Kelly Loeffler’s Sacrilegious Campaign | The Nation
“She’s lied, not only on me, but on Jesus,” says the Rev. Raphael Warnock, as religious leaders decry the Republican’s vile attacks on the Black pastor.
Kelly Loeffler’s relentless assault on the religious faith of the Rev. Raphael Warnock, her challenger in the January 5 Georgia runoff that could decide control of the US Senate, has been characterized by deliberate mischaracterizations of the pastor’s sermons and the Christian Scriptures on which they are based. At rallies, in media appearances and in their only runoff campaign debate, the appointed Republican incumbent has attacked her Democratic rival for preaching a social gospel rooted in New Testament teaching,
Framing her campaign around wildly out-of-context claims about Warnock’s sermons, Loeffler rips into her ordained opponent for referencing Christian teachings—along with those of the world’s other major religions—when he addresses issues of war and peace, policing and economics. Loeffler bitterly rejects questioning of her approach, declaring, “I’m not going to be lectured by someone that uses the Bible to justify abortion and to attack our men and women in the military.”
It is a bizarre political strategy that, like so much of Loeffler’s candidacy, demands that Georgians deny reality—in this case, the reality that her rival is an internationally respected religious leader with a PhD in theology from Union Theological Seminary. As only the fifth senior pastor in the storied history of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church—the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s spiritual home—Warnock has earned acclaim for his biblical knowledge and his nuanced application of it to contemporary debates.
“She’s lied, not only on me, but on Jesus,” says the Rev. Raphael Warnock, as religious leaders decry the Republican’s vile attacks on the Black pastor.
Kelly Loeffler’s relentless assault on the religious faith of the Rev. Raphael Warnock, her challenger in the January 5 Georgia runoff that could decide control of the US Senate, has been characterized by deliberate mischaracterizations of the pastor’s sermons and the Christian Scriptures on which they are based. At rallies, in media appearances and in their only runoff campaign debate, the appointed Republican incumbent has attacked her Democratic rival for preaching a social gospel rooted in New Testament teaching,
Framing her campaign around wildly out-of-context claims about Warnock’s sermons, Loeffler rips into her ordained opponent for referencing Christian teachings—along with those of the world’s other major religions—when he addresses issues of war and peace, policing and economics. Loeffler bitterly rejects questioning of her approach, declaring, “I’m not going to be lectured by someone that uses the Bible to justify abortion and to attack our men and women in the military.”
It is a bizarre political strategy that, like so much of Loeffler’s candidacy, demands that Georgians deny reality—in this case, the reality that her rival is an internationally respected religious leader with a PhD in theology from Union Theological Seminary. As only the fifth senior pastor in the storied history of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church—the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s spiritual home—Warnock has earned acclaim for his biblical knowledge and his nuanced application of it to contemporary debates.
