A decade earlier, I had stood there delivering the closing prayer for the ecumenical service at President Barack Obama’s second inauguration.
The Introduction
America - The Grand Cathedral
See Also -
Reverend Warnock had stood in the Washington Cathedral to provide the closing prayer for the Second Inauguration of our First Black President Barack Obama and now he had been once again called there to address a large group of folks of all ethnic and religious people as the First Black Senator from Georgia... to celebrate Emancipation Day - the end of Slavery as our shared American history! Juneteenth was to be declared a National Federal Holiday!
I had watched as Senator Warnock had been sworn in along with Senator Ossoff. But I must acknowledge that their wonderful successes was downplayed for me, and many, aswe were appalled as the attempts by the republican party to call for a review for election fraud...
But that didn't mean that I also didn't begin to watch Senator Warnock as he began to serve America. Because, for me, his being a pastor had placed a special awareness for the future... Would he, also, like the evangelicals support or spotlight what the republican party was doing to our country...
But no, Warnock as spotlighted in his new book, clearly saw the reality of what was going on in America. While spotlighting what he called a paradox - which I had to promptly confirm exactly what that word could mean... I discovered it was the one word that I had not thought of to describe the "mess" that's been happening this past decade...
a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true.
Indeed, America has been living a paradox from the very first when the country was being founded and those moving to these new lands chose to leave a place where they had been denied their rights as humans, yet chose to begin those same actions against, first, the indigenous people and then those who were "different" in some way as they also chose to make the United States their home.
Pointing out what some may already know, Thomas Jefferson worked to provide freedom, but also continued to own slaves in his personal life... The paradox of that reality actually set the stage for what has been attempted throughout the next 250 years, and which is now facing the most devastating attempts to return to the time of Thomas Jefferson. For, I and many others have realized that today's president - along with Project 2025 which Warnock includes - understands that, perhaps, when the words were written at that time, they were being written for White Men only... Why else was there a mention of the quoted value for Black servants at less than a whole human?
And as we face our 250th birthday, we must accept that all of the actions that has moved America forward to the way it was seen as recently as in 2014, We The People have allowed those white men who especially choose to seek power over others, have gained sufficient financial gain in order to attempt to create a nation not under God, but under a King or whatever word describes the few who think they are above all, including God Above... We call those who attempt to deride others as white supremacists... A negative and unacceptable statement for us still to be fighting over this after 250 years!
In sharing his thoughts, readers will discover that Reverent Senator Warnock speaks in a sure and commanding way that elicits attention from listeners. We know--yes, we know--that we can be sure that this man of God speaks truth... And, we also know that, in becoming a Senator, that he wants to, can, and MUST speak for those of us he has chosen to serve as a member of the United States Congress... For surely, we who really listen can tell the difference for those who, paradoxically, as we have learned from history, speak with forked tongue...
Warnock has chosen to speak on what he considers the most important issues that we must address, right now, at a minimum. These are moral issues, not, policy issues, in my opinion... There is a major difference between what we need to have done to our country versus what we have seen as, even from the beginning, white men chose to use to makee deals with our indigenous people to become owners of lands while pushing them further and further away into places they had never lived before... And in their minds think that they, as white men, had the right to steal and lie their way into their future country...
Warnock challenges us to begin to make choices of consequence for the future of America. Will we condone the loss of our history? Will we allow all remnants of those memories to be deleted through banning of books which provide that history?
Will we allow the deletion of laws by earlier congressional members from whom we could trust that they've acted in good faith for our citizens?
During the coming days, we will be looking chapter by chapter at Reverend Senator Warnock's issues... Please plan to comment early or pass on these posts to those you believe will be interested... The Political Issues are voting rights and voter suppression, the growing influence of dark money, the persistence of poverty, mass incarceration, gun violence, and the climate emergency.
Chapter 1 A Spark of the Divine
Chapter 2 Squeezing Out the Least of These
Chapter 3 Two Thousands Verses
Chapter 4 Scar on the Soul of America
Chapter 5 Guns Everywhere
Chapter 6 Humble Ourselves; Heal the Land
Standing in the grand pulpit of the National Cathedral that morning, I reflected that America is like a glorious cathedral, 250 years in the making. Yet, after all these years, we’re still wrestling and toiling to build this grand cathedral of freedom and democracy. Words from the poet Langston Hughes come to mind:
“America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!”
For my message on that glorious Juneteenth weekend, I found inspiration in the ancient wisdom of the biblical prophet Isaiah, whose words I have been preaching in sermons across the length and breadth of our nation for many years. In the book of Isaiah, chapter 40, God speaks a word of hope to a people physically and politically exiled, a people spiritually and emotionally exhausted. It’s such a tough time that God tells the prophet, “Comfort my people” and “speak tenderly” to them. Isaiah responds to the call with a kind of moral topography. A justice-centered geography. God’s great vision for the land. The words are familiar to Jews and Christians alike, and to anyone who has ever heard the spectacular sounds of George Frederic Handel’s Messiah.
