Born to two Pentecostal-Holiness ministers in Savannah, Georgia on July 23, 1969, Raphael Gamaliel Warnock was the 11th of 12 children in his family. After receiving a B.A. degree in psychology from Morehouse College in 1991, he later attended Union Theological Seminary where he earned a Master of Divinity, a Master of Philosophy, and a Doctor of Philosophy (specializing in systematic theology). From 1991 through early 2001, Warnock served at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, New York – six years as a youth pastor and four years as an assistant pastor. He was then employed as senior pastor of the Douglas Memorial Community Church (DMCC) in Carroll County, Maryland, from early 2001 through mid-2005. At that point, Warnock became senior pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was co-pastor from 1959-68. Warnock continues to serve as senior pastor at that church.

In 2020, Warnock, a Democrat, decided to run for a U.S. Senate seat representing Georgia. As of October 14, 2020, his campaign had raised approximately $21.73 million, of which nearly 80% came from out-of-state donors. Neither Warnock nor the Republican incumbent, Kelly Loeffler, received more than 50% of the vote in the ten-candidate field, thereby setting the stage for a January 5, 2021 special runoff election between Warnock and Loeffler.

Warnock’s Church Honors Fidel Castro (1995)

While Warnock was a youth pastor at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in 1995, the church — on October 22 of that year — held a special event hosting and celebrating the longtime Communist dictator of Cuba, Fidel Castro. The nearly 1,300 frenzied Castro supporters who were packed into the church that night gave the guest-of-honor a ten-minute standing ovation, chanting “Fidel! Fidel! Fidel!” Senior pastor Calvin Butts announced, “We have one of the great leaders of the world [Castro] with us today.” And according to a Miami Herald report about the event, Castro “blast[ed] the United States with … vigor,” and the festivities ended “with a rousing rendition of the socialist hymn Internationale.” Among the high-profile figures in attendance were Charles Rangel, Nydia Velazquez, Jose Serrano, and Angela Davis, the latter of whom smiled broadly at Castro and, according to a New York Times report, “gave him a fisted salute.” (For a video of Castro’s appearance, click here.)

Obstructing Investigation of Child Abuse at Church Camp (2002)

After working ten years at the Abyssinian Baptist Church, Warnock spent four-and-a-half years as senior pastor of the Douglas Memorial Community Church (DMCC) in Carroll County, Maryland. In 2002, he and fellow DMCC minister Mark Wainwright were both arrested for obstructing a police investigation into child abuse that allegedly had taken place at Camp Farthest Out, a facility run by DMCC. Specifically, Warnock and Wainwright interrupted a police interview of a camp counselor, and they attempted to prevent one camper from directing police to other potential witnesses. Though neither Warnock nor Wainwright were suspects in the investigation, State Trooper Diane Barry of Maryland’s Child and Sexual Assault Unit said, “I’ve never encountered resistance like that at all.” When Warnock was released following his arraignment, he told reporters that he merely had sought to ensure that lawyers could be present during counselor interviews with police.

Praising Jeremiah Wright (2008-14)

During the presidential campaign season of 2008, Warnock, who was slated to deliver a speech honoring Barack Obama’s controversial longtime pastor Jeremiah Wright, was asked by Fox News reporter Greta van Susteren: “Do you embrace the Reverend Wright, and let me focus on the soundbites, for lack of better words, but certainly he has said things like GD [God damn] America and the things he has said … Do you embrace that? Is that something you would do, sir, in your church?” Warnock replied: “We celebrate Reverend Wright in the same way that we celebrate the truth-telling tradition of the black church, which, when preachers tell the truth, very often it makes people uncomfortable. And I think the country has been done a disservice by this constant playing over and over again the same soundbites outside of context.” Warnock also described Wright as “a prophet.”

In a similar spirit, Warnock, in his 2013 book The Divided Mind of the Black Church, compared Wright’s message to that of the biblical prophet Jeremiah. Moreover:

• In a February 2013 speech, Warnock described Wright’s infamous “God Damn America” sermon of 2003 — which likened U.S. leaders to al Qaeda, claimed that HIV was a U.S. government invention designed to exterminate black people, and asserted that the 9/11 attacks were an act of retribution for evil U.S. foreign policies — as a “very fine homily” about the dangers of “confusing God and government.” Asserting further that Wright’s sermon was “consistent with black prophetic preaching,” Warnock lamented that the black church was “barely understood by mainstream America.”
• In a 2014 speech in Atlanta, Warnock again lauded Wright’s 2003 sermon: “You ought to go back and see if you can find and read, as I have, the entire sermon. It was a very fine sermon. And Jeremiah Wright was right when he said the attack on him was in a real sense an attack on the black church. The message of Jeremiah Wright was that public policy has consequences.”

Defending Socialism & Marxism (2009-13)

In a 2009 sermon, Warnock, claiming that socialism was consistent with the tenets of Christian Scripture, drew a parallel between socialized health care and other government services like police protection. “You don’t solve the problem simply by calling something ‘socialism,’” he said. “There are some things that we have in common. We don’t ask people to buy their own police protection, their own fire protection. We decided long ago that we ought to pool our resources and pick up everybody’s garbage so that free enterprise can take place. There are some things we have in common.” “I’m so sick and tired of all of these folk talking about ‘socialistic medicine,’” Warnock added. “And I really get upset when I hear Christians in the midst of this debate, talking about socialism. They ought to go back and read Acts Chapter Two, where the Bible says that the church had all things in common.”

In his 2013 book, The Divided Mind of the Black Church, Warnock wrote: “To be sure, the Marxist critique has much to teach the Black church. Indeed, it has played an important role in the maturation of black theology as an intellectual discipline, deepened black theology’s apprehension of the interconnectivity of racial and class oppression, and provided critical tools for a black church that has yet to awaken to a substantive third world consciousness.”

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