Malawians Are Praying For Rain? This Prayer Politics Must Stop

Today, Malawians are praying for rain and good harvest in 2016 according to media reports. The country's president, Peter Mutharika, is urging the citizens to turn out and take part in this program. It is not clear how prayer would solve these problems. However, the president thinks it would. The event, which is titled, Dedicating ourselves to God in Seeking National Peace and Prosperity, is taking place at Bingu International Conference Center and religious bodies across the country are mobilizing their members for the program.

The people of Malawi should pause for a moment ask themselves why they think this exercise is necessary in the first place.

The presidential advisor on religious affairs, Apostle Timothy Khoviwa says that Mutharika believes firmly that divine intervention is critical to governing a country. So, he believes that God could command the rain to fall and ensure good harvest for Malawians? Right? How does he expect god to do this?

Khoviwa said: "President Mutharika believes that as a God fearing nation we need to come to pray together from time to time. We are coming from a year of many challenges such as lack of donor aids and flood which had a bearing on the economy. However God has made us sail through to this year. So, the prayers are an expression of thanksgiving to God for granting is the year 2016 as well as as asking him to lead us throughout the year so that we receive good rain and attain a good harvest" One wonders if the presidential advisor gave a thought to this statement before releasing it.

First of all, what has God got to do with rainfall in Malawi? Is God a rainmaker? Which 'developed' country in the world today expends its national time and energy praying for rain and good harvest? Malawi has a department for climate change and meteorological services which has indicated that the country would experience dry spells. So why establish such a department when the weather situation is predicated on the whims and caprices of a god, the christian god for that matter? Why bother about meteorological services when weather management is a factor of prayer, especially christian prayers?. Again why organise a prayer session to thank god for making Malawians survive last year? After all God has not really been so nice to Malawians in 2015. God made them experience shortage of donor aids and flood. So why thank him? Why ask god for rain and good harvest when he could not ensure a flow of donor funds or stop the flooding last year. I mean this prayer event is a useless exercise that would distract Malawians from investing their time and energy in effective common sensical ways of realizing good harvest. Malawians should be encouraged to think, not pray.

One thought that quickly came to my mind after reading Khoviwa's statement is this: Given that the country where people are praying for rain experiences flood, it means that there is excess rainfall at a certain period of the year and dry spells at another time of the year. So one thing the country could do is to put in place structures to collect, conserve and manage excess rainwater during the rainy season. The conserved water could be used to irrigate the farms during the dry periods. This is one strategy the country could explore and it does not require praying or seeking divine intervention to execute it. Does it? What Malawi needs is a thoughtful, not a prayerful approach to solving its problems.

What the country needs is not seeking god's help; it is not talking to a god who is not listening or better asking for intervention from a god who is not there. This prayer politics must stop. The issue is that politicians make lofty promises of tackling poverty, creating jobs, rebuilding infrastructure, revamping the economy during election campaigns. And once they are elected, they suddenly become devout due to lack of ideas of how to fulfil these promises. Politicians adopt prayer policies and begin to play prayer politics. Politicians attend, organize and endorse prayer sessions, where they ask citizens to seek God's intervention in resolving the socio-economic problems which they have pledged to tackle. This nonsense must stop.