Isaiah imagines a future with hope: Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill brought low; The crooked places shall be made straight, and the rough places smooth; And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. (Isaiah 40:4–5, NKJV) The ethical import of this ancient text and its continuing relevance for our times captured the imagination of the preacher. I told the congregation that in God’s vision for the land, first of all valleys are exalted, and mountains and hills are made low. We live in a time when increasingly the high sit very high and the low sit very low. Vast wealth inequality seems intractable, and it is getting worse, with tragic implications not only for the poor and working class but for the future of the whole land! But in God’s vision for the land, there is equity. The low places are enabled to come up a little higher, and the high places come down a little lower. It is a message of hope at the end of a long, dark night. After a period of deep suffering and exile, the prophet speaks not merely of a return to the land but a bold reimagining of the land. As we return once again to the meaning of America, on the occasion of the nation’s 250th anniversary of its independence, I ask, what might it mean to imagine a future where valleys are exalted and mountains and hills are made low? Indeed, Isaiah’s words are so beautiful, so sublime, that they cut right through the hopelessness of a people awash in despair. How we need this kind of bold vision in a moment like our own! The truth is that the partisan and petty rhetoric of politics today is simply too puny a language for the magnitude of the problems we face. Instead, I urge us to look to Isaiah as a lens through which to view the problems that confront us and the possibilities within and around us. The goal of this book is to lay out that vision clearly so that we can work together to build the America that we want to see. In sharp contrast to the narrow, individualistic obsession that characterizes so much of American preaching, the eighth-century prophets of the Bible addressed their preachments to the social order. In God’s vision, as expressed through Isaiah, not only is there equity, but there is integrity, possibility, and inclusivity. There is a shared commitment to a social vision that honors the humanity of all. I offer “the crooked places…made straight” as a way of talking about the integrity so badly needed in our politics and nation today. “The rough places smooth” reminds us that there is also possibility. The prophet is saying: I know it’s dark right now, but the light shines through the darkness, transforming dismal conditions and making rough places smooth. The last part, “and all flesh shall see it together,” is about inclusivity, the inextricable connection we have with one another. Isaiah is helpful in our context because his poetic language calls upon us to anchor ourselves in the best of our moral traditions and reimagine the future. In that sense, his moral topography is a bold, countervailing vision about how to live and relate to one another in the land and how we relate to the land itself. It is a geopolitics that reverences creation and centers love and justice. No wonder Isaiah’s words have been remixed by every Gospel writer of the Christian New Testament and sampled across the centuries! In the way of prophets and poets, he helps us to see ourselves through a moral prism and, with his feet firmly on the ground, he imagines new possibilities. I used to read this text and think that what it meant was that the glory of God is so grand, so overwhelming, so extraordinary, that when God’s glory is revealed, all flesh cannot help but to see it. Nowadays, I read it in the reverse. In fact, I think the prophet is teaching us how to see the glory of God. In order to see God, we must first behold one another in our rich and variegated human beauty. In the eyes of the other, we get a glimpse of the glory of God. “All flesh shall see it together.” Yet there is despair and doubt that it will ever come.
Isaiah sees it, and I feel it. He asks, “How long, O Lord?” A question I, too, find myself asking, over and over again. Our country needs moral leadership and a renewed vision like Isaiah’s, one that invites us to reach out to one another, to pray for one another rather than prey on one another, and to reach toward our highest and noblest ideals rather than sink in our basest fears. To turn to what Abraham Lincoln called at another time of deep division “the better angels of our nature.” I so deeply believe in Isaiah’s vision for a reimagined moral topography that I use his principles and teachings as my guidepost. They provide for me a gut check for my public work. I commend them for our collective consideration. Isaiah’s prophetic utterances come against the backdrop of one of the lowest points in ancient Israel’s history—a time that is a far cry from the height of the nation’s power. In fact, the nation has been weakened. The people have been ejected from familiar places and signposts that provide certainty and meaning. It was a time much like the America we see today. We have found ourselves living in a strange land. Although the book of Isaiah bears the name of one individual—whose name literally means “the Lord saves”—these passages cover a longer period, beyond the span of a single life, to include the reigns of several kings and Israel’s subjugation to several succeeding empires. And the book is not written by just one person. Writings by several authors together form what Bible scholars call “the Isaiah tradition.” This tradition addressed a people in exile, cast out to a foreign and unfamiliar land. Theirs is a political crisis with psychic and emotional implications. All the landmarks that gave them a sense of security, including the Temple, are in flux. There is a vacuum in leadership. The future seems uncertain, and the people are desperately insecure, wondering if they will ever find their way back home. But through Isaiah, we see that these moments are also opportunities for new leadership and new possibilities. Given the prominence of the theme of justice (mispat) in the Hebrew prophetic tradition, it is not surprising to see this theme emerge over and again in Isaiah’s