As states ready themselves for at least another month of shutdowns, a growing number of governors and mayors have declared days of fasting and prayer.
President Trump declared March 15 a national day of prayer, and several states are matching him or going further during the coronavirus pandemic. In the past week, governors in West Virginia, Louisiana, and Arkansas have declared statewide days of prayer. Of the three states, Louisiana has been hit the hardest, with more than 4,000 cases of the disease recorded in the state.
U.S. Virgin Islands Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. named Monday a day of “prayer, fasting, and reflection.” Bryan also declared that there would be no business transacted during the noon hour to allow everyone to participate. The U.S. territory closed its borders last Wednesday.
Mayors of many cities in states where days of prayer have not been proclaimed also called upon people of faith to ask for deliverance from the pandemic. In the past week, Jackson, Mississippi, Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba and Nashville, Tennessee, Mayor John Cooper issued proclamations similar in tone to that of Trump’s.
Smaller cities, too, have requested that prayers be said for the community’s health. In Mount Airy, North Carolina, Mayor David Rowe asked that beginning on Sunday, churches in the area ring their bells for two minutes at noon every day and that city residents pray for an end to the pandemic.
“This is a perilous time, and we must pull together to defeat this virus,” Rowe told the Mount Airy News. “Regardless of our respective faiths, we have an obligation and an opportunity to call upon God for leadership as we together navigate uncharted waters.”
Such proclamations are common ways for people to come together in times of national stress, proponents of days of prayer argue. In a proposal for a statewide day of “humiliation, fasting, and prayer” in Pennsylvania, state Rep. Stephanie Borowicz noted that March 30, her proposed day, was the anniversary of a day of prayer called by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 during the Civil War.
“Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!” Borowicz’s resolution reads. “It behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.”
Civic calls for days of prayer match the calls from many religious groups to institute days of prayer amid the pandemic. In Ohio, more than 100 Christian leaders called upon Ohioans to participate in “a season of corporate prayer and fasting” from April 5 through April 16.
“We stand in solidarity as a faith community during these extraordinary times being fully convinced in the words of Psalm 91 that only the Most High God will be our refuge and fortress and will deliver us from the perilous pestilence,” the group said in a statement.
Russell Nelson, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, on Sunday sent out a video message, inviting all Mormons to fast and to “plead for physical, spiritual, and other healing throughout the entire world.”
“The Lord understands the feeling you are experiencing,” he said. “He loves and cares for you.”
A report from the University of Copenhagen found that in March, online searches for prayer hit a five-year high. The author of the report referred to the phenomenon as “religious coping.”
“The rise in prayer intensity supersedes what the world has seen for years,” the report reads. “The COVID-19 is still far from its peak and it only just reached the developing world. Furthermore, as more and more people loose their loved ones, the demand for religion is likely to rise. It is highly likely that the rise in prayer intensity will continue.”
