In 1st sermon since Senate win, Warnock says U.S. can't change until it faces the 'sickness of our situation'

In his first sermon since winning his Senate race on Tuesday, Rev. Raphael Warnock told worshipers at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta that he wanted to talk to them about "God's victory over violence."

On Wednesday, one day after Warnock was elected Georgia's first Black senator and fellow Democrat Jon Ossoff was elected the state's first Jewish senator, a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol. "Just as we were trying to put on our celebration shoes, the ugly side of our story — our great and grand American story — began to emerge as we saw the crude and the angry and the disrespectful and the violent break their way into the people's house, some carrying Confederate flags, signs and symbols of an Old World Order passing away," said Warnock, the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church.

"They were not protesters, they were rioters, tearing up the people's house, and they were handled with the kind of kid gloves with humanity," Warnock continued. "One could not help but juxtapose that to the response to those who were responding this summer to the deaths of George Floyd and the death of Breonna Taylor, those who rose up in peaceful, nonviolent struggle, and were met with brute force."

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The U.S. must face what happened on Wednesday, he said, acknowledging that "we cannot and we will not change until we confront or are confronted by the sickness of our situation. That applies to individuals, that applies to institutions, that applies to nations. You can never get better until you have an actual diagnosis."