“The average atheist has more virtue than the white Christians of Alabama,” said Raphael Warnock.
By Josh Plank, World Israel News
Georgia Senate runoff candidate Raphael Warnock bashed “white Christians of Alabama” in a now-deleted tweet from his older but unverified Twitter account in 2017, Breitbart News reported Monday.
“The average atheist has more virtue than the white Christians of Alabama. #RoyMoore,” Warnock tweeted on December 11, 2017.
The tweet came the day before Alabama’s special election to fill the Senate seat vacated by Jeff Sessions, who left to serve as the U.S. Attorney General.
Democratic candidate Doug Jones narrowly defeated Republican candidate Roy Moore in the special election by a margin of only 1.63%.
Though the tweet from the @RaphaelWarnock account has now been deleted, it can still be viewed using Internet Archive’s “Wayback Machine” website.
The @RaphaelWarnock account dates back to January 2011 and has just over 6,000 followers, in contrast to Warnock’s verified account, @ReverendWarnock, which was opened in January 2020 and now has over 540,000 followers.
Warnock’s campaign did not respond to Breitbart‘s request to verify that Warnock wrote and deleted the tweet.
However, the account contains ample personal detail from the past decade to substantiate Warnock’s ownership of the account. For example, @RaphaelWarnock is mentioned in several tweets from the account of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Warnock has served as pastor since 2005.
Warnock’s account is also mentioned in a February 2019 tweet by Darin Moore, chair of the National Council of Churches, USA.
“I’m honored and inspired to be sharing with these prophetic preachers & church leaders in visiting Israel and Palestine,” Moore tweeted alongside a photograph of church leaders which included Warnock.
The photograph appears to be taken during the Leaders of Historically African American and South African Churches visit to Israel in February 2019.
The visit resulted in a joint statement signed by Warnock that likened Israeli control of Judea and Samaria to “previous oppressive regimes” such as “apartheid South Africa.”
Warnock has faced harsh criticism over several anti-Israel statements that have come to light during his campaign, but his fellow Democrats have come to his defense.
In keeping with his apparent contempt for Israelis and white Alabamans, Warnock compared Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to segregationist and former Alabama Gov. George Wallace during a 2016 sermon.
Warnock called Netanyahu’s opposition to a two-state solution “tantamount to saying occupation today, occupation tomorrow, occupation forever,” a line reminiscent of Wallace’s call for, “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever.”