ was conducted as a result of the offering of widespread prayers for rain during the height of the drought of the past summer, in some cases by spontaneous action of the churches and in others as a result of official or semi-official recommendation. At the head of the list of those who answer the nuestion with a “No” was Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick of the Riverside Church, New York. “Of course prayer does not affect the weather,” Dr. Fosdick answered. “One truth can confidently be relied on as the issue of all reasonable thought’about the world: we can expect results in a law-abiding universe only when we fulfil appropriate conditions for getting them."

Dr. Fosdick Hits “No imaginable connection exists, that I at least can think of, between man’s inward spiritual attitude and a rainstorm, nor can the former be conceived as a predecessor of the latter.

“Evidently this still needs to be said in this benighted and uncivilised country. The crude, obsolete supernaturalism which prays for rain is a standing reproach to our religion, and will be taken by many an intelligent mind as an excuse for saying, ‘Almost thou persuadest me to be an athiest.’ ” Mark A. Matthews of the First Presbyterian Ghurch, Seattle, Wash., however, said:—

“God answers prayer when prayed in llis name for the glory of Christ. God has answered prayer and given rain as a result."

“I do aot suppose prayer affects the weather directly,” wrote James (M Gray, president of the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, “but I certainly believe that God hears the supplications of His people and answers them according to His will. I also believe that He can ‘affect the weather,’ inasmuch as He made it.

“Sometimes it may please God to

give His people the'real intent or object of their prayers in a way other than that which they asked nr thought. Perhaps it was so in this case.” Prayer For Patience Desirable. Two of the clergymen and theologians answer the question concerning the weather in the negative, but add that, though prayer cannot change the weather, it may help the farmer to endure the weather. Henry N.W'eman of the University of Chicago Divinity School, called prayer in time of drought, “important and needful.” but meteorologically but as a means of “worshipful problemsolving” and of discovering how to make the connections through which the life-sustaining processes can function.

nilworth Lnpton of the First Unitarian Church, Cleveland, found it fruitless to pray for rain, but desirable to pray for patience to meet tha situation. “An attemut to involve the God of Betelgueze and of Bethlehem In a cooperative scheme to maintain the present American standards of living is like asking for an earthquake for excavation work or for a tornado to fulfill a wrecking contract,” replies W. P. Lemon of the Andrew Presbyterian Church, Minneapolis. “Let us rather pray for the redemption of profiteers, for the enlargement of human sympathy, and for wisdom to cope with all such exigencies,” he added. Question of Seots Brought In. Answering also in the negative, Samuel Harkness of the Community Ghurch, Winnetka, 111., asked whether, If one Slate had too much rain and another too little, the prayers would be answered on the “hasis of a preponderance of Baptists in the arid section or by a majority of Unitarians in the inundated territory.” ‘Walter M. Horton of the Oberiin Theological Seminary found that prayer relieves spiritual drought in the human soul and that this effect may “spill over” and affect bodily health, but cannot affect the natural order of the physical world. Bishop Charles Edward Locke of the 'Methodist Episcopal Church, who says that “it must I be that the laws of the universe are I uniformly beneficent,” concludes from this that to “imporluiie" God on the weather “might border upon lesemajeste."