writings. He provides spiritual and social commentary on his times through the lens of faith. His is not a spooky spirituality, disembodied and disconnected from the real world. Rather, it is rooted in lived experience and the physical world, fully engaged with its geopolitical complexity, ecological perils, and social problems. His words are not easy. In fact, his message is often quite harsh, administering the bitter medicine and tough love that prophets provide. But ultimately, it leans into hope. Isaiah is no stranger to frustration with institutional leadership. He knows well the perils of public corruption, sophisticated legalized bribery, and a political class more interested in preserving its own power than in serving the people. We feel the turmoil in Isaiah’s words as he criticizes his people, who should have known better, and done better. He’s fed up with political leaders who are focused on their own gain at the expense of the people. “Your princes are rebels and companions of thieves,” he says in Isaiah 1:22–24 (NRSVA). “Everyone loves a bribe and runs after gifts. They do not defend the orphan, and the widow’s cause does not come before them,” he continues, referring to the most downtrodden, weak, and forgotten members of society. When I consider the overwhelming influence of dark money and big monied interests and corporations in our politics, I think Isaiah might well have been speaking of twenty-first-century American politicians. Isaiah’s voice emerges at a time of tectonic changes, much like our own. We, too, live in a kind of exile; that is, we are increasingly disconnected from one another in a sea of technological hyper-connectivity. This has deeply impacted our children, who too often live in lonely silos curated by the algorithms of big technology companies that have left them depressed, disconnected from authentic, human relationships, and sometimes suicidal. Moreover, all of this is happening within the larger context of an American crisis of cynicism and despair in which the American people are understandably frustrated, and many have lost faith, confidence, and trust in the major institutions of society: the government, police, the Supreme Court, media, banking, and houses of faith. But Isaiah is not only frustrated with unprincipled political leadership. He also chastises religious leaders and institutions whose outward piety and worship show no mercy to the most marginalized members of the human family. He avers, “I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity…. Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood…. Seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.” The Hebrew prophetic tradition is a prominent part of Scripture that challenges the excesses and machinations of power among the Israelites.
But unlike so many of today’s ministers whose messages to the people center on personal piety, the Hebrew prophets focused on systemic injustice. This challenge and call to center the humanity of the weak was central to their work. But you wouldn’t know that listening to the loudest and most well-financed Christian voices in our country today. Rather than hating the condition of poverty, as in Isaiah’s prophetic tradition, they choose to hate poor people and blame them for their condition. Not only is such a stance unjust, but it is also unwise. Public policy that leaves so many behind can only leave our nation poorer, sicker, and weaker. Somebody say, “Amen!!!”
The Washington Post after Donald Trump’s first election showed that Christians, particularly white Evangelicals, were much more likely than non-Christians to blame poverty on individual failings rather than on difficult circumstances beyond their control. According to the poll, 53 percent of white Evangelicals, more than any other religious group, blamed lack of effort for a person’s poverty. The poll also showed that 63 percent of Republicans held this viewpoint, compared with 26 percent of Democrats.
White Evangelicals have overwhelmingly supported Trump and used their voices and votes to lift him to the highest office in the land twice. Now, with Republicans controlling both houses of Congress and Trump in his second term, the poorest of the poor and the most marginalized members of the human family are again the least protected and the most vulnerable to his heartless policies and practices. I can hear the voices, shouting far and wide, “Hammercy!”
Over these past months, Trump and his administration have been doing all they can to reshape government based on the vision of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, the ultraconservative blueprint that calls for vastly expanding presidential power, shrinking government, and getting rid of some tried-and-true programs that give poor people a boost. That includes the venerable Head Start, which provides poor children early access to education. I know firsthand the value of Head Start, because I attended the program as a poor kid, growing up with two hardworking parents in Savannah, Georgia. Head Start sparked my intellectual curiosity and put me on a path to a prosperous and productive life, as it has done for millions of children over the past six decades. Deep in my spirit, I hear the God of Isaiah ask, “What do you mean by crushing my people and grinding the faces of the poor?” I can hear Jesus saying, “I came to preach good news to the poor.”
In God’s vision for the land, valleys are exalted, mountains and hills are made low. In God’s vision, there is equity. To get more equity in the land, however, we desperately need more integrity. More leaders committed to truth, regardless of party politics. Leaders with their feet firmly planted in a vision of America signified by the Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the nation’s highest ideals. Leaders like my late mentor and parishioner, U.S. Representative John R. Lewis, who stood for truth and justice, walked out his faith, and put his body on the line to help smooth the rough places at a critical moment in the sculpting of our great land of the free.
Will you speak out? Explain your position?
Listen to those from our neighbors?
Can we renew our speech to be Truthful because we are not afraid anymore?
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