Sen. Raphael Warnock had a blunt response Sunday when asked about religious leaders who have gathered at the White House to pray for President Trump and say he was chosen by God for this moment.
“They’re wrong,” the Georgia Democrat and Baptist pastor said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Speaking at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta ahead of his Easter sermon, Mr. Warnock drew a line between clergy who have blessed Mr. Trump’s agenda and Christians who used Scripture to justify American chattel slavery.
“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,” he said. “I am not about to be the chaplain blessing that which is ungodly and unjust.”
The remarks came after Mr. Warnock was asked whether he prays for the president.
“He needs a lot of prayer,” the senator said, but he made clear his prayers are not those of a loyal supplicant, saying his prayer for Mr. Trump is bound up with accountability.
“I affirm his humanity, as I affirm the humanity of anybody and everybody,” Mr. Warnock said. “But part of that prayer is about accountability. I have to be honest about what he’s doing. 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.”
Mr. Warnock has served at Ebenezer for 21 years, following in the pulpit lineage of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. He spoke ahead of his Easter Sunday sermon, describing the holiday as “the preacher’s Super Bowl,” and said his message this year would center on hope — a quality he distinguished from mere optimism.
“Optimism, for me, is milquetoast,” he said. “It’s thin. Often, it denies the tragic character of human experience.”
“Hope recognizes that there is a tomb, that there was a crucifixion, and that there are a lot of people all over the world who live right there in a Good Friday world,” he said.
Mr. Warnock also addressed antisemitism on the political left and right, saying it must be condemned “wherever and whenever it rears its ugly head.”
The senator, who often describes his political work as an extension of his ministry, said he does not see the two roles as separate.
“I’m not a senator who used to be a pastor,” he said. “I’m a pastor in the Senate.”
