{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.warnock.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warnock-defines-americas-spiritual-crisis-at-georgetown-universitys-center-on-faith-and-justice/", "Warnock Defines America\u2019s Spiritual Crisis at Georgetown University\u2019s Center on Faith and Justice", "2025-11-18", "2025", "2025-11", "Democrat", "Senate", "GA", "Raphael G. Warnock", "W000790", "www.warnock.senate.gov", "warnock", "https://www.warnock.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/", "scraper", "Senator Reverend Warnock joined students and faculty of Georgetown University\u2019s Center on Faith and Justice, delivering a speech defining America\u2019s \u201cspiritual crisis\u201d\n\nFollowing his remarks, Senator Warnock took questions from the audience and urged the students not to give in to despair and fight to help fix a broken political system\n\nSenator Reverend Warnock: \u201cThis is spiritual work. It is about restoring the covenant that we share with one another\u201d\n\nWashington, D.C. \u2013 Today, U.S. Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock (D-GA) delivered a speech at Georgetown University\u2019s Center on Faith and Justice, defining what he describes as America\u2019s spiritual crisis. The Senator made the case that decades of economic distress and a broken political system have created a spiritual crisis in our country. He argued that addressing economic needs is \u201choly work.\u201d\n\n\u201cThis is spiritual work. It is about restoring the covenant that we share with one another,\u201d said Senator Warnock.\n\nDuring his remarks, Senator Warnock addressed the continuing fight around affordable health care, the recent government funding resolution, the GOP tax bill from earlier in the year, and much more. Senator Warnock likened the economic distress of the past few decades to a \u201clow-grade fever\u201d. Arguing that failure by Washington to address these problems amount to a rupture in the creed that we share.\n\n\u201cDecades of this low grade fever left untreated has brought us to where we are today: A nation in crisis, a nation that has become disconnected from the values that make us who we are, a nation where we no longer see our neighbors as crucial to our own success, but as competitors in a competition for scarce resources, these deficits in a wealthy nation\u2026speak to a spiritual deficit that at its core is a lapse in the covenant that we have with one another,\u201d Senator Warnock explained.\n\n\u201cYou\u2019re not only looking at a United States Senator. You\u2019re not just looking at the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, but you\u2019re looking at someone whose life is a testament to the transformative power of us leaning into we, the people,\u201d Senator Warnock concluded. \u201cI\u2019m a product of us keeping faith with the covenant that we have with one another. I know that all of our children can succeed if we give them a chance.\u201d\n\nThe speech is available to listen to HERE.\n\nSee below a transcript of Senator Warnock\u2019s remarks:\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s always to be good to be with my friend, the Reverend Jim Wallace, a man who exemplifies faith in action, who moves from one position to the next, but he\u2019s always on the same assignment, the embodiment of God\u2019s love and God\u2019s justice in the world. Give the Reverend Jim Wallace a round of applause.\n\nI\u2019m always a little nervous when I\u2019m around Jim, because he always finds a way to make sure we\u2019re getting into some good trouble, and if you stick too close to him, you might get arrested. But always for always, for a good reason.\n\nBack this summer, when folks were working to pass the Big Ugly Bill Jim Wallace, brought a multi faith coalition to the steps of the Capitol so that we could speak with one voice in all of our various faith traditions, that we could say together that the acid test of your faith is the depth of your commitment to the most marginalized members of the human family in various ways. All of our great faith traditions have some version of what we in the Christian tradition call the Golden Rule, \u2018do unto others as you would have them do unto you\u2019. It\u2019s in Jewish tradition. It\u2019s in Hindu tradition. It\u2019s in Islamic tradition. All of the great faith traditions say that in some way.\n\nAnd so I was proud to stand with Reverend Wallace and many others to say to this administration, as they are trying to do more to fire thousands of dedicated federal workers, that we will not be silent as they are trying to do more than kick working people off SNAP and Medicaid, they\u2019re doing that to be sure, thousands of federal workers. When we talk about federal workers, we really are talking about the covenant we have with one another as an American people. The Federal Government is not some third person, some entity out there somewhere. First words of our Constitution are the Creed, the American creed, \u2018We the People\u2019. And these are the ways in which we organize ourselves to do the things for each other that we cannot do alone. And so they are attacking federal workers.