Senator Reverend Warnock joined students and faculty of Georgetown University’s Center on Faith and Justice, delivering a speech defining America’s “spiritual crisis”
Following his remarks, Senator Warnock took questions from the audience and urged the students not to give in to despair and fight to help fix a broken political system
Senator Reverend Warnock: “This is spiritual work. It is about restoring the covenant that we share with one another”
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock (D-GA) delivered a speech at Georgetown University’s Center on Faith and Justice, defining what he describes as America’s spiritual crisis. The Senator made the case that decades of economic distress and a broken political system have created a spiritual crisis in our country. He argued that addressing economic needs is “holy work.”
“This is spiritual work. It is about restoring the covenant that we share with one another,” said Senator Warnock.
During his remarks, Senator Warnock addressed the continuing fight around affordable health care, the recent government funding resolution, the GOP tax bill from earlier in the year, and much more. Senator Warnock likened the economic distress of the past few decades to a “low-grade fever”. Arguing that failure by Washington to address these problems amount to a rupture in the creed that we share.
“Decades of this low grade fever left untreated has brought us to where we are today: A nation in crisis, a nation that has become disconnected from the values that make us who we are, a nation where we no longer see our neighbors as crucial to our own success, but as competitors in a competition for scarce resources, these deficits in a wealthy nation…speak to a spiritual deficit that at its core is a lapse in the covenant that we have with one another,” Senator Warnock explained.
“You’re not only looking at a United States Senator. You’re not just looking at the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, but you’re looking at someone whose life is a testament to the transformative power of us leaning into we, the people,” Senator Warnock concluded. “I’m a product of us keeping faith with the covenant that we have with one another. I know that all of our children can succeed if we give them a chance.”
The speech is available to listen to HERE.
See below a transcript of Senator Warnock’s remarks:
“It’s always to be good to be with my friend, the Reverend Jim Wallace, a man who exemplifies faith in action, who moves from one position to the next, but he’s always on the same assignment, the embodiment of God’s love and God’s justice in the world. Give the Reverend Jim Wallace a round of applause.
I’m always a little nervous when I’m around Jim, because he always finds a way to make sure we’re getting into some good trouble, and if you stick too close to him, you might get arrested. But always for always, for a good reason.
Back this summer, when folks were working to pass the Big Ugly Bill Jim Wallace, brought a multi faith coalition to the steps of the Capitol so that we could speak with one voice in all of our various faith traditions, that we could say together that the acid test of your faith is the depth of your commitment to the most marginalized members of the human family in various ways. All of our great faith traditions have some version of what we in the Christian tradition call the Golden Rule, ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’. It’s in Jewish tradition. It’s in Hindu tradition. It’s in Islamic tradition. All of the great faith traditions say that in some way.
And so I was proud to stand with Reverend Wallace and many others to say to this administration, as they are trying to do more to fire thousands of dedicated federal workers, that we will not be silent as they are trying to do more than kick working people off SNAP and Medicaid, they’re doing that to be sure, thousands of federal workers. When we talk about federal workers, we really are talking about the covenant we have with one another as an American people. The Federal Government is not some third person, some entity out there somewhere. First words of our Constitution are the Creed, the American creed, ‘We the People’. And these are the ways in which we organize ourselves to do the things for each other that we cannot do alone. And so they are attacking federal workers.
This business of pulling the people who are SNAP recipients in the recent fight around the government shutdown is the kind of cruelty for which I cannot find adequate words. We were in a fight to be sure. I’m not asking you to take a position on who’s right, Democrats or Republicans. Obviously, I’m in a party, but I was a pastor a long time before I was in a party, and I know cruelty when I see it. And there was no reason to drag the SNAP recipients into this fight.
They were to be the beneficiaries of a contingency fund, and the administration decided we wouldn’t use the contingency fund, because we would be better off politically to use poor people as pawns in a political fight. And now that the shutdown is over, we heard the Secretary of Agriculture, out of which we get SNAP, say this weekend that maybe we ought to ask everybody to reapply. What is with this making pawns and play things out of poor people?
And I want you to think about that, because in a real sense, I think it bespeaks a deep kind of spiritual crisis in our nation, which we’re seeing come to a head in these moments. But if we’re honest, it did not begin with this administration there.
There is no sugar coating it. These are dark days. These are tough times. And I think maybe a strange thing for someone in elected office to say, but I think that the puny language and vocabulary of partisan politics is not adequate to the task. What ails us is deeper than that, even as we engage in the process, America is struggling with a spiritual crisis. There is a deep sense in this country in which we all realize that something is not right. People on the Left and people on the Right see that. We all know that there is something that’s not quite right.
Have you ever awakened in the morning and you just felt, didn’t feel too good, anybody? That’s what we do in the Baptist Church, talk back to me. Just wake up. You don’t, you don’t feel that good. And you can’t quite put your finger on it, you know, it’s the symptoms are not all that obvious. You just kind of … , and then you later discover, after stumbling around a bit, that you have a low-grade fever. And so it’s a bit nondescript. You just kind of don’t feel great.
That’s how I talk about a country these days. I think America has a low-grade fever, and we’ve had that for a long time, over the last decade or so. In fact, if we’re honest, it’s a fever that has transcended Democratic and Republican administrations, and that fever is caused, I believe, by a broken political system, a rupture in the creed that we share as an American people, first three words of the Constitution, ‘We the People’, the system that has failed to put the needs of the people first.
