Politics

Warnock Vowed To ‘Dismantle the Value System’ Of The American ‘Empire’

Georgia Senate candidate Rev. Raphael Warnock once vowed to “dismantle the value system” of the American “empire,” video footage shows.

“I want you to hear me now, because most of Christian America is focused on two or three issues,” Warnock,  a reverend headed into a January runoff election against Republican Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler, preached at Ebenezer Baptist Church in 2017, Breitbart first reported.

“Meanwhile, the Bible spends most of its time talking about how to treat the poor, the struggling, and the stranger,” he continued. “And so, don’t misinterpret what Jesus is saying. Jesus is saying you will always have the poor with you, not because God ordained it; not because it is what it is, and that’s the way it has to be; the poor are with you because of the evils and the excesses of the empire.”

Warnock then promised to “dismantle the value system of the empire,” saying, “I already told you that I came to preach good news to the poor, to open the eyes of the blind, and to set the captives free, and to preach the year of the Lord’s freedom. In other words, I came to dismantle the value system of the empire. But here’s the problem: the religious folk who should be fighting with me against the empire are in cahoots with the empire.”

WATCH:

???? Here’s Raphael Warnock urging his church to join him in “dismantling the value system of the American empire” in a 2017 speech: pic.twitter.com/tlv2U7biAm

— Caleb Hull (@CalebJHull) December 16, 2020

Warnock also once preached that Christianity started as a “socialist church,” according to video footage of a 2016 worship service.

“The early church was a socialist church,” Warnock said. “I know you think that’s an oxymoron, but the early church was much closer to socialism than to capitalism. Go back and read the bible. I love to listen to evangelicals who stand on the bible. Well they had all things in common, they took everything — I’m just preaching the bible — they took all of their things and they had all things in common.”

“But even the folk who say they just follow every word of the bible, they’re not about to do that. But if we would just share what we have, everybody can eat, everybody ought to have water, everybody ought to have health care. It’s a basic principle,” Warnock said.

The pastor also emphasized that the rich “ought” to give more in order to “level the playing field.”

“And I don’t mind telling you that those who have more ought to give more,” he said. “The strong are to bear the infirmities of the weak. And in the nation and in the church, to whom much is given, much is required. We need to level the playing field. To be concerned about the poor does not make you a socialist, it actually makes you a Christian, and it means that you believe that everybody is a child of God.”

Warnock has not responded to a number of requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.