A group of pastors condemned Georgia Senate candidate Raphael Warnock’s statement that he is a “pro-choice pastor,” saying that Warnock’s comment shows “grave errors of judgement,” in a letter obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

A coalition of Black Christian ministers sent a letter Friday entreating Warnock, a reverend headed into a January runoff election against Republican Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler, “to reconsider” his “public advocacy for abortion.”

“Unborn Black, brown and white lives are so much more than clumps of cells, burdensome inconveniences, or health problems,” the letter said. “They are sacred human persons endowed by God with inalienable dignity and worth. We implore you to uphold the Biblical defense of life and to fight against the systemic racism of abortion.”

Black Pastors Condemn Rev. … by Mary Margaret Olohan

The letter is spearheaded by the pro-life Human Coalition Action’s Rev. Dean Nelson and signed by more than 25 black, mostly Georgia-based pastors, and refers to Warnock’s public support for abortion on social media and in his debate against Loeffler. Warnock’s support for abortion has sparked a backlash among conservatives and Christians who argued that the terms “pro-choice” and “pastor” contradict one another.

I am a pro-choice pastor.

— Reverend Raphael Warnock (@ReverendWarnock) December 9, 2020

“As a ‘pastor,’ radical pro-abortion Raphael Warnock continues to deny the great commandment to love thy neighbor,” the Family Policy Alliance of Georgia’s Cole Muzio said in a statement following Warnock’s debate with Loeffler this week. “Contrary to his stated faith, Warnock’s extremist views align with the political fringe: believing those that the psalmist declares were knit together in their mother’s womb can have their beating hearts silenced up to and even after birth.”

Georgia Life Alliance Action’s Joshua Edmonds also condemned Warnock’s pro-abortion stance, saying in a statement that if Warnock believed what the Bible said about life being created by God, “it should be impossible for him to arrive at any position other than that innocent babies should be protected by law.”

Warnock has a duty as “a Christian pastor and as a Black leader” to “denounce the evil of abortion, which kills a disproportionate number
of Black children,” the pastors wrote, adding that Warnock’s “open advocacy of abortion is a scandal to the faith and to the Black community.”

“We applaud your commendable efforts to share Christ while pursuing political solutions to our most pressing problems today,” the pastors said. “But precisely because we share so much in common with you, we feel compelled to confront your most recent statements concerning abortion.”

The pastors continued: “You have gone on the record saying that you are a ‘pro-choice pastor’ who will ‘always fight for reproductive justice.’ You have publicly expressed your views that abortion is an exercise of ‘human agency and freedom’ that is fully consistent with your role as a shepherd of God’s people. We believe these statements represent grave errors of judgment and a lapse in pastoral responsibility, and we entreat you to reconsider them.”

Warnock did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.