For generations, the Black church has been a cornerstone of Democratic Party politics, from “souls to the polls” voting drives to hosting candidates who want to reach Black audiences.
So it was no surprise when Senator Raphael Warnock, a Georgia senator and ordained minister, took the stage at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Monday he also took his audience to church. After referencing his mother — who, after years of picking cotton, picked her son at the ballot box in 2020 — he compared voting to an act of faith.
“Voting is a prayer we pray collectively for the kind of world we desire for ourselves and our children,” said Warnock, senior pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, which was once pastored by Martin Luther King Jr. “And our prayers are stronger when we pray together.”
Warnock was among several voices that intertwined faith, Black church traditions and politics before a national audience at the DNC. The speakers offered faith as a rationale to make Vice President Kamala Harris the next president — itself a mission to save the soul of the country.
Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, one of the party’s elder statesmen, referenced scripture in his presentation for Harris: “As 2 Corinthians informs, we are troubled on every side, yet not distressed. We are perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted but not forsaken, cast down but not destroyed,” he said.
“Our great democracy has been tested, and so has the basic goodness of the American people,” Clyburn said. “But our resolve to remain a great country with freedom and justice for all will not falter.”
Rev. Cindy Rudolph of Oak Grove AME Church in Detroit, was one of several clergy who spoke at the DNC. She praised the leadership of Harris and Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor and Harris’ running mate, saying it dovetails with Jesus’ teachings.
“As we look upon our leadership, we see what You require of us: To do justice, like the justice Vice President Harris has championed her entire career,” Rudolph said in her benediction. “To love mercy, like the mercy Governor Walz has modeled as a lifelong public servant and educator. And to walk humbly, like the humility President Biden has embodied with decades of outstanding servant leadership.”
The faith factor seemed widely felt.
“The inclusion of more deeper faith-based references during night one at the Democratic National Convention was a subtle nod, I believe, to President Biden’s own walk of faith,” says digital creator Linnyette Richardson-Hall, #PoliticalDIVAsez. “He is a deeply religious man for whom his faith is everything and he’s not been shy about telling the world how it’s shaped and sustained him. He’s not ostentatious nor zealous in his profession – he’s as humble as the beatitudes suggest.”
She called the insertion of faith at the DNC “an excellent way to showcase the stark differences” between Biden and Trump. One, she says, is “a man who believes versus someone who wants you to think he knows something about faith.”
Ray Winbush, a professor, researcher and activist at Morgan State University, agreed.
“I think we’ve gotten so used to negative political discussions, it was refreshing to hear and see love expressed publicly,” he said.
It was a challenge, however, for any other speaker to come close to Warnock. Given the rapturous response to his speech, delivered in the cadence of a skilled Baptist minister, one wondered if Warnock would extend the opportunity to save a few individual souls in the process.
Along with comparing voting to prayer, the reverend went on to express good wishes for his neighbor’s children, the poor children of Israel and Gaza, those in the Congo, in Haiti and the Ukraine, “because we’re all God’s children.”
“And so, let’s stand together. Let’s work together. Let’s organize together. Let’s pray together. Let’s stand together. Let’s heal the land,” he said, to rousing applause. “God bless you. Keep the faith.”
Commentators instantly lit up social media. On the facebook page of Win With Black Women, members went wild for Warnock: the tone of his presentation, the possibility it might involve an altar call, wondering why an organ wasn’t playing. They were impressed that he strayed considerably from the teleprompter.
The Black faith traditions Warnock invoked resonated, “but in an actual real way, actual real faith, honest and true,” says Jacqueline Malonson, owner of Jax Photography. “I was struck and heartened. I know it when I see it and feel it, and it gives me hope.”
