The group has long been a highly influential voice on politics in their communities and played a key role in mobilizing Black voters.
-
Send any friend a story
As a subscriber, you have “>10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share.
Give this articleGive this articleGive this article
Pastor Jamal Bryant delivered a sermon criticizing Herschel Walker that went viral this week.
ATLANTA — While Georgia’s Black faith leaders walk the line between their religious and political convictions in the last few days before the midterms, some have turned sharply to amplifying their criticisms of the state’s Republican Senate candidate, Herschel Walker.
Religious leaders have long been influential voices in their communities and play an important role in mobilizing Black voters, a crucial Democratic constituency. They have long stressed that their efforts to register and turn out their congregants are explicitly nonpartisan.
But on Sunday, the pastor Jamal Bryant delivered a fiery sermon that denounced Mr. Walker. Republicans who recruited Mr. Walker, a former University of Georgia football star, to run for office did so based on racial stereotypes rather than his qualifications, he told his parishioners at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Stonecrest, Ga., just outside Atlanta.
“They figured that they would delude us by picking somebody who they thought would in fact represent us better with a football than with a degree in philosophy,” he told the mostly Black congregation in a sermon that has generated millions of views online. “They thought we were so slow — that we were so stupid — that we would elect the lowest caricature of a stereotypical broken Black man as opposed to somebody who is educated and erudite and focused.”
Toward the end of his remarks, Mr. Bryant said: “In 2022, we don’t need a Walker, we need a runner.”
Asked for comment about the sermon, Mr. Walker’s campaign pointed to his remarks during a campaign rally in Augusta, Ga., on Tuesday.
“I thought that in the church you should be talking about brotherly love, you should be talking about treating your brother nicely. In the church I go to, we talk about brotherly love,” he said. “They said they don’t need a Walker, they need a runner. Has he ever seen me run? Jesus Christ is going to be my blocker.”
The State of the 2022 Midterm Elections
Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.
- Governor’s Races: Democrats and Republicans are heading into the final stretch of more than a dozen competitive contests for governor. Some battleground races could also determine who controls the Senate.
- Democrats’ Mounting Anxiety: Top Democratic officials are openly second-guessing their party’s pitch and tactics, saying Democrats have failed to unite around one central message.
- Social Security and Medicare: Republicans, eyeing a midterms victory, are floating changes to the safety net programs. Democrats have seized on the proposals to galvanize voters.
- Debunking Misinformation: Falsehoods and rumors are flourishing ahead of Election Day, especially in Pennsylvania. We debunked five of the most widespread voting-related claims.
Mr. Bryant’s message called attention to the racial dynamics at play in Georgia’s Senate race, where two Black male candidates from starkly different educational and professional backgrounds are facing off. It could also be seen as an endorsement of Mr. Walker’s opponent, Senator Raphael Warnock, a Democrat who, as senior pastor of Atlanta’s famed Ebenezer Baptist Church, is himself a Black church leader. Mr. Warnock’s campaign declined to comment on the sermon.
While Mr. Bryant did not directly ask his congregation to vote for Mr. Warnock, his remarks, if interpreted as political speech, may run afoul of a federal rule.
The Johnson Amendment, a 1954 adjustment of the federal tax code, forbids any religious or charitable organizations that are tax exempt from participating in any campaigns on behalf of political candidates, or in opposition to them. It also bans religious leaders from endorsing candidates from the pulpit.
But the provision is rarely enforced. In 2017, former President Donald J. Trump said he would repeal it altogether — a move meant to appeal to his white evangelical supporters.
Asked about the possible conflict, Mr. Bryant said in an interview that his words were not delivered as an endorsement of Mr. Warnock and should not be interpreted as an official posture of his church. He also pointed out what he felt was undue scrutiny of Black churches as it relates to their political involvement.
“White evangelicals have been very prominent as to who it is that they push and why,” he said. “But when the Black church clears its throat, then we hear, ‘what is the demarcation between church and state?’”
Gregory Magarian, a constitutional law professor at Washington University in St. Louis who studies law and religion, said Mr. Bryant’s remarks, taken at face value, appear to violate the federal rule. But, he added, they represent “only one data point in what has been a really large phenomenon of churches and faith leaders violating the Johnson Amendment.”
ImageA church spire is reflected in a window of downtown Wrightsville, Ga., Herschel Walker’s home town.Credit…Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times
Black churches have long served in a major political organizing function within their communities, particularly through efforts like “Souls to the Polls” that encourage congregants to cast ballots after Sunday church services.
Georgia’s new voting law, S.B. 202, has injected new urgency into their efforts because of its limits on provisions like Sunday voting. The nonpartisan Georgia-based Faith Works initiative, founded in response to the voting law, has generated millions of dollars in financial support for voter education and turnout efforts. Mr. Bryant is a founding member.
Other leaders have spoken against Mr. Walker outside the walls of their church. A radio advertisement sponsored by the Democratic group American Bridge 21st Century features Cynthia Hale, an Atlanta-area pastor and another founding member of Faith Works, encouraging voters to pray for Mr. Walker rather than cast their vote for him.
“As Christians we are taught to forgive Herschel,” she says. “But we are not commanded to vote for him.” A voice-over at the end of the ad encourages listeners to vote for Mr. Warnock.
And in the face of Republican-led attacks on Mr. Warnock, Black church leaders have seen their pushback as a defense of their own — something they’ve done before.
When Senator Kelly Loeffler, a Republican, was running against Mr. Warnock in 2020, she used footage of Mr. Warnock’s sermons to paint him as a “radical” figure. A coalition of more than 100 Black faith leaders wrote an open letter to Ms. Loeffler saying that her words represented a broader attack on Black faith traditions.
Mr. Warnock’s church has been an issue in this race, as Mr. Walker’s team took aim at the business it conducts. The campaign has sent out a number of press emails about a building owned by a for-profit entity with ties to Ebenezer, where residents have received eviction notices for small-dollar rent infractions. Mr. Warnock said on the debate stage and subsequent news conferences that the church did not evict any tenants.
Ms. Hale, who called her remarks about Mr. Walker among the most direct political statements she has made in public throughout her career, said that she stood by her words.
“I have no regrets,” she said. “I think that I’ve done what I needed to do to help people understand, because sometimes it takes a voice that folks listen to and respect to say, ‘no, we can’t do this.’”
Source: nytimes.com
