December 11, 2020
Reverend Raphael Warnock
Ebenezer Baptist Church
101 Jackson Street NE
Atlanta, GA 30312
Dear Reverend Warnock,
We are a coalition of Black Christian ministers who, like you, feel called by God to preach the
Bible, advocate for justice and fight against societal evils. We applaud your commendable efforts
to share Christ while pursuing political solutions to our most pressing problems today.
But precisely because we share so much in common with you, we feel compelled to confront
your most recent statements concerning abortion. 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. As a Christian pastor and as a Black
leader, you have a duty to denounce the evil of abortion, which kills a disproportionate number
of Black children. Your open advocacy of abortion is a scandal to the faith and to the Black
community.
Abortion is fundamentally in conflict with the plain reading of the Bible. The Bible clearly
teaches that human life is created by God beginning at conception. As Psalm 139 proclaims:
“You knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am wonderfully and fearfully
made.” What human being could possibly have the right to blot out an innocent life that God has
wonderfully and fearfully made?
Abortion prematurely thwarts God’s providential and loving plan for a promising human life.
And by terminating an innocent unborn life in the womb, abortion directly violates the seventh
commandment: “Thou shalt not kill.” God demands that every faithful Christian protect and
uphold the sanctity of innocent human life, at every stage of life. Supporting abortion represents
a serious abdication of and a transgression against that responsibility, just like the disrespect of
the poor, the disabled, or the elderly.
Couching abortion in the language of “reproductive justice” may be savvy marketing, but killing
an innocent human life has nothing to do either with reproduction or with justice. Do American
adults really need another public voice urging them to put their own short-term desires ahead of
the needs of their children? As a pastor who speaks for the Christian community, we implore you
to speak the plain truth about a practice as barbaric and destructive as abortion.
And then there is the uniquely devastating impact that abortion has on the Black communities
you serve. The pro-abortion movement in America has been characterized by racism and white
supremacy since its inception. And to this day, abortion continues to unequally and
disproportionately harm Black lives, perpetuating systemic racism. Despite making up only 13%
of the female population, Black women represent 36% of all abortions, and Black women are
almost five times more likely than their white counterparts to receive an abortion. In some cities
across the country, more Black children are aborted every year than are born alive.
Can you in good conscience defend abortion, knowing that abortion kills 474 Black babies for
every 1000 live births? Abortion decimates Black communities, disrupts Black families and
inflicts untold harm on Black women. Black women and Black families need your advocacy;
they need your protection, and they need your support. But they do not need Black pastors
making excuses for the racism in the abortion industry. Killing Black lives, especially killing
unborn Black lives, does nothing but brutalize and scar vulnerable Black communities who are
already suffering so much.
For all of the above reasons, we entreat you to reconsider your public advocacy for abortion.
Unborn Black, brown and white lives are so much more than clumps of cells, burdensome
inconveniences, or health problems. 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.
Sincerely,
Bishop Garland Hunt
Father's House
Norcross, GA
Bishop Wellington Boone
Fellowship of International Churches
Atlanta, GA
Bishop Flynn Johnson
Metro City Church
Atlanta, GA
Bishop Michael Paden
GA Metro Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction COGIC
Atlanta, GA
Bishop John Reid
John Reid Ministries
Cumming, GA
Pastor Frankie Vega
Awakening Reformation Center
Smyrna, GA