\n\nThis business of pulling the people who are SNAP recipients in the recent fight around the government shutdown is the kind of cruelty for which I cannot find adequate words. We were in a fight to be sure. I\u2019m not asking you to take a position on who\u2019s right, Democrats or Republicans. Obviously, I\u2019m in a party, but I was a pastor a long time before I was in a party, and I know cruelty when I see it. And there was no reason to drag the SNAP recipients into this fight.\n\nThey were to be the beneficiaries of a contingency fund, and the administration decided we wouldn\u2019t use the contingency fund, because we would be better off politically to use poor people as pawns in a political fight. And now that the shutdown is over, we heard the Secretary of Agriculture, out of which we get SNAP, say this weekend that maybe we ought to ask everybody to reapply. What is with this making pawns and play things out of poor people?\n\nAnd I want you to think about that, because in a real sense, I think it bespeaks a deep kind of spiritual crisis in our nation, which we\u2019re seeing come to a head in these moments. But if we\u2019re honest, it did not begin with this administration there.\n\nThere is no sugar coating it. These are dark days. These are tough times. And I think maybe a strange thing for someone in elected office to say, but I think that the puny language and vocabulary of partisan politics is not adequate to the task. What ails us is deeper than that, even as we engage in the process, America is struggling with a spiritual crisis. There is a deep sense in this country in which we all realize that something is not right. People on the Left and people on the Right see that. We all know that there is something that\u2019s not quite right.\n\nHave you ever awakened in the morning and you just felt, didn\u2019t feel too good, anybody? That\u2019s what we do in the Baptist Church, talk back to me. Just wake up. You don\u2019t, you don\u2019t feel that good. And you can\u2019t quite put your finger on it, you know, it\u2019s the symptoms are not all that obvious. You just kind of \u2026 , and then you later discover, after stumbling around a bit, that you have a low-grade fever. And so it\u2019s a bit nondescript. You just kind of don\u2019t feel great.\n\nThat\u2019s how I talk about a country these days. I think America has a low-grade fever, and we\u2019ve had that for a long time, over the last decade or so. In fact, if we\u2019re honest, it\u2019s a fever that has transcended Democratic and Republican administrations, and that fever is caused, I believe, by a broken political system, a rupture in the creed that we share as an American people, first three words of the Constitution, \u2018We the People\u2019, the system that has failed to put the needs of the people first.\n\nOver the last 50 years, wages have been stagnant for many, and the price of everything from health care to housing to education has become more expensive. People are working harder and harder and seeing less and less for the work that they\u2019re putting in. And young people are wondering if they\u2019ll ever be able to afford a home. Older people are wondering if they\u2019ll ever be able to retire with dignity. Workers are seeing themselves create wealth for others, yet after creating all of that wealth for others that they can clearly see on the NASDAQ that wealth is not trickling down, and they can barely get by.\n\nDecades of this low-grade fever, stagnant wages for ordinary people, the inability to grasp the American dream, basic human dignity. And then on top of that, 20 years of what felt like an endless war, and then a pandemic that killed a million Americans, that\u2019s a lot of empty seats around the kitchen table. And I think because we\u2019ve had to go through it and keep moving, we have not then taken stock of really what\u2019s happened to us. But to put it in perspective, and I\u2019m trying to remember when most of you all were born, but in 2001, what happened on 9/11 was a sacking of the American conscience. And our sense of ourselves, we lost 4000 people, this pandemic, a million people, on top of all of this increasing wealth inequality.\n\nAnd so decades of this low grade fever left untreated has brought us to where we are today, a nation in crisis, a nation that has become disconnected from the values that make us who we are, a nation where we no longer see our neighbors as crucial to our own success, but as competitors in a competition for scarce resources, these deficits in a wealthy nation and on a plentiful planet speak to a spiritual deficit that at its core is a lap lapse in the covenant that we have one another. In other words, people feel out of control of their lives. They\u2019re lonely, they feel helpless, they feel broken. And here\u2019s the thing, politicians have been channeling that anger instead of trying to heal us into short term political gain.