Georgia U.S. Senate candidate Reverend Raphael Warnock is facing fresh criticism over a 2016 sermon in which he stated that America needs to repent for its “worship of whiteness.” Warnock, the senior pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta — where civil rights icon Martin Luther King formerly preached — made the remarks in October 2016 at Emory University.
The Democrat Warnock is facing incumbent Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler in a January 5 run-off election. In the 19-person general election in November, Warnock received 32.9 percent of the vote to Loeffler’s 25.9 percent. Georgia law mandates that a candidate must receive at least 50 percent of the vote, so the run-off election was scheduled.
This election, along with the other run-off pitting GOP incumbent David Perdue against Democrat Jon Ossoff, will ultimately decide whether Democrats or Republicans control the U.S. Senate beginning in 2021.
Warnock’s sermon that day was titled “How Towers Tumble,” and was ostensibly based on the account of the Tower of Babel in Genesis chapter 11. Rather than teach the actual lesson of the story, Warnock chose to make it about race and the politics of the day.
“Somebody lied and told them that uniformity, that sameness, that homogeneity, was the key to their survival. Somebody lied and told them that diversity was a threat to their identity,” Warnock preached.
A reading of Genesis 11:1-8 actually shows that the opposite was true. Nobody told the people of Babel that diversity was a threat. In fact, God himself created much of that diversity by confusing their language.
“We have constructed towers of domination that lift up a few, structures of evil that God never intended in the first place. When the quality of your education and access to basic health care is a function of your zip code, the whole city suffers, and the tower tumbles,” Warnock said.
Warnock’s sermon was in the immediate aftermath of the infamous Access Hollywood tape in which then-candidate Trump made lewd comments about women, apparently unaware he was being recorded. Warnock connected Trump’s admittedly vulgar comments to anybody who might have been inclined to vote for him over Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton.
“If it is true that a man who has dominated the news and poisoned the discussion for months needs to repent, then it’s doubly true that a nation that can produce such a man and make his vitriol go viral needs to repent. No matter what happens next month, more than a third of the nation that would go along with this, is reason to be afraid. America needs to repent for its worship of whiteness, on full display this season,” Warnock said.
Certainly, it’s fair game to pillory Trump for the vulgar remarks. What’s not fair or reasonable is to paint anyone who might be inclined to vote for him because of policy positions — or simply because the thought of voting for Hillary Clinton caused nausea — with the same broad brush.
It’s not the first time Warnock has gotten in trouble for a past sermon. Last week, a 2018 sermon resurfaced in which Warnock blasted President Trump, the State of Israel, and Evangelicals after Trump made good on a three-decade old promise made by multiple American presidents to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and placing the U.S. Embassy there.
“It’s been a tough week,” Warnock said. “The administration opened up the embassy in Jerusalem. Standing there [were] the president’s family and a few mealy-mouthed evangelical preachers who are responsible for the mess that we found ourselves in, both there and here — misquoting and misinterpreting the scripture, talking about peace.”
Warnock continued: “Meanwhile, young Palestinian sisters and brothers, who are struggling for their very lives, struggling for water and struggling for their human dignity, stood up in non-violent protests, saying, ‘If we’re going to die, we’re going to die struggling.’”
Warnock went on to compare the plight of the Palestinians to that of Black Lives Matter activists.
“We know what it’s like to stand up and have a peaceful demonstration and have the media focus on a few violent uprisings,” Warnock said.
The pastor’s vocabulary might need some work. He doesn’t seem to understand the meaning of the word “few,” for example. The riots that occurred this year in Portland alone qualify as more than a “few.”
This is what’s at stake in Georgia on January 5. Should Joe Biden and the mainstream media succeed in their attempted coup to take the presidency, a Republican led Senate will be all that stands between far left-wing zealots such as Warnock and their plans to pack the Supreme Court, do away with the filibuster, and defund our police departments.