Over the last 50 years, wages have been stagnant for many, and the price of everything from health care to housing to education has become more expensive. People are working harder and harder and seeing less and less for the work that they’re putting in. And young people are wondering if they’ll ever be able to afford a home. Older people are wondering if they’ll ever be able to retire with dignity. Workers are seeing themselves create wealth for others, yet after creating all of that wealth for others that they can clearly see on the NASDAQ that wealth is not trickling down, and they can barely get by.
Decades of this low-grade fever, stagnant wages for ordinary people, the inability to grasp the American dream, basic human dignity. And then on top of that, 20 years of what felt like an endless war, and then a pandemic that killed a million Americans, that’s a lot of empty seats around the kitchen table. And I think because we’ve had to go through it and keep moving, we have not then taken stock of really what’s happened to us. But to put it in perspective, and I’m trying to remember when most of you all were born, but in 2001, what happened on 9/11 was a sacking of the American conscience. And our sense of ourselves, we lost 4000 people, this pandemic, a million people, on top of all of this increasing wealth inequality.
And so decades of this low grade fever left untreated has brought us to where we are today, a nation in crisis, a nation that has become disconnected from the values that make us who we are, a nation where we no longer see our neighbors as crucial to our own success, but as competitors in a competition for scarce resources, these deficits in a wealthy nation and on a plentiful planet speak to a spiritual deficit that at its core is a lap lapse in the covenant that we have one another. In other words, people feel out of control of their lives. They’re lonely, they feel helpless, they feel broken. And here’s the thing, politicians have been channeling that anger instead of trying to heal us into short term political gain.
If people cannot believe in the promise of opportunity, they choose then to put their faith in strong men who say the country’s in a mess because they rightly see the vulnerability that people feel. But then after that diagnosis, the strong man says, I’m the only one who can fix it.
The preacher, who happens to be a senator, has to ask himself, where was God Almighty? What was God Almighty in heaven thinking when he heard this mere mortal say, I’m the only one who can fix it.
So this channeling of anger for short-term partisan purposes of what we’re dealing with now, so it’s why we are caught up in the throes of the politics of rage, anger, division and fear. It’s why we see immigration raised near schools and churches, all of that work is doing something other than the obvious. It’s why we see armed and masked officers and members of the military inciting fear in American cities. It’s why you see uniform folks landing in Black Hawk helicopters, rappelling down buildings in the middle of an American city. Think about the imagery and the iconography – somebody is trying to convince us that we are at war with one another, and then that creates the context in which you can then move well from the bottom to the top, socialism for the rich. Robin Hood in reverse.
15 million Americans lost their health care was called waste, fraud and abuse. What are you saying about those Americans? 22 million Americans will see their healthcare premiums double on average, waste, fraud and abuse. What are you saying about those people? They’re trying to convince us that we are at war with one another. In fact, the President stood before our generals and spoke in no uncertain terms about what enemy within. Be afraid of politicians who tell you to be afraid of one another.
And so the President’s ascendance, to me, is symptomatic of a nation that is broken and in the throes of a spiritual crisis. We have to ask, what kind of country gives birth to that, and says yes to that a couple of times. And so in this way, creating the economic conditions for human thriving, I believe, is part of the spiritual work that we must do. It is holy work. It is why I am engaged in politics. If you’re wondering, how is it that a pastor is engaged in something as messy as politics? It’s because I believe in the incarnation. It is the manger in the messiness of human experience. And every now and then, I get to do something amazing, like cap the cost of insulin for seniors to know more than $35 of a pocket cost, that changes somebody’s life. This is spiritual work. It is about restoring the covenant that we share with one another.
And so as I close, and nobody believes a Baptist preacher when he says, ‘As I close,’ you’re not only looking at a United States Senator. You’re not just looking at the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, but you’re looking at someone whose life is a testament to the transformative power of us leaning into we, the people. I know what good, good public policy can do. Long before I had a PhD or Senate seat or pulpit made famous by Martin Luther King, Jr, I was a head start kid. Somebody gave preschool-age kid a chance by stirring in me a love for learning and dealing with the word gap that poor kids often suffer from, that aided and abetted by parents who were poor but they had good sense. They bought me a set of World Book, encyclopedias. I think we only ones in the projects that had a whole volume of World Book … And Pell grants and low interest student loans enabled me to make my way through Morehouse College. I just wanted to go to the school that Dr King attended. I’m a product of us keeping faith with the covenant that we have with one another, and I know that all of our children can succeed if we give them a chance.
And so in closing, here’s what political opponents, opponents all have in common here. Here’s what mortal enemies have in common. We all love our children. We love our children. Part of the spiritual work that we have to do through public policy is enable each other to look into the eyes of other people’s children and see our own. We’re tired of the single garment of destiny caught up in an inescapable network of mutuality. Dr. King said, Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.
I’m a Matthew 25 Christian. I was hungry and you fed me. I was sick. I was in prison. You visited me. I was a stranger. You attended to me. You welcomed me. When were you hungry? When were you naked? When were you sick? Basic spiritual needs that the Savior sent us, he said, in as much as you’ve done it to the least of these, you’ve done it also unto me, I hope to be among those voices summoning to all of us to that higher calling.”
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