Sen. Raphael Warnock Criticizes Trump For ‘Weaponizing’ Symbols Of Faith

Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Georgia) accused former President Donald Trump on MSNBC’s Morning Joe of “weaponizing” religious symbols and deepening national divisions.

“As a pastor, as a person of faith, I take great offense with the way in which he is weaponizing the symbols of our great country and also the symbols of the faith, towards this kind of hate,” said Warnock.

Earlier this year, the Trump campaign began selling “God Bless USA” Bibles, claiming that religion and Christianity are “the biggest things missing from this country.”

Warnock countered Trump’s notion, emphasizing the importance of religious Democrats being “full-throated” in both their faith and their opposition to Christian nationalism.

“For me, democracy… is the political enactment of a spiritual idea, this notion that each of us has within a spark of the divine, if we were created in what the theologians call the Imago Dei, the image of God, and if I have a spark of the divine, I ought to have a voice in the direction of the country and my destiny within it,” he said during the Tuesday interview.

Warnock continued, “I ought to respect the humanity of all of God’s people, those of other faith traditions, those who claim no faith at all. That is this grand American experiment, and we get to write the next chapter.”

On Monday night, Warnock addressed the Democratic National Convention, expressing confidence that people will “push past this awful chapter of hate and division” under Trump, and highlighting his and Sen. Jon Ossoff‘s (D-Georgia) Senate victories in the previously red state.

“I have to say that the Christian church is going to have to come to terms with the fact that there is no full accounting for this phenomenon of Trumpism without reference to the church, and we got to come to terms with that,” he said on Monday.

Warnock also criticized the former president for endorsing a Bible, suggesting that Trump should “try reading it” instead.

In response to Warnock’s remarks, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung stated on that Warnock “doesn’t know what he’s talking about and is clearly suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome.”