The Atlanta Constitution from Atlanta, Georgia • B2

Filename: B2-FAITH-AJCD1001-AJCD created: Sep 30 2005 Username: SPEED7 AJCD1001 Saturday, Oct 01, 2005 FAITH 2 AJCD 2 2 Saturday, Oct. 1, 2005 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution 4 B2 Cyan Magenta Yellow Black Cyan Magenta Yellow Black AJCD Filename: B2-FAITH-AJCD1001-AJCD THE REV. RAPHAEL GAMALIEL WARNOCK Age: 36 Marital status: Single Birthplace: Savannah Family: Both mother and father were Pentecostal preachers. Warnock has 11 siblings. Education: Warnock graduated from Morehouse College cum laude in 1991.

He holds a Master of Divinity and a Master of Philosophy from Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He is currently a candidate for a Ph.D. in the of systematic theology at Union. His research has led him to write about the ministries of Martin Luther King Jr. and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German Lutheran who was executed by the Nazis in the closing days of World War II for his opposition to Adolf Hitler.

Experience: Senior pastor of the Douglas Memorial Community Church, Baltimore. He served 10 years as the youth pastor, then assistant pastor at Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City. He was licensed and ordained at Sixth Avenue Baptist Church in Birmingham. in a name? father named him after the archangel, Raphael. His middle name, Gamaliel, comes from one of great rabbis, who is mentioned in the New Testament as a former teacher of the Apostle Paul.

Ebenezer: Lessons learned at dinner table a Master of Philosophy from Union Theological Seminary; assistant pastor at Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City; pastor of his own church in inner-city Baltimore for the past years. Talk to those who have known Warnock as a man and they mention his father. Jonathan Warnock, who had a high school education, made a living rebuilding old cars. But he preferred assembling ideas. When he would come home in the evening, the dinner-table discussion would inevitably turn to the elder favorite subject the Bible, Valencia Warnock, Raphael sister, recalled.

Valencia Warnock said her father tell his kids what they should believe. He encouraged them to think for themselves. He would challenge conventional interpretation of biblical passages, ask his children what each biblical story meant, and encouraged them to look at the historical context of Scriptures. brother went to theology school, but his school really started around the dinner she said. Once, when celebrating Easter, the elder Warnock took issue with the traditional meaning of the Easter story that Jesus died because of sins.

Did Jesus, he asked his children, also die because he was a political revolutionary who sided with the poor? Valencia Warnock remembered. brought out the political issues in the Easter she said. you imagine telling this to kids? We only wanted our Easter Yet Raphael Warnock wanted more. He wanted to be a pastor like his father. Valencia Warnock said she recalled hearing her father groan from fatigue one Sunday morning, saying, know what going to bring to the people worry.

preach for you she re called her brother saying. Raphael Warnock was 6 years old at the time. Emotion and scholarship By the time he was 11, Warnock had preached his sermon. In high school, classmates dubbed him While some classmates quoted pop songs, he quoted the speeches of King. Warnock also gravitated to the types of churches that supported King.

He was licensed and ordained as a minister by Sixth Avenue Baptist Church in Birmingham, a church that was a central staging area in the civil rights movement. He also served 10 years, as a youth pastor, then as assistant pastor, at Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City, another historic church known for its activism. He said he tries to meld the emotion of his sermon with the scholarship of his seminar training. bring both learning and burning to the he said. When he talked about his pastoral philosophy from Ebenezer recently, Warnock said he is writing his dissertation on the tension in the black church between those ministers who emphasize personal piety and prosperity to those that stress social transformation.

The subject just academic to him. personal. He said he like the theology that associates faith with only upward mobility. Preachers need to challenge the root causes of economic injustice. what King did, up to his very last campaign where he traveled to support striking garbage workers, Warnock said.

preach to garbage collectors they should it and claim He spoke to the social structure that was oppressing the garbage collectors. And for that, he gave his life. To me, what Christian ministry is all not enough when black churches claim legacy by announcing the opening of a soup kitchen or a soup pantry, he said. great that churches have soup kitchens, but not Warnock said. our job to speak to Caesar, to speak to Pharaoh and to tell him to let my people go not simply give them more Leadership style A passion for social justice, though, make a good preacher.

At least two men who know Warnock as a pastor say he has other skills that will serve Ebenezer as well. Calvin O. Butts, the senior pastor of Abyssinian in New York, said Ebenezer is getting a solid scholar and a gifted preacher. not a spinning, twirling, hooping preacher, but Butts said. sermons are well-constructed.

They appeal to the heart and the mind. very bullish on Raphael Judith Pickens, a member of search committee, said Ebenezer was impressed with the community outreach church practices in a tough inner-city neighborhood. The committee was also struck by how inclusive his church was: Women, youth and senior citizens all had important roles in the church. has a very even-keel Pickens said. seem like one to off the handle Khalid Smith, a member of former church in Baltimore, said Warnock attracted more young people to the 800-member church in Baltimore with his dynamic leadership.

management style is very Smith said. is the antithesis of a micro manager. He casts the visions and dialogues with you, but the methodology is really up to the One concern that Warnock had to address with search committee was his marital status. He is single. It is an unspoken tradition in the black church that a pastor has to be married before he lands a church.

Married pastors, so the thinking goes, reduce the chances of scandal. Warnock said he faced that issue head-on with search committee. He told them he had served in several churches and there had been no scandals. told them I very much want to be Warnock said. I made a decision years ago that I would never get married in order to secure a church.

I take marriage and the church too seriously to trivialize legacy Warnock learned this Day that he became new senior pastor. The search committee called him at home in Baltimore to tell him that members had voted to select him. Warnock called his father on the same day. was very, very Now that he is a man, their roles have been reversed the son is now teaching his father about the Bible. When Warnock returns to the dinner table now to visit his father, he tells his father about what learned at seminary through his reading.

His father threatened by what his son shares, says Valencia Warnock, who watches her brother and father get into impassioned discussions that seem to last for hours. would say, wonderful. I never thought about she said. feed off each other. I would wonder, when is this conversation going to be Jonathan Warnock is now 88 years old.

His physical strength, his eyesight and his mind sometimes fail him. mother, Verlene, is still at his side. could walk into his house right now and just sitting by himself, reading the Valencia Warnock said. still seems to something new in there, something that gives him When asked about the famous photograph that sits in the lobby of Ebenezer, Warnock said he often asked how going to deal with the expectations of preaching in the same pulpit that King once stood in. But already had the experience of following a powerful preacher his father.

you ever seen a toddler try to walk into their Warnock said. cute but they get too far. I would much rather stand on the shoulders than walk in the shoes. You recognize the magnitude of the legacy, but there is only one Martin Luther Continued from 1 KIRSTEN LUCE Special great that churches have soup kitchens, but not the Rev. Raphael Gamaliel Warnock said.

Preachers need to challenge the root causes of economic injustice, he said. Gsjebzt.