On Sunday morning, Sen. Raphael Warnock appeared on NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” where host Kristen Welker gave the Georgia Democrat, who’s also the senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, an opportunity to react to the deadly mass shooting at Brown University that had happened a day earlier.
“As I make my way to my own pulpit this morning, I’m going to say a special prayer for Brown University and for our nation,” Warnock said. “And I can tell you that as a pastor who has presided over many funerals, I don’t think that there’s any pain deeper than when nature is violently reversed and rather than children burying their parents, the parent has to bury the child. And so we pray prayers for these families.
“But we have to pray not only with our lips, but with our action. Any nation that tolerates this kind of violence year after year, decade after decade in random places, on our college and school campuses, without doing all that we can to stop it is broken and in need of moral repair.”
The senator went on to urge Americans to “dig deep” into their “common humanity” in the wake of the shootings at Brown campus and at Australia’s Bondi Beach.
Donald Trump apparently wasn’t impressed. Three days after the interview aired, the president published a message to his social media platform that began:
Raphael Warnock was on Meet the Fake Press with a one sided and very biased Kristen Welker as the Host(ess!). Warnock spent the entire show using Religion to try and divide the Country! If a Republican, in particular ME, made those statements, it would be FRONT PAGE NEWS. He ended by saying that he was going to his Church to preach now, and while I think that’s fine, I do say, ‘What ever happened to separation of Church and State?’
As part of the same online harangue, the Republican went on to smear the senator and attack NBC, before concluding, “The Public airwaves, which these Networks are using at no charge, should not be allowed to get away with this any longer!”
For now, let’s put aside the obvious fact that Warnock’s on-air message wasn’t the least bit divisive. What instead stuck me as notable is that the incumbent president, after nearly five years in the White House, still doesn’t appear to understand the basics of the constitutional principle of church-state separation.
To hear Trump tell it, the fact that Warnock is both a pastor and a senator, who still delivers regular sermons, is some kind of violation of the First Amendment.
That’s ridiculous. The whole point of the separation of church and state is government neutrality on matters of faith, leaving Americans to make up their own minds and pursue their own spiritual or secular paths.
If Warnock wanted public funds or other governmental benefits for Ebenezer Baptist, that would be a problem. If he tried to use his office to force people into the pews, that obviously would be at odds with the law. If the senator was advocating on behalf of state-sponsored 10 Commandments into public classrooms, we’d be having a qualitatively different kind of conversation.
But if a senator, in his own time, chooses to speak to a congregation, that’s free speech. This really isn’t that complicated. If, however, Trump is looking for actual examples of officials crossing the church-state line that he’s suddenly taken an interest in, I’d refer him to the recent Christian prayer services sponsored by the Department of Labor, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Defense Department, each of which reflected an unsettling break with government neutrality on matters of faith. As for Warnock, the Georgia Democrat apparently saw Trump’s online rant and took the time to respond. “He’s got a lot of nerve,” the senator said in a statement. “Remember, this is the same president who literally had peaceful protesters gassed and beaten so he could stand in front of a church holding a Bible up. He ought to read that Bible that he was holding up on that day. That Bible says that Jesus came to preach good news to the poor. He came to heal the sick. He never billed them for his services. He stood up for the weak, the marginalized, average, ordinary people.” Warnock concluded, “Mr. President, my faith is not a weapon, it’s a bridge, and I invite you to Bible study. Maybe you can meet the Jesus I know. In the meantime, I’m going to keep fighting for the people.”
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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