Washington, D.C. – As Senator Raphael Warnock and his church find themselves embroiled in a controversy over evicting low-income tenants during a pandemic, a new controversy is emerging.
Last weekend, Warnock’s church hosted a voter turnout event that featured a pre-taped sermon by Rev. Billy Honor in which he said Christianity was the “ideological basis” for slavery and white supremacy. Learn more:
Warnock’s Church Airs Sermon Calling Evangelical Christianity the ‘Ideological Basis’ of White Supremacy
By Alana Goodman
At a voter outreach event on Saturday, Georgia Democratic senator Raphael Warnock’s church featured a fiery sermon from a reverend who denounced evangelical Christianity as the “ideological basis” for slavery and white supremacy.
The Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Warnock serves as senior pastor, hosted a “Super Voter Saturday” panel discussion last weekend and aired a pre-taped 2020 sermon by Rev. Billy Honor. The event took place just a few days before voters will head to the polls in Georgia, which has one of the largest evangelical Christian populations in the United States.
“There is nothing about evangelical white Christianity that would make you think it values black lives,” said Honor in the sermon. “The fact is that this is a tradition that devalues black bodies, so much so that the devaluing of black bodies is about as American as apple pie.”
While Warnock did not speak at the event, his name was at the top of a welcome message to attendees that played at the beginning of the program. The sermon could reignite concerns about Warnock’s own controversial statements and promotion of extremist rhetoric, including a sermon in which he said Americans need to repent for their “whiteness” and his defense of anti-Semitic pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Honor added that “evangelical Christianity” was the “ideological basis for the enslavement of Africans, the expansion of white supremacy, the resistance to reconstruction, the acceptance of racial segregation laws, and the recent dismissal of the Black Lives Matter movement to end murders of black bodies by police.”
Warnock’s opponent, Republican Herschel Walker, said the sermon promoted “division and hate” and slammed Warnock for hosting it at his church.
“Raphael Warnock and his allies believe America is a bad country full of hateful people,” Walker told the Washington Free Beacon. “They even smear evangelicals who love Jesus as racist. They should be ashamed.”
“Their politics of division and hate has gone too far, and I won’t let them get away with it,” Walker added. “I’m going to fight for our state and our country. Love is stronger than hate, and with God’s help we will defeat them and prove that grace and hope is more powerful than their lies and division.”
Warnock did not respond to a request for comment.
Read more at the Washington Free Beacon
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