Rev. Otis Moss III writes:

On a Sunday morning in 1989, during my freshman year at Morehouse College in Atlanta, I listened to a sophomore chapel assistant named Raphael Warnock. Extraordinarily composed, Warnock delivered from the pulpit a thoughtful, powerful sermon — one that challenged us, as people of faith, to “sound the trumpet” on behalf of children forgotten at the doorstep of America’s promise. When he finished, we all rose to our feet in applause.

Warnock once again stands before a community in Georgia, this time as candidate for the U.S. Senate. If he is elected in January, he will be the first member of Congress from the South since Reconstruction to explicitly profess the spiritual tradition of the social gospel as envisioned and designed by people of African descent.

Perhaps because this spirituality — commonly referred to as the Black church tradition of resistance and redemption — has been absent from government for so long, and so often ignored by historians and scholars, it is easily misinterpreted. But anyone who cares to look will find that this theology has advanced justice in our country for generations.

Not surprisingly, Warnock’s beliefs have already been widely mischaracterized in coverage of the Georgia Senate runoff. Conservative pundits claim they inject politics into the pulpit. They appear to be completely unaware that the “politics” of the Black church tradition are rooted in the words of Jesus, who called for every Christian to be a champion of the poor. [Continue reading…]