The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Warnock, 52, spoke with Religion News Service about the influence of King on his life, the challenges of being a father to young children from afar and how he finds sermon topics as he works in Washington. Raphael Warnock considers vote sacred as pastor and Senate candidate And it is certainly something the wealthiest nation on the planet ought to provide for all of its citizens. “I believe that health care is a human right. “I do this work because I preach, after all, every Sunday morning in honor of a man who spent much of his ministry healing the sick, even those with pre-existing conditions,” he said, referring to Jesus. Warnock, the 11th Black senator in American history, said his efforts on Capitol Hill, such as seeking to expand access to Medicaid and cap the cost of insulin, are based in the suffering he has seen. He went on to serve or pastor churches in Birmingham, Harlem and Baltimore, rising eventually to senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where the Rev. But the light shines in the darkness and the darkness overcometh it not,” Warnock said, quoting the Gospel of John. Not that there isn’t darkness in the world. “It is an expression that’s born of suffering and travail and yet keeping the faith even in the midst of challenge and recognizing that the light shines in the darkness. “It was disruptive for me to decide to run for the United States Senate,” he said in an interview ahead of the Tuesday (June 14) release of his book, “A Way Out of No Way: A Memoir of Truth, Transformation, and the New American Story.” “I enjoyed being a pastor, and, in my heart, that’s who I am essentially - not only a pastor but the son of two pastors.”īorn in Savannah, Georgia, the 11th of 12 children of those two pastors, both Pentecostals, Warnock took his book’s title from a familiar refrain in Black churches. Senate last year, but he says he remains first and foremost a preacher. Raphael Warnock may have added a title to his name when he was elected to the U.S.