\n\nIf people cannot believe in the promise of opportunity, they choose then to put their faith in strong men who say the country\u2019s in a mess because they rightly see the vulnerability that people feel. But then after that diagnosis, the strong man says, I\u2019m the only one who can fix it.\n\nThe preacher, who happens to be a senator, has to ask himself, where was God Almighty? What was God Almighty in heaven thinking when he heard this mere mortal say, I\u2019m the only one who can fix it.\n\nSo this channeling of anger for short-term partisan purposes of what we\u2019re dealing with now, so it\u2019s why we are caught up in the throes of the politics of rage, anger, division and fear. It\u2019s why we see immigration raised near schools and churches, all of that work is doing something other than the obvious. It\u2019s why we see armed and masked officers and members of the military inciting fear in American cities. It\u2019s why you see uniform folks landing in Black Hawk helicopters, rappelling down buildings in the middle of an American city. Think about the imagery and the iconography \u2013 somebody is trying to convince us that we are at war with one another, and then that creates the context in which you can then move well from the bottom to the top, socialism for the rich. Robin Hood in reverse.\n\n15 million Americans lost their health care was called waste, fraud and abuse. What are you saying about those Americans? 22 million Americans will see their healthcare premiums double on average, waste, fraud and abuse. What are you saying about those people? They\u2019re trying to convince us that we are at war with one another. In fact, the President stood before our generals and spoke in no uncertain terms about what enemy within. Be afraid of politicians who tell you to be afraid of one another.\n\nAnd so the President\u2019s ascendance, to me, is symptomatic of a nation that is broken and in the throes of a spiritual crisis. We have to ask, what kind of country gives birth to that, and says yes to that a couple of times. And so in this way, creating the economic conditions for human thriving, I believe, is part of the spiritual work that we must do. It is holy work. It is why I am engaged in politics. If you\u2019re wondering, how is it that a pastor is engaged in something as messy as politics? It\u2019s because I believe in the incarnation. It is the manger in the messiness of human experience. And every now and then, I get to do something amazing, like cap the cost of insulin for seniors to know more than $35 of a pocket cost, that changes somebody\u2019s life. This is spiritual work. It is about restoring the covenant that we share with one another.\n\nAnd so as I close, and nobody believes a Baptist preacher when he says, \u2018As I close,\u2019 you\u2019re not only looking at a United States Senator. You\u2019re not just looking at the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, but you\u2019re looking at someone whose life is a testament to the transformative power of us leaning into we, the people. I know what good, good public policy can do. Long before I had a PhD or Senate seat or pulpit made famous by Martin Luther King, Jr, I was a head start kid. Somebody gave preschool-age kid a chance by stirring in me a love for learning and dealing with the word gap that poor kids often suffer from, that aided and abetted by parents who were poor but they had good sense. They bought me a set of World Book, encyclopedias. I think we only ones in the projects that had a whole volume of World Book \u2026 And Pell grants and low interest student loans enabled me to make my way through Morehouse College. I just wanted to go to the school that Dr King attended. I\u2019m a product of us keeping faith with the covenant that we have with one another, and I know that all of our children can succeed if we give them a chance.\n\nAnd so in closing, here\u2019s what political opponents, opponents all have in common here. Here\u2019s what mortal enemies have in common. We all love our children. We love our children. Part of the spiritual work that we have to do through public policy is enable each other to look into the eyes of other people\u2019s children and see our own. We\u2019re tired of the single garment of destiny caught up in an inescapable network of mutuality. Dr. King said, Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.\n\nI\u2019m a Matthew 25 Christian. I was hungry and you fed me. I was sick. I was in prison. You visited me. I was a stranger. You attended to me. You welcomed me. When were you hungry? When were you naked? When were you sick? Basic spiritual needs that the Savior sent us, he said, in as much as you\u2019ve done it to the least of these, you\u2019ve done it also unto me, I hope to be among those voices summoning to all of us to that higher calling.\u201d\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:52:45Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.warnock.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warnock-defines-americas-spiritual-crisis-at-georgetown-universitys-center-on-faith-and-justice/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.5859969425946474, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}