Oh, why bother with knowing the economics of supply and demand, when a person could just pray for lower gas prices?

Rocky Twyman has a radical solution for surging gasoline prices: prayer.

Twyman — a community organizer, church choir director and public relations consultant from the Washington, D.C., suburbs — staged a pray-in at a San Francisco Chevron station on Friday, asking God for cheaper gas. He did the same thing in the nation’s Capitol on Wednesday, with volunteers from a soup kitchen joining in. Today he will lead members of an Oakland church in prayer.

Yes, it’s come to that.

“God is the only one we can turn to at this point,” said Twyman, 59. “Our leaders don’t seem to be able to do anything about it. The prices keep soaring and soaring.”

Gas prices have been driven relentlessly higher this year by the bull market for crude oil, gasoline’s main ingredient. A gallon of regular now costs $3.89, on average, in California, while the national average has hit $3.58.

To solve the problem, Twyman isn’t begging the Lord for any specific act of intervention. He is not asking God to make OPEC pump more oil. Nor is he praying for all the speculative investors to be purged from the New York Mercantile Exchange, where crude oil is traded. Instead, he says anyone who wants to follow his example should keep it simple. “God, deliver us from these high gas prices,” Twyman said. “That’s all they have to say.”

Ah yes, giving recommendations to God would be the sin of pride, I suppose.

However, as an omniscient being, God must be already perfectly aware of the high price of gas. As an omnipotent being, he must be capable of lowering gas prices. Since he’s all-benevolent, he wouldn’t allow gas prices to remain as they are if that was an evil. Ergo, high gas prices must be all for the best.

So… Thanks, God!

(Nick Provenzo also blogged about this news.)