As the country reels from the assassination attempt of Donald Trump, the first attempt on a president or presidential candidate’s life since 1981, pastors are taking the lead in shepherding their flocks through this fraught time and condemning the country’s deeply divided political environment.
U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock was among the elected officials who put out statements shortly after the shooting condemning the attack. On Sunday morning, in his capacity as pastor of the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Warnock said he was “disheartened” and “deeply saddened” by what happened at Saturday’s rally and went on to deliver a 10-minute speech condemning political violence of all stripes. Security appeared to be the same at the church as on most Sundays.
”We pray for the American family beset by a moral crisis and spiritual sickness so much deeper than partisan politics,” he said. “The puny language of red states and blue states will not save us now. This is not about red and blue, this is not about right and left, this is about right and wrong.”
But Warnock also encouraged those listening to ensure their reaction to political violence is consistent, saying the person who may have targeted Trump is no patriot, just as the people who breached the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, were not. “They are cut from the same cloth,” Warnock said. “We must cry foul, we must call out the hypocrisy of anyone who would try to condone one and not condemn the other.”
On Saturday evening at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, a shooter began firing at the former president, who then grabbed his right ear before ducking down and being swarmed by Secret Service agents.
The shooting left one spectator dead and two others injured , officials said. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro on Sunday identified the rallygoer who was killed as Corey Comperatore, a former fire chief from the area, and said he “died a hero.”
“His wife shared with me that he dove on his family to protect them,” Shapiro said. He declined to discuss the condition of two others who were wounded.
Trump wrote Saturday on his social media platform Truth Social that he “knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin.”
On Sunday morning, the former president wrote it “was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening.”
The FBI early Sunday identified the shooter as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. The agency said the investigation remains active and ongoing.
Secret Service agents fatally shot Crooks, who attacked from an elevated position outside the rally venue, the agency said.
On Saturday, Pastor Jentezen Franklin of the multi-campus Free Chapel in Gainesville joined with other evangelical pastors for a prayer summit. Franklin also serves as a faith adviser to the former president.
In a video shown during Sunday services, Franklin thanked God that Trump was not killed.
Credit: Contributed
Credit: Contributed
”We’re thankful that you were there, that you preserved his life. You don’t preserve anything you don’t have a purpose for. So you have a mighty purpose for President Trump,” he said.
“He knows now, like never before, that he is not immortal. That one day he will stand before you in fear and trembling. And God, make him a man on a mission now. Make him a man, oh God, who you have raised up, like you did King David for Israel. Raise this man up for America, to keep us strong and powerful.”
Credit: Natrice Miller / Natrice.Miller@ajc.com
Credit: Natrice Miller / Natrice.Miller@ajc.com
Rev. Timothy McDonald III, senior pastor of First Iconium Baptist Church in Atlanta, said he had different thoughts when he first heard about the assassination attempt.
However, “Jesus quieted me down and said no person deserves to just be shot. I know how I felt when Dr. [Martin Luther King Jr.] was assassinated. I know how I felt when [Robert] Kennedy was assassinated ... if it had happened, today right now our whole country would be in chaos.”
He said God spoke on Saturday but questioned whether the nation was listening. He said God is tired of hatred, foolishness, lies and deception. The nation, he said, has to change.
Warnock, a Democrat who leads a historic Black church of mostly like-minded voters that was once led by Dr. King, said that the attack on Trump should be condemned not only for the impact on those killed or injured but also for its wider reflection of the political climate.
”Dr. King is still right: We’re tied in a single garment of destiny caught up in an inescapable network of mutuality,” he said. “Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. Dr. King is still right the ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral to getting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Finally, across the yawning chasm of our partisan differences, we must be very clear that yesterday’s attack is an attack on all of us because it is an attack on democracy.”
Credit: Miguel Martinez
Credit: Miguel Martinez
Other religious leaders also echoed that sentiment.
“No matter what side of the aisle you sit on — left or right, Republican or Democrat — there is something wrong with a country that will take aim at a former president,” Pastor Wilbur T. Purvis III of the nondenominational Destiny World Church in Austell said in remarks during the Sunday service. “Regardless of what side you sit on, there should be a certain code that we live by... Listen, we can disagree and still be agreeable.”
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