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Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., compared Christian leaders who say their faith supports President Donald Trump to religious people who justified slavery in America.
During an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper that aired Sunday, Warnock, who serves as the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, was asked several questions about how his Christian faith influences his politics.
After saying he prayed for the president but didn’t endorse his “ungodly” administration, Tapper asked the Democratic Senator what he thought about pastors who go to the White House to show their support for Trump and believe he was put in office with a divine purpose.
“There are a lot of religious leaders who go to the White House and not only pray for the President, but make a show of suggesting that he was chosen by God for this mission,” Tapper said.
Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., speaks during the first day of Democratic National Convention, Monday, Aug. 19, 2024, in Chicago. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)
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“Yeah, they’re wrong,” Warnock responded, before comparing these leaders to those who skewed Scripture to justify American slavery.
“And there were Christians who thought that slavery was, you know, somehow God-like—American chattel slavery—and they justified it. And they used Scriptures to support their position,” he continued. “It just so happens that I’m the product of a countervailing tradition that was literally born fighting for freedom. That understood that God didn’t create us to be slaves. That’s why the Black Church was emerged.”
Warnock went on to say the Black Church was a church that began by “correcting the American heresy that somehow tried to reconcile the faith of Jesus to slavery.”
During the interview, Warnock said he prayed for Trump because he needed “a lot of prayer.”
President Donald Trump credited his economic policies for the positive March jobs report. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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He also said the president needed to be held accountable for his “bigotry” and “cruelty that he is unleashing on American streets through his version of ICE.”
“I have to be honest about what he’s doing,” he told Tapper. “His kind of unabashed, unvarnished bigotry; the cruelty that he is unleashing on American streets through his version of ICE. Those things have to be condemned. And so, for me, prayer and prophetic speech, which holds power accountable—those two things go hand-in-hand. I am not about to be the chaplain, blessing that which is ungodly and unjust.”
Tapper also pressed Warnock on how he responds to conservative parishioners at his church who disagree with his political views on immigration and abortion.
Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock. (Aaron Schwartz/Bloomberg)
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“I’m sure you encounter quite a bit, African American members of your church, Baptists who are more socially conservative than you, who say, ‘I’m with you on the hunger, I’m with you on the kindness, but Laken Riley was murdered by an undocumented immigrant and I see nothing compassionate about having him in this country,'” Tapper said. “Or they talk about abortion, or other things that maybe are not in line with your politics.”
“How do you confront that?” he asked.
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“Oh, we’re Baptist,” Warnock responded, before saying he welcomes a variety of viewpoints at his church .
“We could all use a little bit more grace these days,” he added. “Grace for people who don‘t share our point of view.”
When reached for comment, White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers told Digital that, “President Trump made a campaign promise to fight for religious freedom, and he has quickly secured major, commonsense victories for people of faith – from restoring biological truth to protecting parents’ fundamental rights and keeping men out of women’s sports.”
