'We must all repent': Pastors address their flocks after Capitol siege
BALTIMORE — On the first Sunday since a pro-Trump insurrectionist mob sieged the U.S. Capitol, pastors offered comfort and some rebuke to their congregations concerned for the future of American democracy.
“We must all repent, even the church needs to repent,” preached Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference who became known for his support of Trump, from Sacramento, Calif. “The American nation will be healed when the American church repents. We must repent for making the person who occupies the White House more important than the one who occupies our hearts.”
Democrats, Republicans and even some of President Trump's most fervent supporters in the pulpit condemned the attack at the U.S. Capitol. On Sunday, even prominent televangelists who support Trump were critical of the incident during their online worship services and on social media.
During an online service, Brian Gibson, pastor of HIS Church in Owensboro, Ky, blamed the incident on Christians following the lead of the far-left group Antifa into the U.S. Capitol, according to an Associated Press report. “I know there were Antifa up there, insiders up there that started that action. And I also know that some Trump supporters followed their lead without a shadow of a doubt because you don’t get 2 million people together without having some radicals in the crowd or some simple people in the crowd that you could lead anywhere, right?” he asked.
There is no evidence that Antifa participated in the protests or siege of the Capitol on Jan. 6.
In his first sermon since being elected to the U.S. Senate, Rev. Raphael Warnock spoke about his historic victory last week and read from the gospel of Matthew about the story of John the Baptist, a preacher known for telling audiences that Jesus would come and to repent from their sin. He was eventually beheaded on orders from King Herod.
“From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been subjected to violence, and violent people have been raiding it,” Warnock read from Matthew 11:12.
The biblical image recalled the violence at the U.S. Capitol last week, just hours after votes indicated Warnock’s victory in the U.S. Senate race.
“The Kingdom of Heaven is here, but it suffers violence,” Warnock said. “Georgia had elected its first Black Senator and first Jewish Senator and then as we were basking in the glory of all of what that represented, it seems like you can have only a few hours to celebrate, just as we were trying to put on our celebration shoes, on the other side of story, our great American story, we saw the cruel and the violent break their into the people’s house.”
Warnock noted that the Confederate flags some in the mob carried are “symbols of an old world passing away… those on the other side of history are rising to take their place as equal members in the human family.”
Rev. John Hagee, pastor of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio and a big supporter of President Trump, said “attacking the Capitol was not patriotism, it was anarchy” and “an assault on our law,” according to the AP.
Senior contributor Hamil Harris is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Maryland College Park and has been a lecturer at Morgan State University. Harris is minister at the Glenarden Church of Christ and a police chaplain. A longtime reporter at The Washington Post, Harris was on the team of Post reporters that published the series “Being a Black Man.” He also was the reporter on the video project that accompanied the series that won two Emmy Awards, the Casey Medal and the Peabody Award. In addition to writing for ReligionUnplugged, Harris contributes to outlets such as The Washington Post, USA Today, The Christian Chronicle and the Washington Informer.
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As the mob swarmed the Capitol steps, climbed the inaugural scaffolding and even scaled the building like it was a gym climbing wall, the now commonplace red, white and blue “Trump 2020” and “Make America Great Again” flags flew alongside flags and banners with a range of Christian symbols, including a white flag with a pine tree inspired by the Old Testament and used in the Revolutionary War.
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Catholic clergy showed concern for the future of the United States and displayed a rare public patriotism after an insurrectionist mob broke into the Capitol building and resulted in the deaths of at least five people.
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