On Wednesday, The Washington Post mocked former Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue, President Trump’s pick for secretary of agriculture, because he had prayed for rain during a drought. On Friday, just as Trump started his inaugural address, it started raining in Washington, D.C.
In one glorious moment of vindication and truth, Franklin Graham, president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, praised God, denounced the liberal media, and welcomed Trump’s presidency by declaring, “In the Bible, rain is a sign of God’s blessing.”
Were you listening, Washington Post? Oh, it seems you were, because you changed the headline. Don’t worry, Walter Olson immortalized it on Twitter.
I'm as secular as they come, but I think this Washington Post headline is so uncalled for and disrespectful pic.twitter.com/P0rvHckJJS
— Walter Olson (@walterolson) January 19, 2017
You know what else is fascinating? The Washington Post once denounced the atheists who complained about Obama’s agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack, doing the same thing — praying for rain. In 2012, the Post called the atheists “petty, small-minded.” Would the paper say the same thing about … itself, five years later?
Compare WaPo 2012: atheists who complain about Obama AgSec Tom Vilsack's praying for rain are "petty, small-minded" https://t.co/2qI1afOhaP
— Walter Olson (@walterolson) January 19, 2017
Why are these attacks “petty, small-minded”? Because most religions have a prayer for rain. Here’s a Jewish version, for example. And an Anglican prayer. Here’s a Roman Catholic one. And a Lutheran one. (And, as Newsweek pointed out, former Texas Governor Rick Perry, Trump’s pick for secretary of energy, also prayed for rain in 2010.)
I defy thee to be more respectable than the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. https://t.co/yesCRjOu5y @washingtonpost pic.twitter.com/etrv5rwj5v
— Fr. Patrick Allen (@chasordinariate) January 19, 2017
Furthermore, Franklin Graham is right — rain is a sign of God’s blessing in the Bible.
In Deuteronomy 11:13-14, for example, Moses promises that “if you will indeed obey my commandments,” God “will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil.” (ESV)
Similarly, in Ezekiel 34:26, God promises “I will make them and the places all around my hill a blessing, and I will send down the showers in their season; they shall be showers of blessing.”
Psalm 147:9 praises God, saying, “he covers the heavens with clouds; he prepares rain for the earth; he makes grass grow on the hills.”
Rain is a sign of God’s blessing, largely because it enables a bountiful harvest. While rain may be less necessary to modern agriculture than it was to ancient agriculture, droughts are still a problem, and that is why governors like Sonny Perdue and Rick Perry prayed for rain, and why it is perfectly fair for Graham to say that the rain at Trump’s inauguration was a sign of blessing from God.
Whether or not Trump is “God’s chosen” is an entirely different matter.
Watch the video of Franklin Graham’s prayer below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXTRfp8Ta1g
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