The Tale of 2021: Georgia and the Religious Left
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STEPHEN BLINDER: As November’s presidential election draws nearer – the result of which is increasingly dependent on eight tightly contested “swing states” – candidates, allies, and experts alike are placing a renewed focus on Georgia, arguably the tipping point in 2020 when President Biden won the “Peach State” by just 12,670 votes. With polls indicating a virtual tie between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris in Georgia, whether or not the coalition that lifted Biden to a historic victory in the state four years ago remains intact is one of the most pressing questions this campaign cycle. Yet for Democrats to win Georgia, perhaps they need not look to 2020 but 2021 and Senator Raphael Warnock’s election thanks, in large part, to the resurgence of the religious left.
Religion was at the heart of Warnock’s runoff against former Senator Kelly Loeffler and not just because Warnock himself is senior pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church – famously the site of sermons delivered by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Supported by many of her Republican allies, Loeffler unsuccessfully attempted to discredit Warnock largely on the basis of his religious faith.
Loeffler, for example, falsely accused Warnock of insulting members of the military during a 2011 sermon in which he evoked the Gospel of Matthew (6:24), saying: “America, nobody can serve God and the military. You can’t serve God and money. You cannot serve God and mammon at the same time. America, choose ye this day whom you will serve.” In fact, Warnock was merely, following the conventional understanding of the Scripture, “expressing as a person of faith that my ultimate allegiance is to God.” Yet, Loeffler and her sympathizers continued to attack Warnock for seeing in religion a unique forum for devout spirituality and, as importantly, a forum for passionate, unifying activism in the face of the social injustices that continue to plague our country.
As John Gehring observed in Commonweal shortly after Warnock’s election in 2021, “It’s an understatement to say that the discomforting truths illuminated by Black liberation preachers clash with the predominant strain of white Christianity, which largely focuses on personal behavior and individual salvation at the expense of structural injustices and social sins.” This tension was glaringly on display in 2021 when Loeffler portrayed herself as the “genuine” Christian – embracing a pro-military, small government platform – in stark contrast to Warnock’s allegedly “radical” Christianity that included under its umbrella the voices of LGBTQIA+ Americans, abortion rights, and the notion that democracy is, in Warnock’s words, a “political enactment of a spiritual idea, that we are all children of God, and therefore we all ought to have a voice in the direction of our country and our destiny within it.”
In response to Loeffler’s criticism of Warnock’s religiosity, over one hundred religious leaders signed a letter calling on her “to cease your false attacks on Reverend Warnock’s social justice theological and faith traditions…” In Loeffler’s desperate attempt to make religion central to the election, she unintentionally mobilized the oft-forgotten religious left. Loeffler’s loss and, more importantly, Warnock’s victory prove that religion has a decisive role in Democratic messaging and campaign strategy.
Understandably, the replicability of Biden’s 2020 Georgia coalition is a popular talking point this election season. Moreover, Democrats’ continued struggles to regain the trust of the working class and the many young voters disillusioned with politics only raise the stakes. That’s exactly why Democrats can’t afford to continue pursuing Biden’s 2020 coalition at all costs when Warnock’s in 2021 is the most feasible and promising. Democrats must reinvent the makeup of the presidential electorate by appealing to a group of which many questioned the very existence, but Warnock’s victory showed is alive and impactful: the religious left.
For all the success Republicans have had in co-opting religion for political ends, Warnock reset the narrative, even if temporarily. If they are brave enough to do so openly and genuinely, Democrats have the opportunity this year to extend a hand to the many religious Americans who still see in religion a forum for faith and a forum for progressive action. In November, their voices may very well decide the fate of our democracy.
Stephen Blinder is a staff writer for On the Record. He is a senior studying government and philosophy in the College of Arts & Sciences.