The campaign against Donald Trump and white supremacy embodies the spirit of revolution ingrained in American history and culture, U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock said during a sermon at the Progressive National Baptist Convention annual session in New Orleans, La.
“Our great nation was born in rebellion against monarchy. It is our very raison d’etre, our reason for being. It is in our DNA,” noted Warnock, a Democrat and senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. “It mitigates against hundreds of years of human history, this grand experiment in self-governance, this idea that true power rests with the people.”
Warnock asked his listeners to contrast the aspirations of American liberty with Trump’s recent vow to eradicate the need for democracy if he is elected in November.
“Christians, get out and vote. Just this time,” Trump said during The Believers’ Summit July 26 in West Palm Beach, Fla. “You won’t have to do it anymore, you know what? Four more years, it’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians.”
Those comments and everything Christian nationalists stand for are an affront to the biblical principle that God intended human beings to have a voice in their destiny when he created them in his image, Warnock said.
“I believe that democracy is the political enactment of a spiritual idea, this notion that each of us has within us a spark of the divine,” he said. “The way to have a voice is to have a vote. And that’s why I fight against voter suppression, because for me, it is not a political fight. It is about spiritual wickedness. It’s about powers and principalities. It’s about the rulers of the darkness of this world who would deny that I am a child of God.”
Warnock addressed the PNBC gathering, where members of one of the nation’s leading Black Protestant denominations met Aug. 4-8 to formulate social-action strategies heading into the November presidential election.
Warnock began his address with a reading from 1 Samuel, in which the people of Israel are clamoring for God to give them a king. They insist on a monarch to rule in the authoritarian manner practiced in other nations.
The demand stems from their fear of national insecurity and from a longing for simple answers to complex problems, Warnock said. God eventually relents and gives the nation Saul, a foolish king at the head of a long line of often-foolish kings.
Today, it is white evangelicals who are willing to surrender precious democratic freedoms in return for the promises of security and easy answers of a demagogue, Warnock warned.
Today, it is white evangelicals who are willing to surrender precious democratic freedoms in return for the promises of security and easy answers of a demagogue, Warnock warned.
“Insecure people produce insecure leaders” who have already stacked the U.S. Supreme Court with Trump loyalists who have “broadsided the women of this country” by overturning Roe v. Wade and provided immunity from criminal liability to presidents, he said.
“This is a runaway court mired in corruption — Supreme Court justices with sugar daddies who take them on expensive trips and buy them expensive gifts so that they might represent their interests rather than the interests of ordinary people.”
These are signs of what is to come with another Trump presidency, Warnock said.
“Lord have mercy, here we are again. It is election season, and we the people are poised again to participate in what is, in human history, a precious and rare exercise, this grand experiment in self-governance,” he noted. “And democracy is itself on the ballot with freedom hanging in the balance.”
The situation is appallingly similar to that laid out in 1 Samuel, he added.
“This is scary stuff. This is dangerous stuff,” he acknowledged. “And (the prophet) Samuel stood up and warned the people. He said you will demand that God gives you a king, but be careful what you pray for, because God believes in freedom. And since God is a God of freedom, every now and then, God gives you exactly what you ask for. And when you receive what you ask for, you will cry out to God, but God will not hear you. That’s what the prophet said.”
Warnock apologized for bringing a heavy word to the assembly but urged the members of PNBC to use it as motivation to do their spiritual duty by advocating for democracy heading into the election.
“Show up for yourself and your children, and your children’ children, and your children’s children’s children,” he urged. “Show up for the poor. Show up for workers. Show up for the left-out. Show up for the nation. Show up for a planet in trouble.
“Show up like your very life depends on it, because it does. You don’t have time to mess around with this thing come November.”
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